This story is dedicated to Max, Cal and Gretchen in California, who generously support us on Patreon.

The Spy Who Never Was, Part 2

A Wicked Uncle's Story for Story Nauri.

Hello, this is Richard.

I'm back with the second part of our story, The Spy Who Never Was.

If you heard the first part, you'll know that Jeremy and Jemima are convinced that their

uncle Jeff is a spy.

Their mum has confirmed that he had an interesting adventure in Russia when he was young,

but the details are a secret.

The kids have finally pressured their uncle into revealing all. And this is what he told them.

I was 22 years old and I wanted to see the world.

Your dad by then had done all the sensible staff that I had failed to do. He had gone to a good university,

got a good degree, and found a steady job as a civil servant. I asked him what kind of work he was

doing. But when he started to explain, my eyes just glazed over. He made it sound so dull. I wasn't at all sensible like him.

I had flunked out of school and had a string of jobs. I worked as a grave digger, a labourer on a

building site, a trainee pancake flipper in a cafe that was shut down after all the customers

got food poisoning, that sort of thing. Whenever I saved up enough money, I went travelling,

and one spring I headed off to Moscow, the capital of Russia. Most visitors to Russia back then had to stay in an official hotel, but I had met a girl who knew somebody in Russia who managed to get me an invitation to stay in a flat as a paying guest.

My hosts in Moscow were an old lady who owned the flat and her grandson, Kostya, who was about my age and spoke some English. The flat smelled of cabbages because the old lady was always cooking

cabbage, soup and fried potatoes. But we were in a great location on the boulevard of flowers near the circus, and the weather

was just perfect.

The sun was shining and the trees were in blossom.

...