The Search of Fred Beaney

Fred Beaney wants a round watch with black hands and a proper tick.

He searches high and low discovering rectangular watches and square watches, blue hands, red hands and gold hands, watches that bark and hiccup and sing the national anthem in a number of languages, watches shaped like animals and people every kind of watch imaginable, but not a round watch with black hands that ticks. He searches from Anglesea to Abbotsford, from Argentina to the Cocos Islands. He even flies to Florida. Finally when he thinks he can search no longer and is making his way home to Berwick, he stops at a second-hand shop to replace his worn-out shoes. Amazingly, the shop cannot help him with shoes but they do have the watch he has been searching for. A watch just like the one his father used to have as Fred sat on his knee long ago