PART 3
All went
quiet on the suburban front.
Which strangely seemed even more scary
than the prospect of a wild foot race involving us, dad and what was left of his
mower being swung overhead like a caveman. At first we could hear a lot of
clanging from the workshop, like tools being thrown around and the loud,
slightly hysterical sound of dad's ranting rising and falling like big surf on
rocks. We couldn't make out any words though, which was just as well, but I was
fairly certain they weren't discussing my Christmas presents.
We had no idea where Kelly was.
Hopefully
she had decided, although un-heroically, to wisely go to ground and was happily
curled up in her basket under our back steps. No doubt remembering all the
other fun filled but ill considered associations with us and the many times we
had gotten her into trouble.
More likely though, she was at this very
moment searching everywhere for us with all those painful memories completely
forgotten. And one thing was for certain, all her noisy barking and slobbering would give our hiding
place away, no doubt bringing
sadness and pain to our tender little backsides.
As children we vaguely suspect but cant
quite grasp the subtleties of the psychological warfare parents assert on us
kids during moments of, well, child caused calamity. The torment of not coming
after us when they should be, instilling even the smallest doubt in our minds
that everything was OK, maybe we imagined the whole thing, like we really didn't
burn down the fence or pull dads mower to bits after all. Lulling us into a false sense of
security, tempting us to come home for a sandwich and then...
KA-BAM!!!
We find ourselves in a desert somewhere
with the French Foreign Legion or even worse. I didn't really know what the
French Foreign Legion was except that it wasn't good, there was a lot of sand
involved and absolutely no Christmas presents whatsoever, ever.
We had to
go somewhere. Except for our failed attempt to build a secret underground
headquarters beneath Gary's house. I was fairly certain there were no
subterranean caves close by to hide in. The next best thing would be to ascend
vertically up the big Queensland nut tree overlooking dad's workshop in the far
back corner of my backyard...
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