“I know, but I couldn’t help it. I’ve found Mother’s secret hiding
place!”
“Where?”
“It was under a floorboard, just outside the armoury. I guess she
never thought we’d look there on account of Jordan’s life long fear of
words that contain body parts.”
I woke Jordan and we tip-toed downstairs, avoiding the haunted
stable and the disused mine shaft that my parents had had installed to
give the house character. We lifted the floorboard and stood there,
looking at the box. We had never seen one before. I was breathless
with excitement, but also terrified to open it. I didn’t know what was
going to happen if I touched it. What if I pierced a waterbed and
someone drowned? What if I accidently cut off my own head, like Mr
Petrov down the road did right after he’d criticised the Russian
government?
“Should we try it?” Muncho asked in an awestruck voice.
“Try what?”
“The sword. I think you blow into the blunt end and pluck the sharp
end with your fingers.”
I sometimes wondered about Muncho.
At this moment my mother burst in like a water bed that’s been
pierced by a sword.
“Josh, dumpling! Jordan, petal! What are you doing, you naughty
bunch of Carrotts? Did you touch it?” she asked, in a panic.
“No...” we replied, sheepishly.
Mother seized the box from me.
“I told you swords aren’t for kids, unless it says so on the label.
This clearly says ‘Dry Clean Only’. Now I’m going to hide it again and
this time there’s no chance of you finding it. She took the sword away
and hid it in another location where she thought we wouldn’t find it, but
after a few weeks Muncho found it stuffed inside a badger in the
taxidermy room. Mother was less annoyed this time, and over the next
few years ‘Find the Sword’ became a family tradition that we played
on special occasions, and sometimes at school sports day. The kids
at my school went in for very literal nicknames, so I became ‘Josh the