RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32873, 23 March 1972, Page 16

RANDOM REMINDER

JUNIOR COMMANDOS

Adventure can be found at unexpected times in unexpected places, and three little Sumner girls are as well aware as any that each day's dawning is but the raising of the curtain on another drama. It is their habit to go home to eat their cut lunches, their mother being in the city each day to prop up the sagging structure of commerce. They telephoned her at work one day to say they had come home and found a van parked in their garage. Moreover, they had seen two young gentlemen — they had long hair!—wandering about the house and taking fruit from the trees, before walking off in a criminal sort of way down the road. Mother, all swift decision, came to the conclusion that the van had been stolen and abandoned on her property. She promised the speedy arrival of reinforcements, herself; but in the meantime, they were to take the key from the van’s iginition and hide it Before leaping into her

car to get on stage, the woman rang the local policeman. He was on leave, and his relief was away on a job. But he reached the house, about the same time that the lady came home, to find bet small daughters ready and waiting for any sort of invasion with an assembly of offensive weapons including a hammer and a rolling pin. Reluctantly, they went off back to school. The policeman, in his gardening clothes, said he was not unduly worried, for inspection of the vehicle proclaimed it to belong to a Christchurch local body, and this had not reported the loss of any vans that day. As he spoke, the lady was pat-' ting the policeman’s dog, and was advised to discontinue that practice, the animal having that day been powdered. It all somehow added to the confusion of a strange day. Assured that nothing untoward was likely to occur, that her house had not been stripped of all her possessions, and that

her children would not be required to stage a pitched battle with a small army of masked bandits, the lady set off on her return to work. As she drove down the street, she noticed a couple of casual • friends. She had not seen them for ages, but she recognised them, notwithstanding their long hair and their criminal sort of walk. She stopped to speak to them . . . they spoke first. They had, they said, left their van in her garage, out of sight of prying public eyes, so they could get down to to the local and have a couple in peace. She had to tell them that the ignition keys were at the police station, and that they would have to pick them up there. She did not labour the point by reminding them that some sort or explanations would no doubt be required. So off they went to the police station . . - and there was no mistaking that they were criminals. You could tell from their walk. ,