The shed

 

When I was a child we lived by the river. We had a large house with a big garden and at the end of the garden ran the river.

Right at the end of the garden there was an old shed, or shack, just by the edge of the river. It was old and dilapidated. It contained some tools, a small ladder, a lawnmower that had not been used for ages and ... horror of horrors ... many spiders. I'd been in the shed once with my dad to get a spanner or something and watched him clear the cobwebs before getting in.

I hated that shed, or more precisely, the spiders it contained. What if they escaped and, like Peter Parker, they bit me? I really did not fancy being Spider-Man, and I hate heights. I get vertigo when I put my shoes on. (Must buy some Odour-Eaters).    

One day, after a lot of rain, the river was swollen and it almost broke its banks. I saw an opportunity to get even with the spiders. The shack was old and all its wood was rotten or rotting away. I picked up an old tree branch and used it to lever the shack off its base and pushed it into the river. 

I waved the spiders goodbye as the shed floated down the river. 

That very afternoon dad knew that the shed was no more and, of course, he rightly suspected me.

"Someone pushed the shed into the river," he said, "was it you?"

I decided to come clean and confess. Remembering George Washington I said, "Yes it was me, Dad. I tell the truth. And also, when George Washington chopped down the cherry tree he did not get into trouble because he told the truth!"  

Dad replied, "True ... but George Washington's father wasn't in the cherry tree at the time!"