We had slipped out around midday on Sunday for a quick trip to the supermarket. As is our practice before leaving, I checked all the windows and doors were closed and George the Dog was safely inside on his favourite chair having already relieved himself in the garden.
Actually, he had peed all over Mrs P’s prized maiden hair fern. You may have heard the scream. I guess time will tell whether the fragile plant will recover. The brown edging appearing on some of the others around the property makes me think George has already visited and they won’t.
But I digress.
So, we’ve whipped into the supermarket. Spent a fortune on nothing – as you do, moaned about it all the way home – as you do, and now we’ve just pulled back into our driveway.
That’s when I noticed it. A shadow.
“There’s someone in the house,” I said to Mrs P in a tone which – I think – suggested I was cool, calm and collected and ready to battle the forces of wrongdoing.
Discussing the incident on the phone with the Boomerang Child later, Mrs P described my tone as “squeakily dramatic” which I think is what I’d sound like if I was desperately asking someone where the nearest loo was.
Oh well. Not much I can do about it now. As far as I’m concerned I was John Wayne (Youngies, Google it.) A man’s man. Tough and ready to fight for justice – if not in the old Wild West then at least in suburban New Zealand on a Sunday afternoon.
Anyway.
I’d seen “someone” - or at least the shadow of someone – through the ranch slider. Inside the house.
Immediately I took charge.
“Stay here,” I barked as Mrs P adopted the worried wife role, presumably hoping any would-be burglar strolling through our humble home would understand it had been a busy morning what with the washing to catch up on and she hadn’t had time to remake the bed after stripping the sheets.
Now the cool thing for me to have said as I headed off down the pathway on the side of the house would have been: “Call for back up.” Unfortunately, that was a mental stretch too far.
I was busy trying to figure out where any would-be burglar would try to make his escape, having just been disturbed by the homeowner pulling into his driveway.
Naturally, having watched a million cop movies over the years, I knew the criminal would race out the back door, hop over the back fence and run off down the alleyway – there’s always an alleyway - with me in hot pursuit.
Somewhere along the line he’d run across a roof, go over a fence with a rabid dog chained up on the other side, and also run through the front room of a house where an innocent family was either watching telly or having tea.
So, with all that to look forward to I raced round to my side gate. Problem.
Of late, George the Dog has taken to burrowing under the very same wooden structure so he can get to the front garden and its maiden hair ferns. It seems the standard fescue grasses of the back lawn are not suitable for his daily ablutions if you get my drift.
To stop his escape and, er, “watering”, I have blocked up the underside of the gate with some fairly hefty half round logs. And now I can’t shift them quick enough to open it to get to the back door. The same back door where our burglar is most likely now taking a leisurely stroll through on his way to freedom.
I act swiftly and race back round the house to the other side.
As I run across the front Mrs P has gotten out of the car and is approaching the front door, keys in her hand.
“Let me get round the back first,” I say, hoping the urgency in my voice will stop her going inside before II was in position to tackle the offender.
It didn’t.
As I got through the side gate I could hear the familiar squeak of our front door as Mrs P went in.
As I ran past our bedroom windows on the back side of our house I could see her standing in the doorway looking at the bed which hadn’t been made after we’d stripped the sheets.
Never mind. I’d explain to the burglar once I had him under arrest. I was sure he’d understand.
Finally, I got to the back door. It was still locked from when we’d gone out.
I went back and checked the windows I’d just run past. Nothing. All secure.
Sheepishly, I tapped on the back door and Mrs P let me in. She’d done a quick check of the house while I had been running round like a headless chook. Nothing was out of order.
“It must just have been a shadow of the trees or something,” she offered sympathetically. “George was asleep on his chair when I opened the door. He would’ve been barking and going crazy if there was anyone inside.”
I had to agree. Obviously I was mistaken. Maybe it was just a shadow after all.
The adrenalin subsiding, I walked back to the front door which Mrs P had left open while she investigated.
The house was as she said. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing missing. Nothing out of place.
Except for George the Dog.
As I went to pull the front door closed I noticed he was no longer in his favourite chair asleep.
He’d escaped through the open front door to the garden and was now happily peeing all over Mrs P’s maiden hair ferns.
