Treasure Hunt

One Tuesday evening recently with the house empty but me, I thought I’d spread out on the couch and see what’s on the ‘telly’. It was close to half past eight and so I thought I’d watch ‘The Bill’, and catch up with the pommy cops who plod around ‘Sun Hill’. I’d pulled the ring top off a stubby and got meself a bag of chips for me to dip into a jar of one of them bitey salsa dips. Now I’m settled down upon the couch with me feet up off the floor, and wouldn’t you just know it - there’s a knock upon the door. Three little kids were standing there; one with paper in his hand. And the eldest wouldn’t yet be six, so I couldn’t understand, who’d let their kids out on the street here in the fading light, to go knocking on a stranger’s door at this hour of the night. At first I thought ‘its Halloween!’ So this is trick or treat, and the kids were wanting me to give them something sweet. I asked them if they wanted humbugs, gobstoppers or rumball, but the three all looked confused ‘cause it ain’t Halloween at all. So then the eldest shook his head - his answer it was blunt, “No mister, no it’s not! We’re out upon a treasure hunt. We’ve found twenty of the twenty-five, treasures that we seek, but we have to find the other five - can you help us so to speak”. “What’s on your list?” I asked, and he read out in slow motion, “There’s three grains of oats; an empty bottle of hand lotion. A chop bone and four sardine tins; the wings off seven dragonflies - and once we get the twenty five we get a dollar for a prize!” “Well that’s a challenge!” So I said, but I thought I smelt a rat. So I asked them who invented a treasure hunt like that. They sort of smirked and looked away, but finally in the end, the middle fella quietly said - “Our babysitter’s boyfriend!”