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I have fond memories of things like discovering the secret hair loss remedy in the bathroom, and playing snooker with my dad. The table was down the shed and the shed was barely big enough to fit the snooker table in it (so naturally a boy wondered how on earth it got in there in the first place). When you moved around the edges to take a shot your elbows banged in to the walls. Because of this dad, after much consideration, made a load of holes in the walls for his stick to poke through. Over the years, as my game improved and I learnt dad’s weaknesses, the holes got more and more, until there were about fifty of them.
We usually played at night – mainly because this was the time when Mum was busy and Dad said he didn’t want a woman interrupting his game. Fair enough, I thought. Because of this, it was utterly silent when we took to the battle-ground, and the funniest thing about that was the squawking from outside.
Every time Dad went for a certain shot, you see – one which involved the cue going out of the shed and in to the bush behind it – there would be a loud “sqwuarkkkkkk!” followed by a violent rustling sound. This went on for months, until one day something else happened.
“Something’s grabbed the damn cue!” yelled Dad. The shed was small, and he didn’t need to yell, so I knew it was something serious.
I rushed around to help him wrestle it.
“What the hell?” he said, fighting the unknown enemy. “There’s a wild animal outside!”
I ran outside to chase the tiger / bear / wild boar away.
Only I found a fox standing on its hind-legs, the cue in its teeth, wild fury in its eyes.
“You fox!” I shouted, and that was when I saw the blackbirds.
They were just above where the fox had been standing – it had by then run off – and it appeared the fox was protecting their nest. Which Dad had partially destroyed by many repeated jabbings.