Wolves don't have money

One sunny Sunday morning, many years ago when I was just a wee nipper, me and my little sister (two years my junior) decided to go outside and enjoy the sun.

Seeing as it was about 6am, neither of our parents were up yet, and neither of us had the sense to put the latch on the front door to let ourselves in again. After a few minutes of happily gamboling about, this became clear to us when we decided that actually, it was quite cold and we wanted to go in.

So we rang the doorbell.

Nothing.

We knocked on the knocker, first gently then more insistently.

Still no sound of movement from my parents bedroom upstairs.

My sister (she really was little), was starting to get a bit upset. For no good reason, I started wondering if there might have been any wolves in the area. Wolves, I solemnly told lil' sis', eat small children. Bearing in mind this was rural Berkshire, England, where the most angry thing you are likely to come across is a disgruntled cow.

This drove my sister to tears. So convincing was my tale (I think I had just read the Wolves of Willoughby Chase), that I started geting a bit twitchy as well.

Before long, we were both hollering away, banging on the door as hard as our little hands could manage and ringing incessantly on the bell.

A belligerent parent eventually opened the door, and was not at all pleased to see a tearful little girl belowing about being eaten by wolves. My mum spent literally hours explaining to her that there were no wolves in Britain, and even if they wanted to come they couldn't swim so they would have to get on a boat. And wolves don't have money to pay for ferry fares.

For some reason, this seemed to satisfy her, although I believe there was more than one snuffly call out to her mummy when the terrible thought of being eaten alive by wolves came to her again.

I got a pretty stern telling off for that one, I can tell you and I was VERY firmly forbidden from going outside before my parents were up.

Mad as they were, they weren't half as mad as when, in a fit of pique, I told my sister she was an accident. Ooops.

More on that story later.