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by hippo
Rated: 13+ · Short Story · Children's · #602626
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This story is dedicated to my friend SlicerDragon who has encouraged me unendingly in my writings.


He stood beneath the mighty cedar tree, its heavy branches dipping toward the earth. It was late autumn. Most trees had lost their cloaks of foliage but the cedar remained fully clothed. Its massive arms bearing cones and needles, hid him from discovery. His breath exhaled in regular silent sighs turned to clouds of mist as it collided with the cold atmosphere.

The moon cast its watery light over the earth, spying on his intentions.
His gaze was on a large house silhouetted against the dark sky and his eyes flitted from window to window, eventually resting on the only lighted room in the mansion.

He had stood here many times before, staring in abhorrence at this gargantuan building.
He wished with all his being that he could have the opportunity and pleasure of divesting this monolithic monstrosity of some of its most prized possessions.
As he waited for the light to be extinguished in the bedroom, his mind jumped back thirty years to his childhood.

He was barely ten years old when his parents took him and his younger sister on a picnic, just a few yards from where he was standing now.

It was a beautiful, hot day in the summer of 1952, but then all the summer days in his childhood had seemed beautiful.
Not just for the weather, but because of the freedom children had in those days.
Child abduction, child murder and attacks were so rare that the youngsters were able to play out in the street without fear.

Whilst the adults were preparing the picnic, the children had been told to go and play. Not too far away, within sight of the picnic blanket which was bright yellow.

He was beginning to learn how the world worked and how life was not always on his side.
He understood that his mother, father and sister were the three people in his life that were making his existence so difficult.

However, at this particular time he had one over them all.

His favourite game was hide and seek and knowing how much his sister hated it, made a point of choosing that particular game to play.
He decided he would hide first.
Yet another decision that rankled his younger sibling, but he didn't care. Soon he would be free of sisterly incumberences.

As his sister covered her eyes and began counting, his eyes darted from tree to tree, quickly spying the easiest one to climb.

He could climb swiftly with all the ease of an experienced mountaineer.
He would be able to give a Masterclass in tree climbing.
He was feeling so glad he was a boy. How awful it must be to be a girl. His sister was completely unable to ascend even the simplest of fallen logs let alone these wonderful, living creations called trees. She did not realise what she was missing. Up in the branches of a fully foliaged tree your imagination could take you anywhere.

Today he would venture to a desert island. An island so beautiful, but deadly because of the parental and sisterly shark infested waters surrounding it.
It would be his job to find a way to rid this ocean of these barbaric fish.

Although they didn't actually attack him this time; they couldn't because he was in the comparative safety of his island ; they kept yelling for him and calling his name.
One of them was crying and telling the others how he had attacked her with a stick.

Well………..how else do you keep man eating sharks at bay, especially ones that bite you on the arm when they can't get their own way !!
It could have taken his arm off if he hadn't caught hold of that piece of driftwood and clobbered it to make it let go.

He was certain that Long John Silver and Robinson Crusoe would have done exactly the same, and that made it right for him.

He was so lucky to have found this desert island. He could have been drifting for days, had the wind not changed course and marooned him here.
And what luck that there was a huge tree which he climbed to watch the sharks circling below.
Bar his falling off the branch, he was totally safe and alone on his island.

The sharks had no idea he was there.

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