Hello and welcome to Bedtime stories with me, RA Spratt. Today's story is...
A Tall Tale about Cardboard Boxes and Al Capone
Here we go...
Mum, Tammy and Stanley (the dog) were walking to school. They had been arguing. Not Stanley but the other two. So they were walking in angry silence. Well Mum was walking in angry silence. Tammy was walking in trying not to make Mum angrier silence.
The fight had begun earlier when Tammy could not find her coat. Mum was in a good mood then. And she felt bad for Tammy because it was athletics carnival day and she remembered how unfun athletics carnival day could be for the unathletic. So, even though it was horribly cold outside, she offered to go out to the car and look for it there.
Five minutes after retrieving the coat, several jumpers and two drink bottles from the car Tammy became upset because she couldn’t find her hat.
Mum had remembered seeing it in the garage, and she was still in a good mood, so she offered to go out and find it. And went back out into the cold.
Then Mum sat and waited patiently while Tammy had gathered up all the weird random things that you need on athletics carvinal day that you don’t need on a regular school day. Finally Tammy had announced that she was ready. And that is when Mum hit the roof. Tammy was not wearing the coat or the hat.
‘You made me go out in the cold twice to look for things and now you’re not wearing them,’ said Mum.
‘No,’ said Tammy.
‘But it’s cold,’ said Mum.
‘I’m fine,’ said Tammy.
‘You’ll freeze,’ said Mum.
‘I’m fine,’ said Tammy.
‘Your head will become a frozen block of ice and fall off your shoulders,’ said Mum.
‘I’ll risk it,’ said Tammy.
‘Just take them in your bag,’ said Mum. ‘When you get cold later you can put them on.’
‘No,’ said Tammy. ‘I don’t want to.’
‘But you made me go out in the cold, twice,’ said Mum. ‘Why?’
Tammy shrugged.
Mum realised there was no point trying to reason. She briefly considered throwing a tantrum but there wasn’t really time so she grabbed Stanley’s lead and stomped out the back door..
After five minutes of walking, and calming deep breathing exercises, Mum’s anger eventually subsided. Tammy pointed out a passing Range Rover and Mum indicated that she had calmed down by not telling Tammy that Range Rover was a stupid game, which was what she truly thought.
It was really very cold and they walked quickly to try and warm up. As quickly as they could with Stanley stopping to pee on everything of interest along the way.
They got to the first busy street, and Tammy grabbed hold of Mum’s elbow. Even thought she was getting old, she still grabbed hold of Mum when they crossed the road out of habit. Mum felt a wave of affection.
They waited for a gap in the traffic. A nice motorist waved them across. Protecting them from the cars behind. Tammy and Mum stepped out into the street in unison. Mum knew this was her chance.
Tammy didn’t like it when she kissed her within a four block radius of the school. Sometimes this degenerated into wrestling matches. But Tammy had been taking brazillian jiu jitsu for three years now and it was getting harder for Mum to win.
So as Tammy glanced left to check the traffic Mum saw her window opportunity, she grabbed Tammy’s head and kissed her on the cheek.
‘Ew, Mum!’ said Tammy.
‘Ha-hah!’ I got you declared Mum triumphantly.
‘It’s not safe in the middle of the street,’ said Tammy.
‘It’s tactics,’ said Mum. ‘They taught us that at mothering school.’
‘There is no such thing as mothering school,’ said Tammy.
Mothering school was something that Mum referred to quite a lot. Usually to explain an element of her more eccentric behaviour that she considered to be excellent mothering. Like dancing along the street singing songs from ‘Frozen’ to punish her children for not being joyful enough. Or dumping damp autumn leaves on their heads to train them to always be ready for a surprise attack.
‘Oh yes,’ said Mum. ‘At mothering school, there is a whole week spent on how to capture your own child.’
Tammy rolled her eyes, ‘Really?’
‘Yes,’ said Mum. ‘They teach are lots of different ways. Obviously - bear traps. You know those spring-loaded steel traps with the sharp jaws.
But they can damage your child’s leg and then you lose a whole morning going to emergency. And they always have dreadful snack food in the vending machines in hospitals. So it’s best to avoid that one.
They also teach you about digging pits. You know, great big ones with spikes on the bottom, like they use in Tarzan movies to catch elephants.
But if you forget to check your trap, your child can be stuck down there for days before you realise.
So what they generally recommend, if you need to capture your child, is the cardboard box with the stick and string technique.’
‘Like in the cartoons?’ asked Tammy. Tammy liked cartoons so this caught her interest.
‘Yes,’ said Mum. ‘You get a cardboard box, prop up one end with a stick, tie a long string to the stick. Hide in a bush until the child you want to catch goes into the box.’
‘You have to use bait,’ said Tammy.
‘Yes, bait,’ agreed Mum. ‘Something a child would want. A kilo of processed sugar. Or some sort of mindless irritating game that is fashionable. Do you remember fidget spinners?’
‘They’re so 2017 Mum,’ said Tammy.
‘Yes, I suppose that wouldn’t do anymore,’ agreed Mum. ‘But anyway, whatever rubbish it is children like. Like Ooshies or those over priced bubble wrap substitutes. Then wait to the child goes into the box and kapow, you tug the string and you’ve nabbed them.’
‘Has that ever worked once in the entire history of the world?’ asked Tammy.
‘Oh yes,’ said Mum. ‘That’s how they caught Al Capone.’
‘Who?’ asked Tammy.
‘The head of the Mafia in Chicago in the days of prohibition,’ said Mum. ‘You know, back when gangsters smoked big cigars and carried machine guns in violin cases.’
‘Did that ever really happen?’ asked Tammy.
‘Of course. No one actually likes violin music,’ said Mum. ‘So it’s the only conceivable explanation for why anyone would be carrying a violin case.’
Tammy nodded. This made sense to her. She was not a fan of violin music either. It wasn’t as bad as bagpipes, but it was definitely in the same league.
‘Anyway, Al Capone was the big boss,’ continuec Mum. ‘The top mobster. And the FBI really wanted to arrest him. They tried everything. Surveillance, wire taps, search warrants. Nothing worked until one bright spark at the FBI had a brilliant idea.’
‘The carboard box trap?’ asked Tammy.
‘Yep,’ said Mum. ‘It had to be a mother who thought of it, because you know they spend a whole week teaching it at mothering school. The problem was – now there’s no delicate way to put this – but Al Capone was not an athletic man. He was...’
‘Fat?’ said Tammy.
‘Oh no,’ said Mum. ‘You must never say that. We can’t be rude.’
‘You can’t be rude about a gangster?’ asked Tammy.
‘Just because someone is a mass murdering criminal doesn’t mean we get permission to be rude,’ said Mum. ‘Let’s just say, he had a fulsome character and therefore the FBI needed to use a very large box.’
‘I bet he wouldn’t be interested in a fidget spinner either,’ said Tammy.
‘No,’ said Mum. ‘It was hard to think of bait that would appeal to Al Capone. The man had everything. And what do you give to a man who has everything?’
‘Nothing,’ suggested Tammy.
‘No, that wouldn’t work,’ said Mum. ‘No, when a man has everything - you give him more.’
‘Is that something they taught you at mothering school?’ asked Tammy.
‘No, it’s something I just made up,’ said Mum. ‘So it may not be true. I’ll have to think about it later. But anyway, they reasoned he clearly like having lots of money so they’d give him more of that. Obviously it couldn’t be cash money because that would blow away in the wind.’
‘They could have put a rock on top of the cash,’ said Tammy.
‘But then he wouldn’t have seen it when he walked past,’ said Mum. ‘He wouldn’t crawl under a box to look at a rock. Not unless he had a passion for geology that no one knew about.’
Mum paused for a moment. The idea of Al Capone being passionate about geology appealed to her. She was imagining him with a g-pick searching for fossils on a windswept beach.
‘Mum,’ said Tammy.
‘Oh yes,’ said mum. ‘Where was I? Al Capone. No, they decided to use a whole bar of gold bullion as bait. It was as big as a house brick and shiny as… well as gold.’
‘And they just stuck a big brick of gold under a cardboard box, with a stick and a length of string?’ said Tammy.
‘Yes, and then they hid in a bush and waited,’ said Tammy. ‘It took longer than they expected. Because you know Al Capone was a man of ‘fulsome character’ so he didn’t really care for exercise. He didn’t actually walk about in the street much. But eventually he did come past and he spotted the gold. He couldn’t resist. He did like gold so he got down on his hands and knees and crawled under the box to take a look. He was just about to nibble the gold bullion…
‘Why was he going to nibble it?’ asked Tammy.
‘I don’t know,’ said Mum. ‘But in cartoons rabbits are always about to nibble a carrot in those types of traps. Anyway, the FBI agents pulled the string, leapt out from their bush and jumped on the box. And he was trapped.’
‘And that was how he was arrested?’ asked Tammy.
‘Well not straight away,’ conceded Mum. ‘He was carrying a violin case. So as soon as he found himself trapped in the box, Al Caponepulled out his machine gun and blasted away. And sadly cardboard boxes are not bullet proof.
‘The poor FBI agents,’ said Tammy.
‘Luckily by sheer chance every single one of the two hundred bullets he fired missed them,’ said Mum.
‘Really?’ said Tammy.
‘Eventually he ran out of bullets and then they arrested him,’ said Mum.
‘When we learned about Al Capone at school,’ said Tammy. ‘They said he was arrested for tax evasion.’
‘Really?’ said Mum. ‘My story is much better.’
‘But is it true?’ said Tammy.
‘It feels true to me,’ said Mum.
‘So that’s a ‘no’ then,’ said Tammy.
‘Truth and reality are highly over-rated,’ said Mum. ‘They’re fine as a starting point, but you don’t want to get bogged down by them.’
They had arrived at the school gate. ‘Bye mum,’ said Tammy.
Mum glanced out across the playground. There were lots of kids dressed in house colours running around. Mum remembered it was athletics carnival day.
‘I hope you’re not too traumatised by having to do sport,’ said Mum.
‘Eugh,’ grunted Tammy.
‘You know, really it’s unfair expecting all the non-sporty people to go to sport carnivals,’ said mum. ‘Everyone knows who’s going to win all the races.’
‘Beth,’ said Tammy. Beth was the girl who always won all the running races and all the swimming races at all the carnivals.
‘Yes,’ agreed Mum. ‘They should let you all stay in the nice warm classrooms and just take Beth out to a field and make her run around and around all day.
Run 100 metres, Beth. Now run 200 metres, now run 400 metres, now run 800 metres. Now throw this as far as you can. Throw that as far as you can. Good, all done. Let’s all go back to school. Much more efficient.
They don’t make the sporty kids stand around and watch the brainy kids do maths. It’s cruel and unusual punishment. And you didn’t do anything wrong so it’s wrong of them to punish you at all. You know, you could just come home with me now and when they ask, I’ll tell them you’ve been abducted by aliens.’
‘For just one day?’ asked Tammy.
‘I’ll say the aliens were on a tight schedule,’ said Mum.
Tammy looked across the cold windswept playground at the other kids and considered this option for a moment. ‘There’s a sausage sizzle at lunch time,’ she said.
‘Oh, you can’t miss that,’ agreed Mum.
‘Bye,’ said Tammy. Which was a great concession. Usually she just grunted and stomped off.
‘Think of me and how I’m always right when your ears freeze and drop off because you’re not wearing a hat,’ Mum called after her.
Tammy didn’t look back. She pretended she didn’t know who mum was.
So Mum yelled, ‘I love you Tammy’ very loudly so everyone in the whole playground and the supermarket carpark next door could hear. Lots of children turned to look, but not Tammy. Mum smiled.
She and Stanley turned to walk home.
The end.
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