The Wuff with the Smooth: The king of hide and seek

WHEN I was very little, I once won a hide and seek competition in spectacular style.

My mother – or Granny Jean as she is now – still tells this story and in fact, relayed it to the youngest in the house just last week.

Anna listened, entranced, as the tale unfolded of how her father once became the King of Hide and Seek and effectively scared the life out of his parents that time he curled himself up inside the tumble drier and wouldn’t heed any calls to… come out, come out, wherever he was.

I have no memory of this episode (I was maybe two or three at the time), although I’ve heard the story so many times I have developed something of a faux recollection of a small boy with freckles, curly hair and scuffed dungarees, folded up inside the mechanical cave like a lost, odd sock. Strangely, in my mind’s eye, I am looking in on the little boy as opposed to peeking out around the half closed door.

Apparently, according to Granny Jean, “the wee skitter hid for long enough before we found him.” Such times we had!

These days, the wee skitter is a big skitter, although as history tends to repeat itself, there’s another wee skitter on the block.

Last weekend, I ran through my usual morning routine – feed the hens, replenish the drinking water, collect the eggs – before taking Waffle on his walk. The problem was, I couldn’t find the Waff never mind take him on a walk.

The other problem was: It was pouring with rain, great, fat sploshy bombs of drops which, despite the wearing of my waterproof winter coat, resulted in a good old soaking of my legs.

Thinking that Waffle had started off alone on his walk, I headed off down the road. I walked as far as we normally go and when I couldn’t see him along another quarter mile of road, I finally decided he hadn’t gone on his walk after all. Back to the house I lumbered, squelching through the continuing downpour, my trainers now fully sodden.

Back at the ranch, I searched the garden and then circumnavigated the house twice: Still no sign.

At this stage I could feel the first tendrils of annoyance grip the back of my neck. Had I missed him on the way down the road? Could he be in the hedge behind the house? Had someone opened the back door to let him in out of the rain?

First, I checked that he wasn’t in the house. He wasn’t. Next I went around the house for the third time, checking the hedge for good measure. No sign – not even a tuft of hateful blonde hair on the gooseberry bushes.

The tendrils were by then gripping my neck and shoulders and I silently swore extensive vengeance.

“Waffle!” I called from the back step, although I knew the driving wind and rain were acting like a silencer on a gun. Next I whistled and watched. Nothing.

“Into the car, so,” I said.

The only thing I could think of was that Waffle had embarked on the walk on his own and had carried on beyond our usual limit.

Soaking and steaming in the car, I drove a long circuitous route along the roads around our house, expecting to see a soaked fool in one of the local fields. Nothing.

Before I knew it, I was back at the house, wondering – nervous – that some foolish dog-napper had snatched Waffle when my back had been with the hens. Hens! Was that the hens I could hear squawking?

Glancing towards the hen house at the bottom of the garden, who was looking out around the half closed door? It wasn’t a small boy with freckles, curly hair and scuffed dungarees; I can tell you that for nothing. It was the Hairy Fool – the new King of Hide and Seek – most likely gorging himself on eggs or hen food or both.

Striding murderously towards the hen house in the driving rain, I silently swore yet more extensive vengeance.

Then I remembered a line from the week before: “The wee skitter hid for long enough before we found him,” and, strangely enough, my annoyance disappeared, as if washed away by the incessant rain.

What goes around comes around, I suppose.