THE CUSTARD CAPER
by Tony Hann

My brother, Pat may recall this.

Every Sunday night there would be a card game (45's) held at the Hall in Merasheen. I remember being very young and Pat just being a year older. To take care of the house and us, I suppose, while Mom and Dad were attending the card game they would get (Aunt Alice) Sr. Alice Wilson, to come to the house. Naturally, being the youngest, I would be sent to bed.

One Sunday night I could smell the custard boiling in the dipper (not saucepan). Soon I heard the old floor model gramophone and the music of the McNulty Family and knew they were in the parlour. An idea took hold, and knowing I didn't have much time, I went into action.

Before I left the bedroom to go downstairs, I thought to rise the bedroom window and place a book underneath to keep it up. This proved to be of vital importance later.

Down the stairs, a quick look, OK, the parlour door was closed. Out the hall, to the kitchen, grabbed the dipper of custard, donned my cut offs, (these were the bottom boot part of your long rubbers which you still wore when the tops were torn up).

Out the door and up to the school I ran. Remember those ventilation openings that were in the blocks upon which our school was built? Well that's where I stashed the dipper of custard. Now to get back without being discovered.

When I got to the house, Pat and Aunt Alice were in the kitchen and by their dialogue I knew they were missing the dipper full of custard.

Quickly I ran to the back of the house, where I propped a ladder up to the window (a ladder would be somewhere near every house). Now you see why I had risen the window before I went on my little escapade.

In through the opening, knock the ladder to the ground, put down the window sash, dove into bed cut offs and all for I heard Aunt Alice coming up the stairs.

She slowly opened the door and I heard her say to Pat in a loud whisper, ‘Noooo Tony's Asleep!“

To end this, everyone was puzzled to say the least. I threw the cut offs out through the top window again and retrieved them early in the morning. I think Dad had an idea I had done something because every Sunday night after, while they went playing cards I was allowed to stay up with Pat and Aunt Alice. I never did confess to the Custard Caper until now. The dipper itself remained in its hiding place, by now, long rusted but I never forgot the night when the custard vanished I from our house in Merasheen.