Guilty of chocolate theft – but you have To admire her ingenuity
We’ve taken the children to some amazing National Trust homes, fabulous gardens and scenic locations over the last few years – but if you ask them what the highlight of the day is they’ll reply, “ice cream” or “cake”.
For what I can only assume are genetic reasons, they love anything involving sugar or fat in large quantities, no matter how hard we push avocados and blueberries.
We limit their exposure to one sugary treat a day at 3pm, which we call ‘snack time’.
I usually buy whatever is on special offer. Last week, it was Mini Rolls and I decided a 12-pack would last the week.
But next day I took them from the cupboard to retrieve the crumpets behind and found them to a little light.
“There’s only one left,” I shouted to Victoria. She seemed equally confused and said she had only given them two, which left us with a shortfall of nine.
They were in the top cupboard way out of the reach of anyone small, which led me to suspect a manufacturing error, but Victoria said it was full when she opened them.
Thankfully it was a Saturday morning, and I had the time to lightly interrogate the prime suspects, starting with Thomas, who was preoccupied with Lego, and showed neither interest nor guilt as I lightly grilled him.
I spotted his sister lurking, who answered, “I haven’t put them in my
bedroom”, to my first question, thereby elevating her to prime suspect.
“Show me where you didn’t put them,” I replied and she issued strict instructions for me to wait at the bottom of the stairs, while she looked.
She returned with three wrapped Mini Rolls leaving us six short, so I asked, “where didn’t you put the wrappers?” She cryptically replied, ‘“not in my house”, which Victoria explained related to her den behind the sofa, where I found six chocolate-smeared empty
Mini Roll wrappers, drawing an end to the investigation.
The only remaining mystery was to be solved within minutes, when I walked into the kitchen to find she’d used a chair to climb onto the counter-top and was now precariously balanced on the microwave with an outstretched hand trying to retrieve the Mini Rolls I’d only just taken from her.
“Put the Mini Rolls down and step away from the cupboard,” I shouted.
As Emma clambered down, I felt pride at her ingenuity and determination, but also fear for the future, when she’d had time to really hone her ability to steal and conceal the evidence.