A Small Tale…...

For the second time that night she checked under the bed...No nothing there...What was that noise? There, there it was again...a slight ticking sound. Her brother had said something about there being a 'Death Watch Beetle' and she being a serious 12 year old took things literally,  so this black beetle...(they always were black, weren't they?) surely it had to have a watch and obviously this beetle needed to tell the time for some reason, a bit like the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland. She wasn't scared, of course she wasn’t...the light was on… nothing could happen while the light was on, that was a known fact, everyone knew it...Even 12 year olds, actually she was twelve and three quarters, an important fact that three quarters, she was older than her friend, Lily, so that meant she knew more about life. That’s right and she knew about Beetles and she wanted to see this one and as she was feeling sleepy she might miss it, Yawn!! So it better hurry up and come out from under wherever it was, because, yawn!!!!, she was so, so tired.....

 

Morning arrived...to find the little girl asleep on the floor by the side of the bed...Her mischievous brother tip-toed in and crawled under the bed from the opposite side.  Lifting a small broken piece of floorboard, he removed his grandfathers fob watch, then carefully replacing the board ever, ever so silently, he tip-toed out of the room again...

 

Some time later, the little girl woke with a start, still lying on the floor. She remembered the night before and smiling a little to herself, she looked down at her right hand...There held gently in the palm of her hand was a little Black Beetle, wearing a little gold chain and hanging from this gold chain was a little gold watch,   ... Tick Tock...

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