When I was about ten, a friend and I were mucking about one Saturday. The house we had was way up on the side of a hill looking out over the harbour and down towards the South Island. We were out on the balcony, talking about whatever ten year olds talk about (Transformers) and I threw an apple core over off the edge. We couldn’t see anything below us and as far as I knew it was just bush and forest all the way down to the road so we were surprised to hear a rattling *DOINK* as the core bounced off an unseen roof.
At this point we definitely didn’t run into the garden to gather stones and there’s not a chance we then returned to the balcony and took it in turns to chuck the stones. Every time there was a satisfying *DOINK* we certainly wouldn’t have high-fived each other like we were Maverick and Goose. The last rock that wasn’t thrown returned not the soft *DOINK* we’d been aiming for but the splintering crash of glass breaking. We stared at each other in dumb amazement and ran inside to do whatever ten-year olds do when they don’t want to look suspicious (listened to MC Hammer in my bedroom).
About 20 minutes later Dad called us upstairs and I just about filled my pants when I saw him standing at the door with a policeman. It seemed that there had been a glasshouse smashed on a property below us and Dad wanted to know if we’d seen anyone throwing rocks down the hill. Showing all the cunning of a Decepticon we both acted dumb and muttered something about a couple of the Clendon boys going up and down the street on their skateboards. Again, once the fuzz left, my friend and I did not stay shut in my room for the rest of the day planning how we’d flee to Australia if the cops came knocking on the door again.
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