"What would you do if we told?" asked Tad.

"I'd have to leave, and you'd never see me again."

Mr. Judkins smiled again but this time in a lonely sort of way, and his eyes had a far away, sad expression, then he turned and picked up some glasses and a bottle.

"Fizzy?" he enquired.



BABY-SNATCHER

The summer holidays had a dreamy, unworldly feeling about them. Sweltering hot days followed even more sweltering hot days. Tad and Debbie made the most of every minute, either running about through the jets of water from the sprinkler, or visiting the local swimming hole.

Every Spring the yearly flooding of the river carved out hollows in the riverbed. Some years the hollows were shallow, so the water was warm, while other years the new swimming holes were deep, and green, with mysterious places where the roots clutched at the water like long fingers as it flowed by.
Tad stood on the willow branch which hung out over the latest new pool to be gifted to the local kids by the river. He yelled and jumped. His slim, brown body hit the water in a plume of white. Bubbles roared about his ears as he went under the cold water, then he began to rise.

Debbie was on the hot stream-bed stones, sunbathing on her stomach nearby. She screwed up her face in distaste as big, wet drops of water hit her back. "Do you have to!?" she moaned.

The sun beat down like the open door of an oven, and the coldness of the water soon disappeared. Tad yelled at his sister to come in again but she ignored him.

It had been several days since the video-tape event. The Inspector had managed to "get Mugsy" every time since then, and all the other stories on tape were as they should be. Tad had checked. With the passing of time, he had begun to wonder if he might not have simply imagined the whole thing. It had been, after all, impossible for a recorded tape to have several different endings on the same length of tape. The stories were all pre-recorded. There was no way the tape itself could be tampered with because the story had changed right after re-winding.

What puzzled Tad more than anything though, was the