Crime Writers and Other Animals

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Book: Read Crime Writers and Other Animals for Free Online
Authors: Simon Brett
Yes, I do have indulgences.
    There are only two, really. Two big ones. They’re hot buttered toast with golden syrup on, and Children’s BBC. And, well, actually, now I come to think of it, there is sort of a third. My parents always hated the idea of my name being shortened, but now I tell people to call me not ‘Edmund’, but ‘Eddie’.
    All right, you could say I’m reacting, greedily taking the things I wasn’t allowed when I was a child, but I don’t think mine’re too bad, as indulgences go. Other people do much worse things.
    And by Papa’s rules . . . you know, about not doing harm to another member of humankind . . . well, I can’t honestly think that my indulgences harm anyone. No matter how much Children’s BBC I watch and video, no matter how much hot buttered toast with golden syrup I eat, nobody else gets hurt by it.
    Mind you, the golden syrup does make me fat. I was always big – used to get rather unkind things said about my size when I was at school – but since Mama died, I have got a lot bigger. She used to keep an eye on how much golden syrup I ate, used to say, ‘Hold back, Edmund, enough is enough, you know,’ but since she died . . . well, there’s no one to stop me. But, like I said, nobody gets hurt by it.
    I’m lucky. I know I’m lucky. My parents left me enough money so that I won’t ever have to work. Probably that’s just as well, because the few interviews I did have for jobs didn’t turn out very well. I think my size put people off, partly, and then they did seem to ask very difficult questions. I admit there are a lot of things I don’t know about, and the subjects on which I am good . . . like Children’s BBC . . . well, they didn’t ask about them. The experience rather put me off applying for other jobs.
    But I’m lucky, too, in that I have friends. Not that many, but there are some children round where I live and I get on well with them. They know about Children’s BBC, you see, so we’ve got things to talk about. I often meet them in the park, near the children’s playground. I’m too big to go on any of the swings or anything . . . I’d probably break them if I did, I’m such a big lump . . . but it’s a good place to meet the children.
    I get on better with them when they’re on their own. I buy sweets for them. Never go out without a couple of bags of jelly babies in my pockets. The children like those. (So do I, actually!) But I only give them sweets when they’re on their own. Their parents don’t seem to like the children talking to me. Sometimes they say rather cruel things. Things that wouldn’t pass muster under Papa’s rules. I’m another member of humankind, and the things they say
do
do harm to me. What’s more, I think they do it knowingly.
    Still, in the park I quite often see children on their own, so it’s not all bad. I tell them to call me ‘Eddie’. I like it when I hear their little voices call me ‘Eddie’. Of course, the children get bigger and seem to lose interest in talking about Children’s BBC with me. But there’s always another lot of little ones growing up.
    I’ve got so many children’s programmes videoed that I sometimes think I should ask some of the children to come back home with me to have a good watch and lashings of hot buttered toast with golden syrup. But I haven’t done that yet. I don’t know why, but something tells me it’s a bad idea.
    And now, after some of the questions I’ve been asked in the last few months, I know my instinct was right. It would have been a very bad idea.
    My problems . . . yes, I suppose I have to call them problems . . . began in relation to a little girl called Bethany Jones. I didn’t know her second name when I met her. She just told me she was called ‘Bethany’. But recently her name’s

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