H-J

The following night, he didn’t sleep very well and had lots of nightmares. 

He was still wondering what he had hammered the day before. 

He felt so guilty that he got up, got dressed and drove to town 

to buy the prettiest parakeet he could find for the lady. 

The problem was he didn’t want to tell the lady 

that he had probably squashed her parakeet. 

So he went to her house and left the beautiful parakeet 

at Mrs Vanbrugh’s doorstep. 

Eddie felt better when he got back home. But suddenly, the phone rang.

“DRRRRRRRRRRRING...........DRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING........

-       Hello Eddie, how are you?

-       Fine and you?

-       I am very pleased about your present but Armand, my parakeet, 

had come back by the time you were gone and I never thought 

you would worry about that too much or I would have phoned you.

-       Never mind. You’ll have two now.

-       Yes, that’s great, thank you.

-       Ok well, see you next year then.

-       Ok, see you, bye! And thank you again!

-       Bye!”

What a relief, he had been worrying and having nightmares for nothing.

The question remained: “What did he hammer under the carpet?”

He’ll have to wait a whole year to discover it. But let’s be patient...

The following year, he went to choose a new carpet with Mrs Vanbrugh 

and they went to her house. 

Eddie had a lot of apprehension because he was afraid about what he was going to discover under the red carpet.

He took his tools in his van and scarily started taking the carpet off.

He took the half of it off....

And again....

And he saw....

What another relief, he discovered an empty packet of cigarettes. 

Suddenly, he remembered that he had bought a spare one just before coming. 

Anyway, he had never touched a cigarette since the day 

he thought he had been squashing Mrs Vanbrugh’s parakeet.