Frank Cottrell Boyce

Framed

Balaclavas encourage crime

This robbery was the first time any of us had seen a criminal in action up close. So it was probably a major influence on our later work.
  A man came into the garage with a balaclava over his face and a big sledgehammer and shouted at Dad to empty the till. Dad knew who it was right away - it was Daft Tom. He knew because Tom's mam had knitted me a very similar balaclava for my birthday. Also Tom had customized the eyeholes himself, and the wool was starting to unravel around the nasal area so you could nearly recognize him. Anyway, Dad pretended to empty the safe. 'It's a time lock, see,' he said, 'so it'll take a couple of minutes. You stay calm and help yourself to whatever you like from the sweet rack.'
  'Just move it, Mr Hughes.' That was another bit of a clue, the robber calling Dad 'Mr Hughes'.
  The final clue, by the way, was the big blue mountain bike, which was the only big blue mountain bike in town and which everyone remembers Daft Tom winning in the Christmas Lights raffle.
  He was also wearing a Ninja Turtles cycling helmet, and everyone knows that Daft Tom is obsessed with the Turtles when they first came out, same as everyone else. But when everyone else grew out of them, he carried on liking them. He was always buying Turtles T-shirts, videos, collectors' cards, the original Turtle Lair, with extra sewage piping, Ninja Choppin' Pogo 'Copters, Sewer Sledges, Shell Subs (with Torpedos)... He had a boxed set of super-poseable models of Donatello, Raphael, Leonardo and Michelangelo, with sixty-seven points of articulation each, and even a full-size strap-on Turtle shell.
  Anyway, back to the robbery. Obviously we haven't actually got a safe. When Dad said he was opening the safe, he was actually texting Daft Tom's mam, and she came round in her little Copen. Daft Tom didn't hear or see the car pull up because the engine is so small you can only hear it if you're a bat or a shrew or something. So when she walked in, he nearly choked from shock. And when she walloped him across the back of his legs with her unnecessary Krooklock, well, he shouted, 'What the Shell!' (another giveaway) and then, well he just keeled over really.
  Daft Tom's mam wanted to report him to the police, but Dad was dead against it. 'The town of Manod,' he said, 'has the lowest crime rate in the United Kingdom. We're not going to spoil that for one mistake.'
  And he offered him a job.
  'You come and work in the garage for a few weeks and we'll say no more about it. I can't pay you, mind.'
  His mother was upset. She said, 'We have no way of knowing what our deeds will lead to. Look at me: I was just trying to keep my son's ears warm, like a good mother, and where did that lead? If I had not knitted him a balaclava, he might never have been seduced into criminality.'

The good thing about Daft Tom was that he could work the photocopier, which no one else could because when Mam bought it (Snowdonia Mountain Rescue Charity Shop, £20), it didn't have a manual. Daft Tom crouched in front of it and kept pressing buttons until he had it all worked out. By the end of the week, the Snowdonia Oasis Auto Marvel had become the Snowdonia Oasis Auto Marvel and Copier Centre. And Daft Tom had become Nice Tom (except to his mam).
  So there's another thing that Dad fixed - he fixed Daft Tom. That was the end of his Life of Crime.
  Which is funny when you think about it. Because it was probably the start of ours.

Framed © Frank Cottrell Boyce, 2005. Published by Macmillan.