Shirt

Edward Hannigan was a mucky child.

If there was paint to be splattered, or ink to be spilled, or mud to be rolled in, you could guarantee that Edward would.

"You're a mucky child!" Mrs Hannigan would yell from her office, whenever Edward came home, with his hair twisted with pine cones, and his trousers scuffed with grass stains.

"You're a mucky child!" Mr Hannigan would sigh, whenever he found Edward sitting on the old oil cans in the garage where his father worked.

"You're a mucky child!" the dog would woof, but, her being a dog, nobody paid much attention.

One day, when the sun was streaming across the pond, and the sky above the park was filled with kites, Edward was out playing. His mother had packed him off with a bright blue shirt and a bag of sandwiches, and he'd stopped to buy an ice-cream from the Israeli man who ran the ice-cream stall on the corner of Agnes Avenue.

It was a giant ice-cream, the kind of ice-cream milk wants to be when it grows up, a festivity of chocolate and wafer and extra sprinkles.

Edward devoured the ice-cream in one almighty "GULP!"

All except for the smear of chocolate on his shirt collar and the purple sprinkles that got caught in the buttons.

Then he went on his way.

That afternoon, Edward met his friend Isabelle; and together they threw mud at the girls with tight ponytails and played "Dragon in the Hill" and "Poke the Badger". They played the "Sliding through hole in the fence" game and the "Rolling up in a little ball inside the old tree" game and the "Saving the princess from the ancient, monstrous evil" game, which Edward never liked much, because Isabelle always got to be the Good Prince Hawdunhaw, and Edward didn't like the way the princess hat fell over his eyes and tripped him up when they were traipsing through the allotments.

And by the time Prince Isabelle had defeated the ancient, monstrous evil and it was nearly time for tea, Edwards bright blue shirt was ripped and torn and smeared with Dragon's blood and blackberry juice.

"I like you, Edward." said Isabelle "You're a mucky child."

Then they went back to Edward's house.

While they were having tea, Edward managed to spill ketchup on his shirt and Isabelle managed to spell rude words with her alphabet spaghetti.

Then they went out into the back garden to play football, and Edward took his grubby blue shirt and bundled it up for a goal post. Isabelle won 17-12, but on the last goal, the ball hit the post and sent the shirt skidding through the mud and onto the back patio, where it lay, by the dog's water bowl.

"Bah." said Edward's shirt. "I'm fed up of this."

And it picked itself up, traipsed through the back porch, borrowed Mrs. Hannigan's copy of "The Telegraph" and settled down in the washing basket for a good sulk and a read of the paper.

"Blimey!" said Mr. Hannigan's left sock. "What happened to you?"

But the shirt merely buried itself deeper in the newspaper and waited for Mr. Hannigan to come out to do the laundry.