(A funny historical story with a few surprises, from Hideous and Hilarious, Random NZ)

“Morning tea’s ready,” called Grandad.                                 

Zoey ran into the kitchen. “Yeeeoooow!” she screamed. Blood welled up beneath her finger nail. She had jammed her finger in the door.

“Grandad, quick!” yelled Zoey. She was visiting her grandfather.

“Give us a look,” said Grandad. “Not much damage — just a cut. We’ll pop a plaster on that.”

Zoey was barely holding back the sobs.

“I lost the tip of my finger when I was about your age,” said Grandad. He held up a stumpy little finger. “I’ll tell you how it happened.”

Zoey had always felt too shy to ask about the finger. She couldn’t help staring at it when Grandad was eating. At last the mystery would be solved.

“It was a morning like this,” said Grandad, “about 1930-something. My mother was doing the Christmas ham. We were the first family in our street to get a fancy meat slicing machine. Vicious-looking things. You fed the chunk of meat past this big round blade while turning the handle. It sliced wafer thin pieces of ham — you could see through them. Anyway, I was in the habit of picking at the food while Mum was cooking dinner. She was always whacking my fingers and telling me to…”

“I can guess how you lost your finger tip,” said Zoey.

“Not so fast,” said Grandad. It’s too early in the story. I shall continue”

“Just then a nice fatty wedge of ham fell onto the lino floor. I ducked onto the floor and was about to gobble it when Bob came into the kitchen. Bob lived next door. Very friendly fellow. He worked for the police, catching burglars and whatnot, but he never got paid. How do you figure that Zoey? But I’m getting away from the story. I was about to grab this meat, when Bob makes a grab for it and wolfs it down — chomp. That was a close shave.

‘Away home, Bob,’ said my Mum giving him a friendly scratch behind the ears. I should add at this stage that Bob was the local police constable’s dog. ‘And you too. Go and help your father.’

Mum shooed me out of the kitchen and I went to watch Dad doing the laundry. In those days we had these diabolical devices on top of our washing machines — called wringers. They were two evil rubber rollers that turned inwards, sucking the wet clothes through and squishing out the water. ‘Can I help Dad?’ I reached out and pulled at a flattened hanky as it oozed out from the rollers.”

“Now I know how you squashed your finger,” said Zoey.

“Not the rollers, “ said Grandad. “Keep listening for clues.”

“Anyway, my father smacked my fingers (it was a wonder I had any fingers left the way they whacked me). He warned me about the dangers of modern machines, gave me a penny and told me to go down to the shop, buy a bag of lollies and watch the trains. Now my father didn’t know that was a much more dangerous idea to plant in my brain. I’d watched my older brothers putting pennies on the track and watching the trains squash them. I took a shortcut across the paddock and hopped over the fence to the railway line. I quickly balanced the coin on the steel track and retreated behind the fence. I could hear the train coming, but when I looked back at the penny, it had fallen off the rail —”

“I know, I know,” said Zoey, “the train wheels sliced your fingertip off.”

“Sorry, Zoey, you’re not even on the right track.”

“I figured it was more than my life was worth to put that penny back on the rail. After the train had gone through,  I retrieved it and went to the shops. I bought a gobstopper and an apple for Teacher. I walked back past the paddock. Teacher was having a lying in the sun, flicking pesky flies off his backside. I held out the apple and quick as custard, Teacher was up and trotting towards the fence. He opened his mouth and chomped down on my hand with whopping great teeth —”

Zoey said, “I’m probably way off again, but did Teacher eat your finger tip?”

“Wrong guess again,” said Grandad, “I’ll give you a tip-off when we are close to the main event.”

“Teacher would have bitten my finger off,” said Grandad, “but I held my hand out flat — always remember that with horses. So I wandered home sucking on my gobstopper and wondering what exactly was inside it. They were huge lollies that would just fit inside your mouth — one false swallow and you could block your windpipe. My mate Trev reckoned that if you cut through the middle it looked like the solar system. So when I got home I went out to the wood shed and found Dad’s hatchet. I put the gobstopper on the chopping block and tried to slice it in half. But the dashed thing kept rolling off. I steadied it with my little finger — figuring this was the smallest part of my hand, so I was less likely to hit it —”

“And that’s when you chopped it off,” said Zoey.

“I would have” said Grandad, “if my mother hadn’t yelled out, ‘Morning tea’s ready!’ I ran into the kitchen and slammed the door shut behind me. Trouble is I forgot to take my finger out. No micro-surgery in those days. The rest is history.”