Despatches from the Front

Earnest McScowlypants is the former editor of his diary

Never before have I seen a face so marked by both determination and resignation. In just a few minutes, she will wear a mask of carefree frivolity, but right now the furrows on her brow speak of the deep inner turmoil of a warrior who knows she is but a pawn in someone else’s game. Few words are spoken: a face appears out of the half-shadows and simply whispers, “are you ready?” Tacit nods are exchanged, and the raid begins.

It is October 1992, and Fi* – who only turned seven yesterday – has already known years of anguish as the bait in a twisted pyramid scheme that is by now run with military precision. At exactly 19:33, Fi will run downstairs and play the jovial, happy-go-lucky child, drawing her parents away from the kitchen and dining area and into the lounge. Often this will be with the promise of a dance, a song, or even silly dressing-up.

Over the years, Fi has become an expert in fine-tuning her performances. “I could probably have made it to semi-pro in both ballet and street dance”, she confides, “but I rapidly established that the less polished the performance, the more endearing it was to my audience.”

Meanwhile, at 19:36, her older brother Al* will be dispatched to the kitchen. His passage down the stairs looks haphazard, but in reality has been honed from years of descending this staircase without drawing attention to himself. “Every morning, we train ourselves on the burglar alarm: we have to be quiet enough past the master bedroom that we don’t wake our parents, then avoid the creaky steps, and then crawl down the hall at snail’s pace on our stomachs to disarm the burglar alarm without first triggering the warning. I know this route like the back of my hand. I could walk it in my sleep.” Based on his catalogue of visits to A&E, I suspect that this is not an idle boast.

What motivates these two children to take their life and dignity into their hands several nights in a month?

The reality is that the motivation is not a goal, but a person. The face in the half-shadows belongs to Gub*: criminal strategist, older sister to Al and Fi, and clearly the brains of the operation. On these nights of action, her bedroom is transformed into the War Room, and later the Mess, where the evening’s spoils are divided up.

In this quiet suburban house, in the affluent neighbourhood of Beaconsfield, these children’s overriding desire to consume sultanas after dark has made Gub the kingpin of a ruthless dried-fruit scrumping gang.

Speaking to Al, it is apparent that he has served his time in the role now occupied by Fi. However, he feels no guilt in having handed over the task. “I’ve served my time already”, he says simply. Al cut his teeth working the Leisure Centre scam – a nail-biting race against time in which he had to take as long as possible to get changed after swimming to keep his father from spotting Gub raiding the vending machine that stood outside the entrance.

Fail to waste enough time, and they might emerge before she had finished; take too long on any one task, and their father might give up and decide to wait outside, scuppering the plan. Time it just right, and the only fallout was a berating from his father for his slow pace.

Was the frequently-repeated moniker of “slowcoach” worth enduring? I ask him. This time, he hesitates. “Very occasionally, if I had done exceptionally well, I would get a corner of a peppermint Aero passed to me as we left the building. Sometimes it was a large enough corner to be able to taste the filling. It was in those moments that I remembered why we did what we did.”

* It is our policy to change names where necessary to protect the innocent. The fact that no names have been changed in this article should therefore speak for itself.