Secret

What happened when a hundred-year-old man climbed out of the window (in his slippers) and disappeared? Go read Jonas Jonasson's novel and you will find out the man set off in his pee-slippers (so called because men of his age rarely pee further than their shoes) and unravelled one story after another.

But what if a four-year-old climbed out of the bed and disappeared?

Ah, a mystery.

That four-year-old turned out to be Jasmine's cousin. We were celebrating the Easter holiday in a hotel at Discovery Bay. And then the two kids entertained themselves by falling under the spell of jumping around the hotel bed. They simply forgot to go out and let every parent feel good about the decision to book a hotel and - you have to admit - any hotel with beds to jump on will do.

A silly but incredible idea. The kids jumped from one bed to the next. The last drops of a hundred-year-old man's urine might not quite make it to the toilet bowl, but it isn't difficult for a four-year-old kid to jump and land exactly on the bed next to one another. Halfway through the jumping, they - only the kids, not you - could hear the roar of crocodiles underneath. Hungry crocs they were too.

"Be careful, Aaron and Jasmine."

"Of course, we will, unless anyone of you want to be the dim sum of the crocs."

Over the first hour, if not more, of arriving at the hotel, dads and mums usually have plenty of time to read and relax. We were having tea and coffee when things turned out a bit different. I heard a sound louder than a crocodile's roar, and the next thing I knew, Jasmine's cousin was lying next to the coffee table and crying. We could never imagine how this could have happened.

"Interesting," my sister said, and meant the opposite.

In the end, we gave up our attempts to solve the mystery, and settled for soothing the pain of Jasmine's cousin.

Three days later, during her bedtime story session, Jasmine disclosed that her cousin was trying to rescue few cats from the crocodiles' breakfast plate when he lost his balance (and his face). That's a secret.

This could be brilliant, I thought, for her to keep the secret. Disclosing openly the story of a Humpty Dumpty firefighter would be a faux pas and definitely embarrass her cousin.