The Boy with the Metal Tree

THE BOY WITH THE METAL TREE

There once was a boy. A very naughty little boy with a face like an angry wasp and small hands with piggy little fingers, who built a metal tree in his backyard. For many days he laboured in his backyard, smaning gruffly and roughly to himself as he toiled from breakfast until dusk putting up the metal tree, taping razor blades under the carefully tempered convex metal leaves and hanging pins and needles from the edges of the metal branches.
Finally the tree was ready and the naughty boy carried it carefully to the front garden, placing in a prime spot in the middle of the lawn, then ran a cable under the earth back to the house from the foot of the metal tree and plugged it in behind the fridge.
He smaned gruffly and roughly and raided his secret box, the box with all his scarlet thoughts, purloined pretties and dead mice and voles and insects which he kept under a parent-proof sticky membrane under the squeaky floorboard at the bottom of the bed where he flicked his bogies.
This was a very naughty boy.
The naughty boy took two dead voles and dipped them in gravy when his mum wasn’t looking, then taped them under the branches of the metal tree.
Later that afternoon, he emptied his pockets of dead flies, dead bees, wingless daddy long legs and stunned spiders all around the metal tree.
He then ran back to his house across the yard as fast as his chubby little legs would carry him and sat, concealed in the hidden safety of the bushes underneath the living room window, peering through his binoculars and laughing as passers-by and neighbours stood, admired, then reached out and touched the tree, leaping back in the agony of electric shock.
His biggest laugh though, was watching the doggies wee against the metal tree as they were hilariously electrocuted.
Hee hee hee, went the naughty little boy.

After a few days, neighbours and doggies became wary of the metal tree and the naughty boy was forced to unplug the tree and carry it back from the garden into the backyard, where he would melt down the metal tree and make a new amusement. He smaned gruffly and roughly to himself as he considered a remote controlled flytrap or a catsnapper or babyzapper or a razor edged whippersnapper to fly into a frenzy when the foxes came foraging at night. He was a very naughty boy.
As he was carrying the tree back towards the house, his mother emptied the oven of another failed cake and saw the plug on the floor beside the socket and although she did not know what it was for, she knew it was usually plugged in, so she slipped the plug back into its hole and flicked the switch.

She wondered what the screams coming from outside were and peered out of the window to see her jerking, spasming naughty boy dancing in pain.
The very naughty boy never made anything else again and the local doggies lived and weed in peace.