They Will Use Machetes

Oh, and they play with machetes.

Scene: Child delivered home from playdate. Dusk in an African garden.

Me (absentmindedly, crouching over hole my son is digging): "Did you have a lovely time with X?"

Him: "Oh yes. We cut down a tree."

I look at my husband. He seems...shifty.

"It was a giant strelitsia. Hanging down over the drive. Had to be cut down, the mother said."

"What with?" enquires the Wary British Mother.

"We used a machete," my son, 7, says proudly.