According to Lincoln Waterford, this wouldn’t be too much of a problem because he was in an upcoming Christmas play, and he had a practice straight after school in the church on Thursday night. If Caleb asked permission to go to his house to play after school, they could both turn up to practice and Caleb could check out the cross to see if he thought it would do a bang-up job. They would find a way to snaffle the cross and hide it somewhere overnight. Apparently this wouldn’t be too hard, because the practice was in their Sunday school room, not the main bit of the church hall, so it wouldn’t be noticed straight away. They could both sneak out of home very early the next morning, meet to burn the booty, and be back in time for school with Dad rendered quite safe.

Lincoln was a bit leery about stealing the cross, and they had a discussion about whether God might strike them dead, or send them boils and leprosy, or take their bikes away as a punishment. But Caleb pointed out that the more senior god probably wouldn’t bother about what a kid from a more junior god got up to. He asked Lincoln if Lincoln thought the coach of Carlton would know or care what the coach of Sturt was up to, and they both agreed this would be unlikely, and Lincoln felt more relaxed.

Their scheme ran to plan and they got the cross. They had a lot of discussion about where to burn it. Caleb was sure the tree house was the right place, because Dad had made it, no one would expect them to be there, and because of the beads on the string hanging on the tree. He explained the family string theory to Lincoln, who was quite impressed, and said he’d like to see the beads. He asked if a bead could be added for him, given he was helping to rescue Dad, and Caleb said he’d be happy to discuss this with the three of us when the sacrifice problem was solved.

So the boys agreed to burn the cross in our tree house, and they hid in a tree in the olive grove until Dad pulled out early the next morning to go to work. They had also pinched a lot of candles from the Catholic Church, because Lincoln said there were candles all over the place, and it would help make the sacrifice properly serious. They put all the stolen loot, along with two boxes of matches – Lincoln said they didn’t have to steal those because he and Caleb had always agreed a boy should have a box in his pocket for unexpected adventures – on a little branch we regularly used as a narrow table, and discussed the best way to do it.

The main problem was that the cross was metal, and they weren’t sure it would burn properly, but Caleb said he’d seen pictures of Joan of Arc where they tied her to a pole and put lots of kindling around her so that she would go up properly, so they built a nest on the floor of the tree house and sat the cross in the centre. Apparently, given it was so hot and dry by then, the pyre went up in no time flat with just a couple of matches.