When Billy Cole woke up one morning, he found himself on fire. He would later reflect, however, that out of the ten weird things that happened to him that day, waking up and finding himself fully ablaze came in at number five on the weird-things-that-happened-to-him-that-day list.

The previous evening Billy and his best friend, Zac, had decided to become superheroes. The decision wasn’t necessarily because Billy and Zac were particularly heroic; it was more because they had found a couple of old potato sacks thrown out in a kerbside clean up. Sacks that looked, with a little imagination, like superhero capes.

Billy felt that superheroes really ought to be able to fly and so that night he had attempted to create various propulsion systems using random flammable substances that he’d found in his father’s shed. Petrol, kerosene, gas, propane, liquid nitrogen had all been tried and mixed with various levels of success in order for the intrepid duo to go hurtling through the sky at a rate just shy of the speed of sound. At some point in the night, Billy had fallen asleep during one of his experiments, which is why he had woken in flames. Fortunately, for Billy, he had managed to beat out the fire with his little sister’s teddy bear. He would later tell his sister that the scorch marks on her favourite bear were the result of the bear wandering off into a bushfire, which was a known habit of that particular breed of bear.

When Zac turned up after breakfast, they had donned their potato sack capes and set off to fight crime. The trouble was that when you went looking for crime in order to fight it, it was actually quite difficult to locate. The two superheroes had imagined wrestling bank robbers, car thieves or perhaps even tax evaders. But as they wandered the streets, there didn’t seem to be any of those lurking around. At one point they did spot a guy wearing a suspicious-looking hat, but he turned out to be a postal worker.

It was then Billy remembered that old Mrs Magillacuddy, who lived across the street, had an ancient and weather-beaten cat, Old Mr Tiddles, that had once found itself stuck up a tree and had to be rescued by the fire brigade. Mrs Magillacuddy had been so relieved that Old Mr Tiddles had been rescued that she had paid for an upgrade of the fire engine. Okay, maybe rescuing cats from trees wasn’t exactly on par with catching bank robbers, car thieves or even tax evaders, but it was a start.

Billy and Zac crept through Mrs Magillacuddy’s back fence, which had more fence palings missing than were present, and eventually found Old Mr Tiddles sunning himself on the back patio. They waited a while for Old Mr Tiddles to run up a tree from which they could then rescue him. When, several hours later, it was clear that Old Mr Tiddles wasn’t going anywhere near any trees, Billy and Zac grew impatient and did the only thing they felt they could do in the circumstances. They gathered up Old Mr Tiddles and placed him in the tree themselves. Old Mr Tiddles’s meows eventually drew the attention of Mrs Magillacuddy and she erupted out the back door just as Billy and Zac were rescuing Old Mr Tiddles from his perch high in the upper branches of the tree.

Mrs Magillacuddy was particularly impressed with the superheroes’ rescue efforts given that their capes weren’t tied around their necks and required them both to keep their capes positioned around their necks with one of their hands, which undoubtedly made tree climbing quite difficult. As soon as Old Mr Tiddles was returned to earth, Mrs Magillacuddy was so delighted that she gave the superheroes a dollar.

The two superheroes grinned at each other as they realised that they were onto something.

The following day, Old Mr Tiddles found himself stuck up the tree once more. And yet again the two superheroes were called into action and yet again they received a shiny dollar coin for their troubles.

Over the ensuing months, Old Mr Tiddles managed to get stuck up the tree a grand total of two hundred and eighty-three times. Sometimes he found himself stuck up there as many as four or five times a day. And because of Mrs Magillacuddy’s gratitude and access to dollar coins, the two superheroes were well on the way to having enough money for a car.

In the end, Mrs Magillacuddy began to suspect that it was Billy and Zac who were themselves placing Old Mr Tiddles up the tree so that they might rescue him in order to reap the rewards. She suspected this because, A: only a mind-meltingly daft cat would find itself stuck up a tree (and on the same branch) with such monotonous regularity, and Old Mr Tiddles was far from daft. And B: the last time Billy and Zac had rescued Old Mr Tiddles from the tree he had in fact been dead, having passed away peacefully the previous night. Mrs Magillacuddy had been waiting for her son to turn up so that Old Mr Tiddles could receive a proper and respectful burial.

Billy and Zac acknowledged that there was some truth to Mrs Magillacuddy’s accusations. This was largely down to the fact that Old Mr Tiddles, whom they had just rescued from the tree, was now lying in front of them as stiff as a plank and appeared to possess about as much life as an Egyptian mummy.

The two superheroes returned all the money to Mrs Magillacuddy and chose to get out of the superhero business, largely because there wasn’t any crime happening for them to fight. It was also quite difficult to run around the streets as superheroes when you were required to keep one hand free in order to hold up your cape.

In the end Billy and Zac decided to get into sack racing – the potato sacks were of fine quality after all.

‘Who knows,’ said Billy as they took their sacks from their backs and climbed inside. ‘One day, if we train hard enough and take good care of our sacks, we might even make it to the Olympic sack race final.’

The two friends waved farewell to Mrs Magillacuddy and Old Mr Tiddles (though only Mrs Magillacuddy waved back). They bounded off into the sunset like kangaroos.