A childhood belief about fairies

When I was about 6 or 7 I was beginning to become sceptical about the existence of fairies and when my parents had some carpet tiles put into the house (the type with a sticky side to fix them to the floor) I thought I might have a means of proving whether fairies were real or not.

I left one of the carpet tiles sticky-side-up in the garden, with a leaf in the middle, on top of which was a pile of mulberries that I'd picked from our tree. I ran outside first thing in the morning to see if I'd caught any, but of course the carpet tile was devoid of magical creatures - not even insects had been caught.

When I told my Dad that I'd proved fairies don't exist, he wanted to keep me believing in childhood things, so he told me that fairies were clever enough to avoid traps - that kept me guessing for a few years! He also told me not to set any more traps, because I wouldn't want to be trapped, so therefore I shouldn't do the same to other creatures. What a nice Dad!