Scarfolk's Junior Detonation Task Force was noted for its over-enthusiasm in regard to unattended children. It was known to test a parent's attention by luring them away from their child, beyond the legal 4 metre supervision zone, with the offer of weekend caravanning holidays, expensive kitchenware and ice-creams.
The sound of controlled explosions became commonplace in airports, bus stations, libraries, supermarkets and public playgrounds.
However, parents could not be held responsible when their children were at school or any other of the town's many infant indoctrination covens. Scarfolk education authority, keen to avoid staff culpability, redefined concepts of supervision and attendance by making the child responsible for its own proximity to its teacher.
For example, the education board decreed that a member of staff could not be held accountable if a child daydreamed. Apart from the fact that daydreaming was technically deemed to be truancy, it took a child well beyond the supervision zone, psychologically speaking, and staff could not be expected to go into a trance every time a child needed to be retrieved from its reverie. This form of mental agility was particularly taxing for gym teachers. Yet children found it hard not to daydream, largely due to the plethora of medication they were expected to imbibe daily.
Children all over Scarfolk eventually became disgruntled about the frequent detonations which continually disrupted classes, and they trained a group of pre-school mediums to wander the psychic plane alerting absent-minded children before they were spotted by the Junior Detonation Task Force.
