The X Trials

Sevan and Kash visited Mr R and Mrs S for the third time, excited about the possibility of building a new shed. They arrived a few minutes ahead of time and were discovered at the doorstep by Mrs S who came out to put out the rubbish.

'Look who I found stranded on the street!' said Mrs S to Mr R

Mr R was delighted to see the familiar GoodGymers again and explained that the task would be to clear space for the new shed. Sevan and Kash knew that Mr R and his wife ordered a new shed when they were fixing the old one last year. They saw the pristine box with the shed parts this summer when they came to do some weeding and wished they could start the construction during that visit. If they had done it, maybe today's mission would have turned out differently.

Everyone agreed that it would make the most sense to open the box with the new shed and see if everything was okay with it after months of standing outside in the rain. Sevan and Kash removed the layers of tarpaulin and insects to reveal a cardboard box. They took the shed parts out and couldn't resist assembling them. The shed was lightweight and GoodGymers could easily move it to a place where it was supposed to stand.

Less than halfway into the job, Sevan realised something was not right. It was the case of missing X. All the shed elements were marked with a letter, and part X - very adequately - was the mystery, the unknown. It was nowhere to be found! When inspecting the available pieces, Sevan made another discovery: there were too many H parts!

Swapping H for an X may work in the Cyrillic alphabet but not for shed building and not the other way around. All the clues pointed to a factory fault and the GoodGymers had to report the findings to Mr R.

'I have good news and bad news', said Kash. 'The good news is that we have spare H parts. The bad news is that one part X is missing.'

Mr R was even more disappointed than the GoodGymers and sat down in the kitchen to process the situation. Sevan and Kash in the meantime noted down which shed parts had been delivered in the wrong quantities. Knowing that Mr R and Mrs S were going to contact the supplier, Kash suggested checking if there was nothing else missing. It was not a bad idea as Sevan noticed that two C parts were chipped and might not work.

The GoodGymers secured the part-built shed and the remaining pieces with tarpaulin and put the damaged and soaked packaging into the bin. To comfort themselves after the sad discovery, the hosts and the visitors all had a cup of tea and some biscuits. Despite the disappointment with the faulty shed, Mr R was amusing and cheerful as usual. He entertained everyone with his stories and jokes. Before leaving, Sevan and Kash had to accept a couple of cereal bars as thank you, otherwise, Mr R wouldn't let them out. It was about to get dark, so the GoodGymers set off to see a Halloween event they had helped to set up in the morning.