A fairy tale for noisy kids in the aircraft cabin

Hello little children. Once upon a time little children used to be allowed to play in airliner cabins. Because it was the 1950s the little children were very well behaved and they sat nice and quietly while all the aeroplanes happily flew them round the world.

But after a while the little children stopped being so well behaved. Sometimes they would scream and shout and sometimes they would stand on the seat and play with the thinning hair of the nice businessmen sitting in front of them. And all the grown-ups got very cross.

But what the little children didn't know was that the big scary Brice Manufacturing Company in Pacoima, California had put a trap in the aeroplane seats they made. They only did it accidentally but, you know what little children, sometimes accidents happen for a reason.

One day a little child who wasn't very well behaved put his (or possibly her) finger in the trap in the seat. And suddenly...KER-WHACK...the trap came down and mangled the little child's finger. But still other little children kept on misbehaving so another day...KER-WHACK AGAIN...another trap came down and mashed another tiny finger. But not all the little children flying in aeroplanes had heard about the trap, so after a while there was another KER-WHACK and another finger got chopped.

When the Brice Manufacturing Company heard about what had happened they were very sorry because really they like little children. So they made a special device to stop the trap working any more. But the traps were on lots and lots of aeroplanes - aeroplanes made in America, and aeroplanes made in England, and aeroplanes finally assembled (as grown-ups say) in France - so nobody knows if they found all the traps.

So, little children, the best thing to do is to sit quietly in aeroplane seats and behave very well indeed - just in case one of the traps is still out there.