The Great Postie Challenge

Matilda loved her postman Louis. He was the friendliest postman in the world, delivering mail to her house for as long as she could remember. He always greeted her with a warm smile in the morning, even when it was grey and raining and not the cheeriest of days. On her birthday he always gave her a bar of chocolate, which he expressly said she wasn't to share with anyone else, and at Christmas he gave her an even bigger bar. But he wasn't just friendly to her, he was friendly to her dog Cherry. Every morning Louis gave Cherry a biscuit and if nobody was home he'd leave the biscuit on the door mat in the porch. He was that kind of person.
But one day the mail was delivered by someone new; someone who wasn't as friendly as Louis. He never smiled. He was always in a bad mood, grunting at Matilda when she greeted him in the morning. Once he even slapped Cherry on the head when she bounded up to him, wagging her tail like she always did when she was happy. Matilda couldn't understand where her favourite postman had gone. Had she done something wrong. Why didn't he deliver letters to her anymore? The new postman didn't have an answer. In fact when Matilda asked him his gruff reply was, "If you don't want your mail I don't have to deliver it to you."
Matilda was angry. She thumped her fists on the kitchen table.
"He's mean mum," she said.
"Who?"
"That new postman. He doesn't like me or Cherry. Why would anyone not like her?" Matilda said as she stroked Cherry's blonde curly fur and patted her head. "And he said he didn't have to deliver our letters."
"Of course he has to. That's his job."
"Well he doesn't much like it."
"Perhaps you need to give him a challenge then. Make him work a bit harder."
Matilda mulled over the idea. 'It might be quite fun' she thought. 'But what could I do.'
Over the weekend Matilda worked on some ideas as to how she might put the new postman to the test to see if he would deliver her letters and came up with a master plan. She decided to send herself some letters, but not just any old letters. She was going to disguise the address on the envelope.
She sent herself ten letters. On the envelope of the first she created a crossword with questions down the side, the answers to which gave her address:
Q 1. Complete the song title Waltzing ....... (7 letters)
Q 2. The number house the Prime Minister lives in (3 letters)
Q 3. A famous english Highwayman from 1700s (6 letters)
Q 4. Another word for street (4 letters)
Her other envelopes had the address disguised as a join-the-dots game, a word search game and an anagram game. She wrote some in ultraviolet pen, backwards or upside down. She even folded one up into an origami swan with the address hidden under its wings. But not one of her letters was delivered.
"He's lazy," said Matilda one morning the family clink of the letterbox signalled the delivery of the post.
"Aren't you going to even look and see if he's made an effort?" asked her mother.
"No. Because I know he hasn't."
"Matilda I really think you ought to have a look. You never know."
Matilda dragged herself up from the sofa and schlepped across the lounge to the hall. When she looked down at the doormat she spotted something familiar. One of her letters. The one decorated with gold stars.
"He's delivered one," she said with disbelief.
She bent down and picked it up and discovered underneath were all the other letters she had sent.
"He's delivered them all!"
As she scooped up all her letters she found something else. A dog biscuit.
"Louis!" she screeched. "Mum, Louis's back."
She flung open the front door, tore down the pathway and just caught sight of Louis opening the door of his red van.
Matilda waved frantically at him. He gave her a beaming smile back.
"Did I pass the test then?" he asked pointing to the letters Matilda was clutching tightly in her hand.
"You deserve a huge gold star!" she replied, then scuttled inside to plan more challenges for Postman Louis.