Granny grunters and the ice machine of death!
It was summer. A gentle breeze blew over the heads of Stephen, Natasha and Pamela as they played on their swings in the back garden. It was a good day for them because their mother had made some of her special orange Ice-pops which they all loved.
Natasha and Stephen were swinging so so high on the swing, they both said it felt cold because they were so high on the swing. Then Pamela said, but now it’s cold down here. They both got off the swings to see what Pamela was talking about when it suddenly began to snow! They stood there with their mouths wide open in shock at the spectacle of snow in summer.
“How can it be snowing… it’s the summer!!” exclaimed Pamela, then Natasha said “Maybe Santa might come”.
“In the middle of summer?? that’s crazy! it can’t be Christmas in the middle of summer. We better investigate!” said Stephen.
Natasha and Stephen agreed they must find out where the snow was coming from but Pamela was a bit worried.
When they went out the front of the house they quickly noticed a trail of snow leading all the way to GrannyGrunters. “This is crazy” said Pamela, “We have to stop this meany beany from turning the whole land into Ice… but how?”
Then Natasha jumped in “Why don’t we go into the Enchanted forrest and try and find a magic fairy that can help us”.
“Thats crazy Natasha, we have to find a wizard” said Stephen. Then they all started argue about who they should find. In the end, Pamela and Natasha went one way and Stephen went his own way through the enchanted forrest looking looking looking.
Finally after a long time walking Stephen heard voices and cried out “Ah ha! I found my wizard before my silly sisters could find their silly Fairy”. He ran round the corner to where he could hear the voice only to see, his two sisters sitting down talking to a Fairy. Stephen climbed up on to a big rock and sat there in a big grump!
The fairy explained that the only way to stop granny grunter and her evil ice machine was to find the magic fire flower. This flower is so hot that no ice can exist within miles and miles of where it grows! But this flower is very dangerous because its protected by Zonderbeasts and is very very hard to find. The only place it grows is some where on the misty mountains. “But” said the fairy, “Misty mountain is crawling with Zonderbeasts, which” she continued “are famous for their love of eating children and chocolate”.
“No way” said Pamela “its too dangerous, we’re not going and that’s that” at the same time, Natasha and Stephen looked at each other, smiled and asked the fairy “How can we get there?”.
“With the magic shoe of course” said the fairy, pointing to the biggest, craziest looking shoe they ever saw. Then she told them how to fly it.
“Only if you believe in it and sing lots of happy songs will it have enough power to run the rainbow wing engines which it needs in order to fly”. And with that, Stephen, Natasha and Pamela jumped into the magic shoe, ready for their big adventure to the Misty Mountain.
“Before you go” said the fairy “ there is something really clever about this shoe that you should know”. “On the side of the shoe is the ‘Drawer of imaginations’ which will come in handy on your journey.”
“What does it do” asked Pamela.
“Well,” said the fairy “thats a little tricky. It gives you what ever you need when you need it”.
Stephen smiled and thought to himself “I need a lot of chocolate” with a mischievous smile. The fairy, seeing Stephen’s smile said “It gives you what you need Stephen, not what you want – there is a difference you know”. Stephens smile didn’t fade, he was determined to get mountains of chocolate out of this drawer.
Stephen was very excited, so excited in fact, that he started singing ‘happy birthday to me’ to himself because the magical drawer was going to give him more chocolate than it would ever get in a 100 birthdays. But when he started sining happy birthday, the rainbow wings on the heel of the shoe started to glow like a rainbow.
“Thats it, you got Stephen” said the fairy. “Now you two girls join in and you’ll be on misty mountain before you know it” and with that the girls quickly joined in singing Happy Birthday and with a big whoosh they were up and flying through the sky!
While they were flying through the air, Stephen decided it would try and sneak some chocolate out of the magic drawer. He stuck his head out the side of the shoe and reaching for the magic drawer he said “I need need need lots of yummy chocolate”. He reached down his hand to open the draw, hoping to find lots of chocolate inside, but as he put his hand on the drawer the shoe was flying through a flock of birds which started crashing into Stephens head. Stephen went back to the girls, dizzy and instead of chocolate in his hand he had lots of feathers sticking out of his head.
Just then, Pamela looked ahead and saw the biggest darkest cloud she ever saw and said “Oh no… we’re going to fly into that big huge cloud and we have no coats”.
Natasha and Stephen looked at the big cloud and Natasha said “Guys, guys, guys… I don’t think that’s a cloud… I think that is….. Misty Mountain”.
Stephen and Pamela’s mouths dropped open!
As they flew closer to misty mountain, they all got quieter and quieter. The shoe slowly started to loose its magical flying power as it flew in silently towards the dark misty mountain. Very soon they were flying past trees on the side of the the mountain, but because they were not longer singing, the shoe flew very low brushing over the tops of trees.
Natasha found a gap in the trees and landed the shoe in in the patch of grass between the trees.
When the shoe landed, they all climbed out on to the grass. Next to where they landed there was a big hill covered in grass. Natasha and Pamela thought it would be a good place to climb up and get a good look around to see if it it was safe and to try figure out which way to walk to find the fire flowers.
Stephen said nothing and when the girls walked off, he immediately ran over to the “Drawer of imaginations”. “I need lots and lots of chocolate” said Stephen and then he opened the drawer to get all his chocolate. Much to his disappointment when he opened the drawer it was empty. He quickly closed it again and said “I neeeeeeeeed choc-oooooo-late” and opened it again.
Again, the drawer was empty. Stephen wouldn’t give up and spend the next 10 minutes opening and closing the drawer.
“Stupid draw doesn’t work” said Stephen in a grump.
“I will try one more time and if it doesn’t work, I give up”
This time, when he opened the draw, much to his surprise, it was not empty. But instead of chocolate, there as a pair of fast looking runners lying in the drawer! Scratching his head, staring at the runners in total bewilderment he heard in the far of distance his sisters scream “..R..U..N”!!!!!!
Moments before, Natasha and Pamela had gotten to the top of the hill to get a clear view around them. It was then they realised the hill was in fact, the belly of a gigantic Zonderbeast covered in a grass blanket fast asleep. When they saw the face of this big huge horrible monster, they both ran for their lives back down the he hill towards Stephen and the shoe screaming “RUN!!!”.
All this screaming woke the Zonderbeast and he slowly started to sit up, casting a huge dark creeping shadow, slowly stretching over the runnings girls and all the way down towards Stephen and the shoe.
Instead of putting on the runners from the drawer, Stephen decided to climb back into the shoe and get it ready to fly away from the Zonderbeast.
Just as Natasha and Pamela reached the Shoe screaming their heads off, the Zonderbeast noticed the girls and began quickly making his way towards the shoe. In a panic, Pamela and Natasha quickly jumped into the flying shoe and they all sang the fastest “twinkle twinkle little start” they ever sang in their lives. A short moment later they they were high in the sky and the Zonderbeast was once again at a safe distance.
Pamela started shouting at the beast “na na, na na na, you can’t catch us”, sticking out her tongue. Natasha said “Come on, keep sing the song instead of shouting at the beast”. Then Stephen said “Hey what’s going on”
They all agreed it would be safer to fly around the mountain and find the fire flower from a safe distance. Stephen again tried to get chocolate from the magic drawer and again the magic drawer gave nothing! Not one crumb of chocolate. He was sure that silly drawer was broken!
Just then, Natasha started shouting “Look look look guys”, in the distance through the mist they could see a red glow in a patch on the mountain where no trees were growing. As they few closer they noticed all around that area, Zonderbeasts lay sleeping.
“Why are they all sleeping around the flowers?” asked Pamela. “Probably because the flowers keep them toasty warm” said Natasha, “Maybe I should get some for our bedroom” she joked. This worried Pamala, because she wasn’t sure if Natasha was half joking or half serious, and if Pamela’s half of the bedroom would survive.
All three decided they would be safer to land near by and walk into the flowers because flying the shoe was too unpredictable and Pamela’s singing would almost certainly wake up even the sleepiest of Beasts. They landed their shoe as near as they could and set off by foot towards the flowers. They grew more and more nervous the nearer and nearer they got.
“These Zonderbeasts are bigger than a house when they’re lying down!! I would hate to meet one if they stood up!” said Stephen, “Shhhhh” said Natasha. “Don’t remind me” said Pamela. When they were near, they realised the only way to get past the Zonderbeasts was to climb over them. “But they’ll wake like the last time” said Natasha, “They won’t wake if you don’t scream like crazed loonatics, like you did last time” returned Stephen. “Ok” said Natasha, who’s climbing over them first?”, no body spoke.
Then Pamela said, if only we could some how get them to go away for a few minutes. Natasha had an idea. She ran back to the shoe and came back with bags of chocolate. Stephen’s mouth dropped open. “How the…” he whispered, to which Natasha replied “No time to explain! Let’s make a trail of chocolate which the Zonderbeasts will follow, leading them away from here. So they laid all the chocolate down in a trail starting where the Zonderbeasts lay sleeping which went all the way deep into the forrest behind them.
“Now what?” asked Pamela impatiently, “are you going to just run up there and give them a big kick in the bum and hope they eat the chocolate and not you??”.
“Hmm… I have an idea” said Stephen, “lets fly high up in the Shoe over the Zonderbeasts and throw a few bars of chocolate at them. That should wake them up. Then they’ll see all the other chocolate and follow our trail deep into the forrest.
As always, Natasha and Pamela agreed with Stephens great idea and off they went. As soon as they were at a safe enough hight Pamela grabbed one of the last remaining chocolate bars and said “here, l want to do it, I’m a great shot” and before either Stephen or Natasha could react, Pamela had launched her chocolatey attack upon the unsuspecting Zonderbeasts. The bar didn’t just hit a Zonderbeast, it went right up his nose! They all laughed at the sight of this enormous Zonderbeast with a chocolate bar sticking out his nose – it looked ridiculous. But did not wake the Beast. Natasha and Pamela continued to throw the chocolate down at the Zonderbeasts with out any effect.
Mean while Stephen decided to give the drawer another chance and without saying anything to the girls, he whispered into the drawer and opened it. The biggest smile grew on his face. The drawer had delivered exactly what he wanted (and this time, maybe more than he needed).
He walked back to the girls, with a large bag of stuff the Drawer had given him. He had a particular smile on his face that always made his sisters nervous. Without saying anything, he shook the contents of the bag over the side, right down on top of the fire flowers below and watched eagerly.
“What was that?” asked Natasha nerviously and with a very excited smile Stephen responded “Fireworks”. Pamela and Natasha looked down in total disbelief to see what must have been about 100 fireworks going off at the same time. It was total chaos. The noise and light, shooting in every direction didn’t just wake the Zonderbeasts, it transformed these once terrifying, bone crunching monsters into petrified kittens who then ran with as fast as they could in every direction, into the forrest. The poor beasts never even noticed the trail of chocolate the girls and so patently laid out for them to follow.
With the biggest grin on his face, Stephen shouted out “To the flowers we go!”. Natasha then flew the shoe right down beside the fire flowers. There was no doubt they wouldn’t be seeing the Zonderbeasts for a very very long time. Both Pamela and Natasha secretly agreed, it was best to keep Stephen away from the drawer from now on.
Natasha went over to the drawer and took out of it a large shovel and some special flower pots which wouldn’t melt from the fire flowers. They were indeed as hot as they were beautiful. Each petal of the the flowers glowed red and the centre seemed to flicker like a magic candle which burned red instead of yellow. Pamela said “Lets just get three flowers, that will be more than enough”.
“Really?” asked Stephen,
“Yes” informed Pamela, “The fairy told us that we only need to shake the flower and fire flower seeds will spill out from where the flames are flickering. With three flowers we can make a big circle of flowers grow round Granny Grunters field and house!”.
They quickly loaded up the flowers and began to sing “hi ho, hi ho, its off to work we go” with accomplished smiles on all their faces. The trip back was surprisingly fast, mostly because they were so happy they had gotten the flowers, although Natasha felt a bit sorry for the Zonderbeasts, she feared those poor beasts would be having nightmares for years to come from Stephens little wake up show!
As they neared granny grunters field, they picked up the first flower. Carefully holding it over the side of the flying shoe, they gently shook it. As they did, small glowing seeds slowly fell from the flower gently drifting down to the ground below them like falling ambers from a bonfire. They slowly flew in a large circle right around granny grunters field and house sprinkling all the seeds from the three fire flowers as they went. As they came back around to where they had started, they looked down and to their amazement, the seeds had already started to grow. These flowers were truly magic. Within minutes they could see flower stems reach up from the soil and fiery red petals began to form on top. Exactly as the Fairy had promised, the ice almost instantly started to melt away from where the flowers stood. All the ice outside of the circle of fire flowers seemed to almost immediately start to defrost and turn to water.
Unfortunately Granny grunter must not have noticed all of this, because the ice machine kept on running and running making lots of ice that now and no where to go. The ice started to build up and up and eventually the ice machine itself started to get covered in Ice and could no longer work properly. It started to make funny noises and eventually started to shake. Then all of a sudden, there was a big explosion and ice was sent flying in every direction. The machine was completely destroyed. All that was left was a few broken screws and a rusty spring. The ice machine was gone.
Natasha, Pamela and Stephen jumped up and down in the flying shoe shouting out “We did it, we did it, take that Granny Grunter!!!”
With big smiles on each of their faces, they set off singing “Stop the bus I want to wee wee” all the way back to the enchanted forrest to give the good fairy back her magical flying Shoe.
Before long they were back in their garden, where Natasha and Pamela went playing on their swings, Stephen played Sevens with his basket ball against the wall. Their Mother was very confused when she came out asking “Who would like some of my special ice pops” and they all screamed “Ice??? No way!!”
The end.
By Teresa Marie Renwick – 1st April 2020.