Fantastic Stories Read online

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  www.anovabooks.com

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2011

  by Pavilion Children’s Books

  an imprint of Anova Books Group Ltd

  10 Southcombe Street

  London W14 0RA

  www.anovabooks.com

  Layout copyright © Pavilion Children’s Books

  Text copyright © Terry Jones

  Illustrations © Michael Foreman

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  First eBook publication 2013

  ISBN: 978-1-84365-2656

  Also available in hardback

  ISBN: 978-1-84365-1628

  Design by Lee-May Lim

  CONTENTS

  The Ship of Fools

  The Dragon on the Roof

  The Star of the Farmyard

  The Improving Mirror

  The Mermaid Who Pitied a Sailor

  Forget-Me-Nuts

  Eyes-All-Over

  The Snow Baby

  How the Badget Got Its Stripes

  Old Man Try-By-Night

  Toby Trickler

  The Cat with Two Tails

  The Flying King

  The Dancing Horse

  Mack and Mick

  The Slow Ogre

  The Fast Road

  The Song That Brought Happiness

  Touch the Moon

  Tom and the Dinosaur

  Nicobobinus and the Doge of Venice

  THE SHIP OF FOOLS

  A YOUNG BOY NAMED BEN once ran away to sea. But the ship he joined was a very odd one indeed.

  The Captain always wore his trousers tied over his head with seaweed. The Bosun danced the hornpipe all day long from dawn to dusk wearing nothing but beetroot juice. And the First Mate kept six families of mice down the neck of his jumper!

  ‘This is a rum vessel, me hearty!’ said Ben to one of the sailors, who was at that moment about to put his head into the ship’s barrel of syrup.

  ‘It’s a Ship of Fools!’ grinned the sailor, and he stuck his head in the syrup.

  ‘I suppose you all must know what you’re doing,’ murmured young Ben, but the sailor couldn’t reply because he was all stuck up with syrup.

  Just then the Captain yelled: ‘Raise the hanky! And sit on the snails!’ Although, because he still had his trousers over his head, what it actually sounded like was: ‘Gmpf der wmfky! Umf bmfwmf umf wmf!’

  ‘I’m sure he means: “Raise the anchor! And set the sails!”’ said young Ben to himself. But whatever it was the Captain had said, nobody seemed to be taking the slightest bit of notice.

  ‘They must be doing more important things,’ said Ben to himself. ‘So I suppose I’d better obey Captain’s orders.’

  So Ben raised the anchor by himself, and hoisted the sails as best he could, and the ship sailed off into the blue.

  ‘Where are we heading, shipmate?’ Ben asked a sailor who was hanging over the side, trying to paint the ship with a turnip and a pot of lemonade.

  ‘Goodness knows!’ exclaimed the sailor. ‘It’s a Ship of Fools!’

  ‘The Captain will know,’ said Ben, and he climbed up to the bridge, where the Captain was standing upside-down at the wheel, trying to steer with his feet.

  ‘I’m almost sure you shouldn’t steer a ship like that,’ said Ben to himself, ‘but then what do I know? I’m just a raw land-lubber getting his first taste of the briney.’ But even so, Ben realized that the Captain couldn’t see where they were going, because his trousers were still over his eyes. As it happened, the ship was, at that moment, heading straight for a lighthouse! So Ben grabbed the wheel, and said: ‘What’s the course, skipper?’

  ‘Bmf Bmf Wmf!’ replied the Captain.

  ‘Nor’ Nor’ West it is, sir!’ said Ben, and he steered the ship safely round the lighthouse and off for the open sea.

  Well, they hadn’t sailed very far before a storm blew up.

  ‘Shall I take in the yard-arm and reef the sails, Captain?’ yelled Ben. But the Captain was far too busy trying to keep his game of marbles still, as the ship rolled from side to side.

  The wind began to howl, and the sea grew angry.

  ‘I better had, anyway,’ said Ben to himself, and he ran about the ship, preparing for the storm ahead.

  As he did so, the rest of the crew grinned and waved at him, but they all carried on doing whatever it was they were doing. One of them was hanging by his hair from the mainmast, trying to play the violin with a spoon. Another was varnishing his nose with the ship’s varnish. While another was trying to stretch his ears by tying them to the capstan and jumping overboard.

  ‘Well… I wouldn’t have thought this was the way to run a ship!’ said young Ben. ‘I suppose they know the ropes and I’m just learning. Even so… I didn’t realize the newest recruit had to do everything. But I suppose I’d better get on with it.’ And he set about doing what he thought should be done, while the rest of the crew just grinned and waved at him.

  The storm gathered force, and soon great waves were lashing across the deck, as the ship rolled and wallowed. Ben rushed about trying to get everyone below decks, so he could batten down the hatches. But as soon as he got one sailor to go below, another would pop up from somewhere else.

  And all the time, the ship rolled, and before long it began to take on water.

  ‘Cap’n! We must get the men below decks and batten down the hatches, while we ride out the storm!’ yelled Ben.

  But the Captain had decided to take his supper on the fo’c’sle, and was far too busy – trying to keep the waves off his lamb chop with an egg whisk – to listen to Ben.

  And still the ship took on more water.

  ‘She’s beginning to list!’ shouted Ben. ‘The hold’s filling with water!’

  ‘It’s OK!’ said the Bosun, who had stopped doing the hornpipe, but was still only wearing beetroot juice. ‘Look!’ and he held up a large piece of wood.

  ‘What’s that?’ gasped Ben.

  ‘It’s the ship’s bung!’ said the Bosun proudly. ‘Now any water will run out through the bunghole in the bottom of the ship!’

  ‘You’re a fool!’ yelled Ben.

  ‘I know!’ grinned the Bosun. ‘It’s a Ship of Fools!’

  ‘Now we’ll sink for sure!’ cried Ben.

  And, sure enough, the ship began to sink.

  ‘Man the lifeboats!’ yelled Ben. But the fools had all climbed up the mast and were now clinging to it, playing conkers and ‘I Spy With My Little Eye’.

  So Ben had to launch the lifeboat on his own. And he only managed to do it just as the ship finally went down. Then he had to paddle around in the terrible seas, fishing the crew of fools out of the heaving waters.

  ‘I spy with my little eye something beginning with … S!’ shouted the First Mate, as Ben hauled him into the lifeboat.

  ‘Sea,’ said Ben wearily, and rowed over to the next fool.

  By the time night fell, Ben had managed to get the Captain and the Bosun and the First Mate and all the rest of the crew of fools into the little lifeboat. But they wouldn’t keep still, and they kept shouting and laughing and falling overboard again, and Ben had his work cut out trying to keep them all together.

  By dawn the storm had died down, and Ben was exhausted, but he’d managed to save everyone. One of the fools, however, had thrown all the oars overboard while Ben hadn’t been watching, so they couldn’t row anywhere. And now the First Mate was so hungry he’d started to eat the lifeboat!

  �
�You can’t eat wood!’ yelled Ben.

  ‘You can – if you’re fool enough!’ grinned the First Mate.

  ‘But if you eat the lifeboat, we’ll all drown!’ gasped Ben.

  ‘It’s a pity we don’t have a little pepper and salt,’ remarked the Captain, who had also started to nibble the boat.

  ‘It’s salty enough as it is!’ said the Bosun, who was tucking into the rudder.

  ‘Urgh!’ said the Chief Petty Officer. ‘It’s uncooked! You shouldn’t eat uncooked lifeboat!’

  But they did.

  By midday, they’d managed to eat most of the lifeboat, and Ben had just given them all up for lost, when, to his relief, he saw land on the horizon.

  ‘Land ahead!’ shouted Ben, and he tried to get the fools to paddle with their hands towards it, but they were feeling a bit sick from all the wood they’d just eaten. So Ben broke off the last plank and used that to paddle them towards the shore.

  At last they landed, and the fools all jumped ashore and started filling their trousers with sand and banging their heads on the rocks, while young Ben looked for food.

  He hadn’t looked very far, when a man with a spear suddenly barred his way.

  Ben tried to signal that he meant no harm, that he had been shipwrecked, and that he and his crew-mates were in sore distress. Once the man understood all this, he became very friendly, and offered Ben food and drink. But as soon as the two of them returned to Ben’s shipmates, the crew of fools all leapt up making terrible faces and tried to chase the stranger off.

  ‘Stop it!’ cried Ben. ‘He’s trying to help us!’ But the crew of fools had already jumped on the poor fellow, and started beating and punching him, until eventually he fled back to his village to fetch a war party. ‘Now we can’t even stay here!’ screamed Ben. ‘You’re all fools!’

  ‘Of course we are!’ cried the Captain. ‘We keep telling you – it’s a Ship of Fools!’

  Now I don’t know how what happened next came about, or what would have happened to Ben if it hadn’t, but it did. And this is what it was.

  Young Ben was just wondering what on earth he was going to do, when a sail appeared on the horizon!

  But before Ben could shout out: ‘There’s a ship!’, he turned and saw the war party approaching with spears and bows and arrows, while the crew of fools were busy trying to bury the Bosun head-first in the sand.

  Ben finally shook his head and said: ‘Well you’ve all certainly taught me one thing: and that’s not to waste my time with those I can see are fools – no matter who they are – Captain, Bosun or First Mate!’

  And with that, Ben dived into the sea and swam off to join the other boat. And he left the Ship of Fools to their own fate.

  THE DRAGON ON THE ROOF

  A LONG TIME AGO, in a remote part of China, a dragon once flew down from the mountains and settled on the roof of the house of a rich merchant.

  The merchant and his wife and family and servants were, of course, terrified out of their wits. They looked out of the windows and could see the shadows of the dragon’s wings stretching out over the ground below them. And when they looked up, they could see his great yellow claws sticking into the roof above them.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ cried the merchant’s wife.

  ‘Perhaps it’ll be gone in the morning,’ said the merchant. ‘Let’s go to bed and hope.’

  So they all went to bed and lay there shivering and shaking. And nobody slept a wink all night. They just lay there listening to the sound of the dragon’s leathery wings beating on the walls behind their beds, and the scraping of the dragon’s scaly belly on the tiles above their heads.

  The next day, the dragon was still there, warming its tail on the chimney-pot. And no one in the house dared to stick so much as a finger out of doors.

  ‘We can’t go on like this!’ cried the merchant’s wife. ‘Sometimes dragons stay like that for a thousand years!’

  So once again they waited until nightfall, but this time the merchant and his family and servants crept out of the house as quiet as could be. They could hear the dragon snoring away high above them, and they could feel the warm breeze of his breath blowing down their necks, as they tiptoed across the lawns. By the time they got half-way across, they were so frightened that they all suddenly started to run. They ran out of the gardens and off into the night. And they didn’t stop running until they’d reached the great city, where the king of that part of China lived.

  The next day, the merchant went to the king’s palace. Outside the gates was a huge crowd of beggars and poor people and ragged children, and the rich merchant had to fight his way through them.

  ‘What d’you want?’ demanded the palace guard.

  ‘I want to see the king,’ exclaimed the merchant.

  ‘Buzz off!’ said the guard.

  ‘I don’t want charity!’ replied the merchant. ‘I’m a rich man!’

  ‘Oh, then in you go!’ said the guard.

  So the merchant entered the palace, and found the king playing Fiddlesticks with his Lord High Chancellor in the Council Chamber. The merchant fell on his face in front of the king, and cried: ‘O Great King! Favourite Of His People! Help me! The Jade Dragon has flown down from the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, and has alighted on my roof-top, O Most Beloved Ruler Of All China!’

  The king (who was, in fact, extremely unpopular) paused for a moment in his game and looked at the merchant, and said: ‘I don’t particularly like your hat.’

  So the merchant, of course, threw his hat out of the window, and said: ‘O Monarch Esteemed By All His Subjects! Loved By All The World! Please assist me and my wretched family! The Jade Dragon has flown down from the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, and is, at this very moment, sitting on my roof-top, and refuses to go away!’

  The king turned again, and glared at the merchant, and said: ‘Nor do I much care for your trousers.’

  So the merchant, naturally, removed his trousers and threw them out of the window.

  ‘Nor,’ said the king, ‘do I really approve of anything you are wearing.’

  So, of course, the merchant took off all the rest of his clothes, and stood there stark naked in front of the king, feeling very embarrassed.

  ‘And throw them out of the window!’ said the king.

  So the merchant threw them out of the window. At which point, the king burst out into the most unpleasant laughter. ‘It must be your birthday!’ he cried, ‘because you’re wearing your birthday suit!’ and he collapsed on the floor helpless with mirth. (You can see why he wasn’t a very popular king.)

  Finally, however, the king pulled himself together and asked: ‘Well, what do you want? You can’t stand around here stark naked you know!’

  ‘Your Majesty!’ cried the merchant. ‘The Jade Dragon has flown down from the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain and is sitting on my roof-top!’

  The king went a little green about the gills when he heard this, because nobody particularly likes having a dragon in their kingdom.

  ‘Well, what do you expect me to do about it?’ replied the king. ‘Go and read it a bedtime story?’

  ‘Oh no! Most Cherished Lord! Admired And Venerated Leader Of His, People! No one would expect you to read bedtime stories to a dragon. But I was hoping you might find some way of… getting rid of it?’

  ‘Is it a big dragon?’ asked the king.

  ‘It is. Very big,’ replied the merchant.

  ‘I was afraid it would be,’ said the king. ‘And have you tried asking it – politely – if it would mind leaving of its own accord?’

  ‘First thing we did,’ said the merchant.

  ‘Well, in that case,’ replied the king, ‘… tough luck!’

  Just at that moment there was a terrible noise from outside the palace.

  ‘Ah! It’s here!’ cried the king, leaping onto a chair. ‘The dragon’s come to get us!’

  ‘No, no, no,’ said the Lord High Chancellor. ‘That is nothing to be worried about. It is merely the
poor people of your kingdom groaning at your gates, because they have not enough to eat.’

  ‘Miserable wretches!’ cried the king. ‘Have them all beaten and sent home.’ ‘Er… many of them have no homes to go to,’ replied the Chancellor.

  ‘Well then – obviously – just have them beaten!’ exclaimed the king. ‘And sent somewhere else to groan.’

  But just then there was an even louder roar from outside the palace gates.

  ‘That’s the dragon!’ exclaimed the king, hiding in a cupboard.

  ‘No,’ said the Chancellor, ‘that is merely the rest of your subjects demanding that you resign the crown.’

  At this point, the king sat on his throne and burst into tears. ‘Why does nobody like me?’ he cried.

  ‘Er … may I go and put some clothes on?’ asked the merchant.

  ‘Oh! Go and jump out of the window!’ replied the king.

  Well, the merchant was just going to jump out of the window (because, of course, in those days, whenever a king told you to do something, you always did it) when the Lord High Chancellor stopped him and turned to the king and whispered: ‘Your Majesty! It may be that this fellow’s dragon could be just what we need!’

  ‘Don’t talk piffle,’ snapped the king. ‘Nobody needs a dragon!’

  ‘On the contrary,’ replied the Chancellor, ‘you need one right now. Nothing, you know, makes a king more popular with his people than getting rid of a dragon for them.’

  ‘You’re right!’ exclaimed the king.

  So there and then he sent for the Most Famous Dragon-Slayer In The Land, and had it announced that a terrible dragon had flown down from the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain and was threatening their kingdom.

  Naturally everyone immediately forgot about being hungry or discontented. They fled from the palace gates and hid themselves away in dark corners for fear of the dragon.

  Some days later, the Most Famous Dragon-Slayer In The Whole Of China arrived. The king ordered a fabulous banquet in his honour. But the Dragon-Slayer said: ‘I never eat so much as a nut, nor drink so much as a thimbleful, until I have seen my dragon, and know what it is I have to do.’