Here are three bedtime stories! More adventures of some of your favourite characters having a little time of it.
Just read them directly off your devices, or download and print them off by clicking on the link below!



THE RIVER SLOUCH SLING
HAS A SLITHER BY THE RIVER THAMES

You will be glad to know all has been quiet and peaceful just lately in The Land Of Sometimes, with very little bickering,
and much chat and laughter rippling through the valleys and the daily seasons.

Mr Smaller than Smaller than Smaller Small Thing has not had his pink socks singed at bedtime by the Electric Volcano for quite some time now, and The Willow Tree Choirboy is quite sure he spotted a new star from the top of the willow tree.


There has been one incident to report however. As many of you know, The River Slouch Sling has a tendency to feel a little lonesome at times.

One day, about two weeks ago, he had just finished his favourite lunch of moss mud pies with fried bull-rush roots. He washed it down nicely with a violet cream from his largest sugar jar on the window sill, and, as he does every day, he snuggled into the corner of his cozy hole in the river bank to have his afternoon nap. Just as he was nodding off, he heard, or at least he is absolutely sure he heard, the tinkling laughter of boys and girls playing in the distance.

Now, after two or three lonely days this was more than he could bear, so he said to himself... “That sounds so spiffing and splendid, I just cant help it, I'm going to have to follow that laughter all the way to London Town and see for myself what the fun is all about.”

And there we are… for the first time in thirty years, he decided to miss his nap and go on an adventure instead. He packed a few lumps of sugar, a handkerchief, one and a half artichoke pies with five red apples, and set off on his way, slithering gently along.

It took him two days and one night to reach the edge of our world, and when he got there, he followed the signs to London. He travelled at night so he wouldn't be seen, understanding that not all the boys and girls in the world knew who he was, and might worry if they saw a large scaly slimy creature like him next to them on the pavement, not knowing he was friendly or anything.

And after he arrived in London, after all that effort, can you believe what happened next?

Before he had even managed to meet the children whose tinkling laughter he had craved so deeply, he became desperately, unbearably homesick. Homesick for his river, for Spring in the morning and Autumn in the afternoon, for his friends the toads and the musty old smell of his muddy old home. Homesick for... yes that’s it, The Land Of Sometimes.

He had one apple and two sugar lumps left, and he turned straight around, tired and hungry and longing for home, to start the road back. But just as he began on his way he was stopped dead in his tracks by something in the distance that caught his attention.

“Now thats a jolly familiar sight” he said to himself, “yes I’ve seen that river bank before, and if I'm right, its a very important River bank indeed.”

And before he could stop himself, he had slithered down the path and was rolling around on the bank of the River Thames, just so that he'd been there if you know what I mean.

And while he was there, having a delightful taste of London river air, someone must have secretly whipped out their camera and taken a picture of him, because here’s what arrived on our desk on Monday morning!

LITTLE TWINK
LEAVES THE LAND OF SOMETIMES

After The River Slouch Sling had an adventure going to London, everything took a little while to settle back down in The Land Of Sometimes. Nerves were jittery, and a great deal of news and gossip was exchanged. There were furtive glances in the grocery shop, as if no one knew who might do something unexpected next.

Mrs Blip had begun a soap swop club just so folk had an excuse to get together and mull things over. The Chameleon Catcher was loaning out his chameleons just so that he could trundle over to people houses to collect them, and have a good look while he was there for any signs of packing and suitcases.


The Man with the Flying Feet was the obvious candidate for an adventure as he could fly such a long way. However, being a man who likes a routine, he told everyone who asked him quite clearly he was very happy where he was thank you very much, and besides, who would water his Spring lilacs, let alone his summer jasmine. Then there was his Autumn plum crop to be picked and collected in time to make jam for the Winter, so on no account would he risk missing a single day in The Land of Sometimes.

The Frosty Fish had been complaining of late that the ice had been melting too early in the day, and his cream was not keeping fresh for his evening meal, so a few rumours abounded that it might be him who would be the next person to pack a bag and try an adventure.

However, we have to report, it was a most unexpected turn of events that produced the next unusual episode in The Land of Sometimes and it concerns our naughty fairy, Little Twink.

We all know that Little Twink creeps through every keyhole and open window she can find during the night, and messes up the bedroom as much as she possible can whilst dancing to disco music.

Generally the folk in The Land of Sometimes are very forgiving and for a long time she had got away with it. However we have to inform you, very annoyingly for her, the girls and boys in our magic land were beginning to feel just a tiny bit fed up when EVERY morning they were getting into trouble with their parents for having such messy bedrooms, so they had started to take precautions.

Keyholes were beginning to be covered with sticky tape with small signs saying ‘KEEP OUT’! Windows were fastened with glue and tape and locks and bolts were used in abundance.

Instead of a feast of happy messing and dancing, Little Twink was starting to have to fly for a good couple of hours before she found a nice open window or an enticing little open keyhole to whizz through, ready to dance to her disco music and create a delicious mess.

The trouble with things not going quite as they should is that sometimes it makes people sad, and this is exactly what happened to Little Twink. Every time a window was barred or a keyhole was covered, her little heart sank and she felt just a small pinch of heart ache, or a wave of feeling unwelcome. All these feelings grew and grew in her until one day she just SNAPPED!

“Right, that’s it”, she said to herself. “If all the children in The Land Of Sometimes no longer appreciate the wonderful mess I make in their bedrooms at night, I will leave this land and go in search of a new land with different children in it.”

And that, dear friends, is exactly what she did.

In the middle of the night Twink packed her bags.

“Hmmm, three mulberry milkshakes should be enough, along with some goji berries and six lemon pancakes. I’ll take all my disco music and my disco music machine, along with three changes of disco outfits and plenty of naughtiness!”

She shut the door of her room in her tall white tower, and off she went. She flew for a night and a day without stopping, except for a small five minute stop on the top of a building to rest her wings.

As dawn was approaching, Little Twink, weary and excited, noticed a huge mass of buildings and what looked like an enormous and vibrant city.

“Where on earth am I?” She thought.

She considered asking someone, but thought against it, as she was not sure what people in this land thought of little fairies like her, and anyway, everybody seemed rather large and strange. She found a bed in an empty plastic cup in an alley way and slept until dark.

When it was night time, she changed into her favourite disco outfit, and off she went in search of open windows. Aaaah, the delight she felt as she entered keyhole after keyhole, messing up rooms in the most delirious way! Windows were open wide and welcoming, and drawers were full of marvellous socks, buttons and neatly stacked toys, just waiting to be thrown around the room in heavenly chaos!

Little Twink must have messed up twenty bedrooms before she realised how tired and hungry she was. She searched for a quiet place that she could call her own, and noticed a huge white dome. Peering closer she found that under the roof of the dome were large gold ornaments just the perfect size for her little house.

She settled down on one of them and started to feel right at home, laying out her pancakes and tucking in, tittering gently to herself as she thought of all those children waking up in a glorious mess.

Just as she was enjoying the second mouthful of a lemon pancake, something terrible happened. Her lovely golden home started to rock backwards and forwards, toppling her pancakes and clothes and milkshakes off into the air. But the worst thing of all was that it made the most terrible, monstrous DIN.

It clanged and clanged as Little Twink tried desperately to gather her food and clothes before they flew away! As she raced in circles round and round trying to block her ears from the deafening sound, she noticed a man standing on the ground way down below her pulling on a long rope that seemed to be attached to her lovely new home.

“Oh my goodness, my lovely new home is a bell!” Little Twink cried out, and in a mad panic, without looking behind her, she fled into the air.

She flew all through the day, and all through the night. She flew until her wings drooped and her arms and legs ached. She flew straight into night time and winter in The land of Sometimes.

As she glided over the village, she spotted hundreds of sparkling sweet wrappers stuck all over the children’s window panes with sticky tape. The wrappers were covered in tiny messages written by all the children in pencil.

This is what they said…


Lilttle Twink, grinning from ear to ear, flopped into her messy bedroom at the top of her tall white tower.

‘I had better get a good night’s sleep tonight, as from tomorrow; I have some serious disco dancing and messing up children’s bedrooms to attend to!”

And with that marvellous thought, Little Twink snuggled into her familiar messy old bed, and went to sleep.

THE MAN WITH THE FLYING FEET HAS AN ADVENTURE
HE DIDN'T REALLY MEAN TO HAVE!

We think this will probably be the last adventure from The Land Of Sometimes for a while as it is a lazy peaceful place, and generally the folk who live there don’t like their routine to be upset.


However we have to report that Since Little Twink hurried back from the bell tower in St Paul’s cathedral, the children haven’t minded her messing up their rooms one bit, in fact, they have been very cheeky to their parents and refused to tidy up themselves! Most of the parents know what Little Twink gets up to, but the ones that don’t walk around all day and night extremely cross and baffled as to why their little darlings have become quite so untidy.

Nothing unusual has happened since Little Twink came home on that starry night, and no one has been on an adventure, except someone I’m sure many of you would not expect as he so likes his gentle routine; The man With the Flying Feet went on an adventure by mistake! This is what happened.

It was a particularly lovely autumn afternoon, and The Man with the Flying Feet was enjoying himself enormously, flying and swooping over the river where The River Slouch Sling was enjoying an afternoon nap. He flew over Little Twink’s tower and the willow tree where The Willow Tree Choirboy sat playing tiddlywinks. He flew over the little pea green house where The Chameleon catcher was lining up his chameleons at feeding time, and the mountain where The Electric Volcano guardian was having a competition all by himself, spitting cherry stones as far as he could, eagerly waiting for winter.

The Man with the Flying Feet was so happy waving down to all his friends and watching the beautiful view, that as he flew, he didn’t notice that the wind was stirring and the leaves were starting to fall. Before he knew it, a sharp wind had started up and WINTER was upon him, with thick snow falling thick and fast.

“Drat! I never fly in winter,” he muttered. “Dear me, I’ll have to walk home.”

But he couldn’t possibly walk home dear friends, because he couldn’t possibly LAND. The snow was so dense, and the fog was so deep, he couldn’t see one foot in front of him, or even his nose for that matter. He had stayed up on his autumn flying spree just a few minutes too long, and now he was stuck in the air, with no hope of getting down to the ground gently.

“Botheration, what on earth shall I do ?” he thought, but just as he was wondering whether The Guardian of The Electric Volcano might help by sending some fireflies up to show him the way, he was jolted by a huge gust of wind that took him far away to the other side of the Island, and beyond.

It pushed him this way and that, forwards, backwards, high, then lower, then higher again, until he was sailing over the ocean leaving his beloved Land of Sometimes far behind him.

“Oh dear, this is not a good end to the day!” he cried out, even though absolutely no one could hear him.

On and on he flew, pushed by the wind, rocketing this way and that, forwards, sideways, backwards, not knowing where he was, or indeed where he was heading.

After what seemed like a lifetime of being bossed about by an angry wind, the air seemed to grow calmer, and the warm light of dawn could be seen in the distance. The Man with The Flying Feet began to feel his feet slowing down, and with a huge sigh of relief, he saw the earth beneath him.

“Well I may not know where I am, but at least there seems to be a ground for me to land on and pavements too, and even a nice hot cup of sweet tea if I’m lucky! I’ll venture down there right away as that big clock says it is a quarter to ten, which is my favourite time for breakfast!” he said, pointing at a rather beautiful tower with a clock at the top of it.

We all know that when we are extremely peckish we do the oddest things, and as The Man With the Flying Feet gathered himself up and gently circled the area, deciding with pleasure which café might give him the best breakfast, he accidentally opened his briefcase and all his papers tumbled out in the air. The papers were completely blank so it didn’t matter losing them, he just liked the idea of having lots of paper in his briefcase in case he needed to feel important or wanted to write something. However as these empty pieces of paper floated to the ground, they started to attract attention, and the people below began to look up, wondering where they had come from. All at once he heard a wild scream, and peering down, he saw a little girl pointing up at him with her eyes popping out on stalks. Her parents joined in, and soon there was a small crowd staring up at him pointing and shouting in amazement.

“Don’t any of these folk know me?” he thought, rather bemused, after all, his feet were well known in The Land of Sometimes, and he was not at all used to all this fuss!

A tall thick set man had joined the crowd, and seemed to have put himself in charge.

“You there, come down here if you please! We would like to know the secret of how you manage to stay in the air!”

The Man with The Flying Feet was a good natured fellow, and was happy to comply. He flew down to the ground and told the ever expanding crowd that his feet had been flying since he was two years old, and he was very happy for it. It made it a lot quicker running errands, and he had never had to wait in a traffic jam in his whole life! He also happened to mention he was very peckish and asked them all if they would recommend a nice little spot for him to have his breakfast.

“I’ll give you breakfast all right, if you will spare a minute. I have a proposition for you!” the large gentleman said. “You can earn a few bob for yourself over the summer by giving rides to children over the river Thames. A sixpence a go, what do you say?”

The Man with the Flying Feet pondered over this as he tucked into muffins and strawberry jam provided by a small café next to the clock tower.

After a while he said,

“I don’t mind if I do! I have been saving up for a new pair of shoes, and a few extra bob might come in handy!”

So that is how a new arrangement began. An arrangement with no middle and no end, an arrangement that just carried on, hour after hour, day after day, with just a small break for lunch. The shop fronts that lay dotted around the huge clock were transformed into booths for taking money, and cues of excited hopeful flyers lined the streets. For months and months our friendly man from ‘The Land of Sometimes’ took children on his back, flying up into the air with the power from his magic feet, whizzing them over The river Thames. To begin with he made friends with them, and enjoyed meeting all the little faces lit up with glee, but after weeks and weeks of the same thing, The Man with the Flying Feet became sadder and sadder, and missed his precious land beyond belief. He started refusing his food, and all the goodies that were offered to him by all the families who had come to town especially to meet him and ‘have a little fly!’ People began to notice he was getting thinner, and was starting to look really rather sad.

“If you don’t perk up, you won’t be strong enough to carry the kids, and then where shall we be!” piped the tall man who was now the boss, and spent his time in a dark blue suit ,counting up the money given to him by the men in the booths.

Back in The Land of Sometimes there had been a great amount of concern over why The Man with The Flying Feet had gone missing, and there were at least five conferences to discuss where he could possibly be. It had been decided by Mrs Blip [who was tremendously bossy as you can imagine], that everyone should go on the lookout, especially those who lived in high places, and those on the ground should start looking for clues.

And so it was, one day at lunch time in the middle of summer, The Willow Tree Choirboy was staring through his binoculars high up in the branches of the willow tree, when he spotted The Man With The Flying Feet with what seemed like a child clinging to his back, swooping around a large clock on top of a tower. He called a conference straight away to share the news. Little Twink shouted out, saying she knew exactly where that clock was as she had zoomed past it on her way home from St Paul’s Cathedral, and it was decided [you guessed it, by Mrs Blip], that Twink should fly back there, unseen, and deliver a map to The Man with The Flying Feet so he could find his way home.

She left early the next morning, and even though she couldn’t find HIM as he was busy taking a couple of large twins across the Thames, she left a note with the map on the spike of the clock tower. As The Man with the Flying Feet passed the tower he saw the note flapping in the wind, and scooped it up out of curiosity.

“My goodness, it’s for me!” he cried out with joy, with a warm feeling creeping all over him, that all this time his friends in The Land of Sometimes had been wondering where he was, and had been clever enough to write him a map so he could re trace the path his flying feet took on that stormy winter evening so many months ago.


As soon as the first light of day crept over the river the next morning, The man with The Flying Feet started his flight back home, holding the map in front of him. He didn’t take a single penny of the money he had earned all those months. It was too heavy to carry, and besides, he had grown fond of his old shoes, and had plenty of everything he wanted back home in The Land of Sometimes!


“Yippee"


I’ll be home in time for breakfast!” he shouted, as the edge of the land came into view.

In no time at all he was sitting at his breakfast table, and word got out that he was back. One by one his dear old friends marched into his humble home and demanded an explanation of what had happened. Clearing away the cobwebs and opening the shutters, they fell on banana and blue cheese pies bought over by Mrs Blip, washed down by The River Slouch Sling’s own apple juice, and followed by Little Twink’s lemon pancakes sprinkled with raspberries grown by Mr Small. There they sat tucking in and chattering on for the most part of the day; all except for The Frosty Fish of course, he had to leave a little early as he had left his cream and spice at home!