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The Tin Bucket, And The Adventure Yet To Be Had; (Elevator challenge submission)
Topic Started: Apr 17 2008, 06:11 AM (597 Views)
Lykaios
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Crayon
[ *  *  *  *  *  * ]
It's five pages long and a bit strange. :) I was thinking that I might continue it sometime? Anyway, I hope you enjoy your read. :)



The Tin Bucket and The Adventure Yet to be had

Once, a very long time ago, in the time when this story is set; the majority of people knew that the most interesting persons like lost royalty and knights lived in the most uninteresting of places. It’s a common cliché that courageous princes who saved whole kingdoms and got the girl came from the gutters of society. Only even the people back then would have sneered down their long noses at the hero of this story. So, in the time of kings, cloud pirates and evil monkeys; where gallant battles were forever being fought in epic journeys of honour and love; there lived a mouse.

The mouse’s name was Arfur and he lived at the edge of the small town of Bucket where nothing ever happened except on Tuesdays. He had seventeen brothers and sisters and a Mam who was a rather strict mother and had kept her children in line by painting it bright orange. She was also an unsung heroine and had saved old Mrs. McDilliput, their unfortunate house-mate, from a nasty case of shame by putting, her son, Vanilla into the cake tin in which had laid a cake the poor old lady had blindly added ‘Ultra Fiery Chilli Sauce’ to. Luckily, Vanilla had always had a passion for hot food and had saved a whole panel of fat-faced judges from burning their tongues on the cake that would have enabled them to breathe fire.

Out of all of his siblings, Arfur was the only one not to have been named after something in the over-stuffed kitchen cupboards of the house they shared with Mrs. McDilliput, a moody old lady who was rather fond of moody cats with appetite and had the biggest hair in the world. Yes, even bigger than yours. One of his sisters had the misfortune to be called ‘Cream Of Chicken’ and another ‘Pickled’. So in a way he was rather lucky, except that his Mam couldn’t spell for cheese.

Arfur and his family of mice lived in a cute little cottage, hidden under the floorboards. It was a very pretty cottage; with a low thatch roof that had a chimney which sometimes and unfortunate seagull would perch on top of for a rest during a long flight. The seagull never stayed long, because after a few minutes it would fly off angrily, its tail feathers smoking.

The cottage was said to have once housed a famous painter, which explained the strange colours the walls that Mrs. McDilliput had never re-decorated over, inside were painted. The kitchen for instance, was painted a bright lime green with violet swirls and burnt orange borders while the bathroom was spattered with blue, orange and a violent and sickly-looking yellow colour. But, despite this, on the outside it had everything that children's fairy tale cottages had. Like flowers, an old red door, a brass doorbell that was hung to the side of the door and pies on the windowsills that always seemed to go missing or end up in someone’s face.

It was on a certain Tuesday, the date of which I have forgotten, when all the birds were on holiday due to stress at work and a hamster was caught stealing hotdogs from Bucket Corner Shop. That Arfur found himself eating a kernel of old corn with his brothers, Asda and Bourbon. On the edge of a bottomless well that was said, in the legends of old, to be the home of a mischievous little fairy called ‘Ivan’, in old Mrs. McDilliput’s garden.

“Now, I told him that there was now way I was going down there and if he wanted to keep his un-knotted tail than he should move on. What was he thinking——” Bourbon said.

“Maybe, that you would be fat enough for dinner?” Arfur butted in. Bourbon gave him a glare that would freeze an army in ice before continuing with his totally and positively un-biased story.

Arfur looked up to the sky where a soft glow lined the tops of the angry grey clouds in yellow and thought about what it would be like to live up in the sky amongst the lightning. The sky cities were said to be of magnificent beauty, paved with mature cheddar and filled with wonderful food cooked by the finest chefs and gardeners in all the lands. Well, in England anyway.

Arfur knew he couldn’t stay in Bucket forever; it was his destiny to explore the world beyond the flowerpots, bring back treasure from undiscovered places and be the first mouse in the world to command a sky ship that he would name. . . ‘Larder’. . .

All of a sudden there came a loud screech that interrupted Arfur from his dreaming and Bourbon from telling Asda about the fire-breathing, sabre-toothed cat he had once saved a whole ant colony from. It was so loud that Asda nearly fell into the bottomless well, never to be seen again. “What was that?” He cried, as all the hairs on his little back stood up on end, so he looked like a distant relative of a porcupine.

They looked the left where there was nothing but fields and the Bucket handle shop where people from all over the country came to buy their handles. Then they looked to the right where old Mrs. McDilliput was pointing by the cottage door and screaming. But beyond her what they saw was most unordinary, and so gob smacking-ly bizarre that for a moment Arfur, Bourbon and Asda thought that what they were seeing couldn’t actually be real.

“Is it a bird?” asked Bourbon, who was dumbfound.

“Is it a pirate ship?” asked Asda, who couldn’t watch.

“No you idiots! It’s Vanilla and Chips and they’re flying!” Arfur exclaimed.

And indeed it was true, Vanilla and Chips were indeed flying. Their craft was none other than a paper aeroplane fitted with two mini turbo engines fixed with sellotape and string. How Chips was steering remained a mystery but she wasn’t a very good pilot, as was clearly visible. The light craft dipped and looped in the air above the house, leaving two little white smoke trails behind it.

Vanilla waved his paws and shouted at Arfur and his brothers on the well and then at the gathering of the rest of his family on the windowsills of the house.

“MAYDAY, MAYDAY! PREPARE FOR A CRASH LANDING!”

There was a whining sound of dying engines and a boom as the paper aeroplane burst into flame and the two mice, with their polka dot parachutes tumbled through the air.

Suddenly there was another scream from Mrs. McDilliput as the two mice landed with a small thump on the top of her huge hair that stood like a giant white bush on top of her head. Her wrinkles deepened as she screamed and tore at her hair, it came out in great big lumps of white fluff that floated up, high into the sky to join the clouds that would soon rain on poor, innocent English peasants.

“MICE, AAHHH! I HATE MICE, GET ‘EM OFF’R ME!” She cried. The noise was so loud that all the rabbits that were eating the cabbages in her vegetable patch darted away as far as the grocers in town, cursing in French.

Arfur stared for a moment at the weird sight before he jumped into action. “Asda get the lift,” he ordered quickly.

Obediently Asda nodded and heaved at the rock that was used to call the tin bucket that served as an excellent elevator to the well roof, from the bottom of the bottomless well. There was a short whooshing sound as the rock plummeted down and the lift came up through the cold darkness. Arfur leapt at just the right time, which was lucky as nobody had ever tested the well to see if it was actually bottomless. He landed with a clang inside of the tin bucket which continued to shoot up to the wooden roof at break-neck speed. Ivan the fairy glared angrilly at Arfur before flying out of the bucket and diving back into the well after the rock.

Asda and Bourbon watched Arfur’s journey up the lift to the roof and then Asda looked at Bourbon and Bourbon looked at Asda and then they both looked at their brother and sister fighting off the mad Mrs. McDilliput’s clawing hands.

“We should help them.” Asda suggested.

“Why would we want to do that?” Asked Bourbon, as he put his paws behind his head to watch; it was a good view after all and there was never much you could watch from that o-so great view on the well, so why waste it?

Meanwhile Arfur’s lift reached the top of the well and gave a little ping as the tin bucket collided with the metal pole supporting the roof. And somewhere down in the well the fairy called Ivan had her home wrecked once again by a rock smashing through her bedroom wall in an alcove in the wall.

Arfur climbed out of the bucket-lift and walked along the supporting beam and then to the edge of the roof which he quickly climbed up. The view from the roof of the well was always great, he could see all the way into the neighbour’s garden where four chickens were playing chess and nibbling on carrots. But bold and courageous Arfur didn’t have time to think about things like that. Though, he should have thought about what he was to do before he did it. However, mice don’t think very far ahead, in fact they only think as far as the tip of their pink noses and then all the way along their shampooed whiskers.

Quickly he surveyed the scene below then took a valiant leap off of the roof and at the last moment grabbed hold of the washing line, swung around it and stood on top of the wire. Arfur breathed and then scurried across the line on all four paws until he was over the top of Mrs. McDilliput’s head.

Just then Asda cheered, “go on Arfur, you can do it.”

The sudden noise over Mrs. McDilliput’s hysterical screeching made Arfur loose his concentration. He wobbled once, and then he wobbled again and his family took a deep breath . . . but he lost his balance and tumbled from the washing line and into Mrs. McDilliput’s hair. The relief of not falling to a premature death didn’t last long as his soft and bouncy landing kept on moving towards the ground.

“Arfuuuurrr, I don’t think it’s reeeeeal!” said Vanilla as he, Chips and Arfur scrabbled inside the gigantic mass of hair as it toppled from Mrs. McDilliput’s head and bounced along the path.

And for the fist time that day, there was absolute quiet; there was no screaming, moaning, munching, talking, mooing, gurgling or squeaking. Just total silence.

But even silence has to be broken at some point, unluckily for Arfur, that point was only about twenty seconds after it started and was broken by the muffled whimpering of Mrs. McDilliput as she gathered up her humungous wig which the three mice had quickly evacuated from and ran back inside with her face and her pink bald head covered by her apron in shame.

It was Ivan the fairy that got everyone moving again by throwing the imposing rock out of the well. “If that comes down ‘ere one more time . . . I’ll . . .” But nobody heard the end of her threats as she disappeared back down into the darkness.

“My babies, my babies, oh I was so worried!” Arfur’s Mam said at the same time as she scuttled down an old broom propped up against the windowsill and embraced Vanilla and Chips in a big hug that could beat any snake in a strangling contest hands down.

“Mam!” Chips choked.

“Oh, sorry dear I was just so scared, what were you thinking? A plane! And you!” She rounded on Arfur, “That was incredibly brave of you. But don’t you ever let me catch you doing something like that again.”

Arfur nodded and said nothing, because he knew his Mam wouldn’t be able to understand his dreams of bigger things. Adventure and anything bigger than a cat in drag had never been a mouse thing.

Just then Mrs. McDilliput crashed out through the cottage door; it fell with a bang and a puff of dirt to the ground. “Mice, mice, Get out, get out all of you, you stinking horrible vermin!” she said through gritted teeth, as she looked at the mice that lined her windowsills, the group on the path and Bourbon and Asda on the well. Her fat pink hands were wrapped around a loaded double-barrelled shotgun that seemed to be smiling with acute malice as best as a hunk of metal can.

She raised the gun and the mice scattered in all directions, “I will no longer have vermin in my house.”

A shot fired and a hole exploded on the roof of the well which sent splinters of wood everywhere. Another shot and the window smashed followed by Arfur and his family leaping into action.

The battle raged for a whole hour through wind and rain, many men fell —well . . . chimney pots, fence posts, masonry and noble cabbages mostly. They both fought hard and long in a mighty battle of evil verses good, of honour and bravery . . .

* * *
Arfur hung his head and stared at the pretty cottage that was now a smoking ruin. Mrs. McDilliput had gone mad and destroyed half her house with the shotgun, she was half blind so hadn’t hit any of his family luckily. They walked in the gloominess and through the rain in a long line away from the house and stared longingly at the happy homes of the rabbits who had now returned with fat bellies from the grocers as the lay stretched out in the meadow. Why was there always a rain cloud over them?

Arfur couldn’t help but think where they were going to live now as he glanced sadly at a rabbit who gave a quick burp before politely saying “pardon me.”

He looked up into the rain and the lights from the sky city caught his eye . . . And POOF!

An idea . . . and idea so brilliant and so amazing that any genius would have eaten carrots for the rest of his life and more, just to have heard it spoken from Arfur the mouse’s lips.

. . . An adventure was still yet to be had. . .
Edited by Lykaios, Apr 18 2008, 07:27 AM.
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