Tag Archives: children

Find the White Horse and other stories

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For the story so far click here 🙂

For cookery we made party food! We made a big bakewell tart and twelve miniature ones, sosmix rolls and a big sponge cake.  Mum helped us make pastry for the bakewell tarts and for the sosmix rolls, and I put the jam in the bottom of the bakewell tarts, Jude made the cake mixture and poured it into the tins.

We put it all in the oven to bake and while it was cooking we cleaned up the kitchen and washed up the bowls and spoons and things.

We went to bed early so we could read our books. I have already read thirty-seven pages of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix but there are still hundreds of pages left, so I know I won’t finish it before it has to go back to the library.  It’s a great story! Hermione likes knitting just like me.  Except she does magic knitting.  She has a magic cat with one red eye and one green eye, who is really grumpy.  I would like it if the story was all just happy, but sadly there are some scary characters too.

Thursday 21 November

This morning we read some more David Copperfield, it is such a good story we just wanted to keep going.  We took it in turns to read it out loud.  Poor David keeps getting in trouble with Mr Murdstone and his horrible sister who has taken over the house.  At the end of the chapter we read today, chapter four, Peggotty is whispering to him through the keyhole of his bedroom door, where he has been locked, and she tells him he is going to be sent away the next day to school.  It’s so sad because the three of them were so happy before Mr and Miss Murdstone arrived.

This afternoon we made salt dough Christmas tree decorations!  Salt dough is excellent. We made round ball ornaments and rolled the dough out and cut shapes like bells and circles and little people.  Then we made holes in them so that once they are baked we can thread strings through and hang them on the tree.

Then Jude worked with Mum going through her mental arithmetic test, and I did a beat the clock maths test in my room at my desk.  I had to clear my clothes off my chair first because I keep forgetting to put them away – I always think I’ll wear them again tomorrow so hanging them seems a waste of time but the next day I choose something different and eventually I’ve got nowhere to sit.

I finished reading my book I Want Doesn’t Get!

I really enjoyed it, it’s different to other books I’ve read. It’s all about this boy called Julian, who lives with his sisters, and doesn’t know where his mum has gone. I liked it because it had lots of little details about what Julian thinks about what’s happening, a lot of the pages had little notations at the bottom of each page, explaining words and phrases.

Tuesday 26 November

This morning we went swimming and I swam a whole width without touching the floor! Jude swam a whole length without stopping!

We went to the library and I chose some books to read since I finished I Want Doesn’t Get on Thursday, and I had to return the Harry Potter book because it was due back at the library. I don’t mind taking a break from it, it’s really long.

I borrowed a book called Find The White Horse by Dick King Smith which is about two dogs and a cat and a pigeon who get lost from their homes and have to try to find their way back.  It’s called Find The White Horse because one of the dogs lived in a house on a hill with a chalk horse carved into it, so he knows where he’s heading, and the other animals just want to come too.

I also got a book about toads and a book about witches. Jude got some more fox books and Mum got some history books.

continues tomorrow 🙂

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Portraits and Gingerbread

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For the story so far click here 🙂

Friday 15 November

I am making a dress!  I’ve got a whole lot of blue fabric and a pattern to follow.  The first thing you have to do is cut out all the pieces of paper, pin them onto your fabric and cut around them.  That’s what I did today. Next time I will sew the seams with the sewing machine.

While I was doing that, Jude made an apple crumble. I love apple crumble, I love the crunchy top and the soft fruit.  We had it after dinner with custard which Mum made.

I also had a times tables test today, and I scored nine out of twelve!  Then we made drawings of Dmitri, which was wonderful because he’s so handsome.  He’s black and white mostly, but I coloured in his brown eyes, his blue collar and his pink tongue.

In the evening we got dressed up and sat on the settee in a pose for Mum to paint us. I love being painted, I wore a scarf and a purple dress, and Jude wore her stripey top and Mum’s beautiful orange dress. It’s like being in the time of Robin Hood when they had to paint pictures of each other because they hadn’t invented the camera yet.

It’s not finished yet, Mum says it will take several sittings for her to do the whole painting. So far she has painted us all in lines, and started to colour us in, but there aren’t any details yet.

Monday 18 November

This morning for English I wrote a letter in formal language, and Jude wrote poetry. I like writing letters, it makes me feel like I’m in a story, because I imagine all kinds of mystery and adventure could be started by a letter. Jude has a book which is entirely written in letters, it’s called P.S. Longer Letter Later. That’s a great title because all the words begin with L, which is alliteration.

After lunch Mum and I worked on sewing the bodice of my dress, which was really complicated! I’m so afraid I’ll sew it wrong, there’s lots of pieces to sew together and none of them look like pieces of a dress.

While I was sewing Jude made two gingerbread cakes!  We had some after dinner and it is delicious!  I love gingerbread cake, it’s so sticky! I like that it’s soft inside and crispy like toffee on the outside.

Wednesday 20 November

Today in science we tested our rainwater for pollution and acid rain.  We had these special pieces of paper, called “Universal indicator paper” which you dip in the water and then it changes colour depending on the pH levels.  This is all to do with Hydrogen ions, and how many there are in the water.  Too many mean it is acidic and too few make it basic. Ordinary water should be somewhere in the middle, which is called neutral.So, if the rain water was basic, the test papers would turn blue or purple, and if the rain water was acid the papers would turn red or pink or orange.  If water is neutral, the papers turn green!  And that’s what happened.  We did the test several times because it’s fun.

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continues tomorrow 🙂

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Not Too Spicy For Dad

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For the story so far click here 🙂

Tuesday 12 November

We read to the end of chapter six of Wuthering Heights.  It’s a great story, everyone is very mysterious and dramatic.  I think Heathcliff is a bit scary, although you can’t blame him for getting cross with Mr Lockwood, he’s a very annoying character, I would get cross with him if I was Heathcliff.  Nelly is my favourite character so far.

We have been writing out our reports for Operation Independence in our best handwriting.  A whole week of shopping and planning and cooking takes a long time to write out neatly.

In the afternoon we made salt dough plaques to hang on our bedroom doors. Salt dough is a bit like clay, so I pretended I was a sculptor. We made our names and decorated the edges with forks.

Wednesday 13 November

We did Batik today!  We made our own dye by picking mint leaves from the garden and boiling them in water.  Then we melted red and yellow wax crayons in a pot over some hot water, the same way you melt chocolate.  We painted leaves onto a tea towel with wax, and then we let that go cold and used our mint dye to dye the tea towel green! Once that is dry you are supposed to remove the wax with an iron, but we haven’t done that yet.

In the afternoon we went to Nanny’s house and did cookery!  Jude made samosas and I made spicy garlic mushrooms fried in batter.  Sadly I don’t like them, they taste too spicy. I will feed them to Dad, because he likes things like that.

Thursday 14 November

Jude wrote a newspaper report for English today, which is one of her favourite things to do because one day she wants to be a reporter, like Lois Lane.

Mum said I should write an essay describing what happened on our trip to the Robin Hood Pageant.  I used a lot of adjectives.  Luckily I had written about it in my diary, which helped me remember the details.

Later on Mum made a still life for us to draw using a fruit bowl and things.  She showed us how to hold a pencil differently to the way you do when you are writing words and numbers.  You hold it gently so that you don’t press hard.

We read some more Wuthering Heights today, I feel sorry for Heathcliff, he is so lovely when he is little. Nelly is still one of my favourite characters, I don’t like the Lintons at all.continues tomorrow 🙂

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Running out of pink yarn

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For the first chapter of What Me And Jude Did While Everyone Else Was At School click here

Chapter Two continues …🙂

I’ve started reading my Harry Potter book, it’s good so far, it’s funny and exciting.  I read some of it out to Mum and Dad, and they like it too.  Jude is reading Emma by Jane Austen.

Jude told me that in her library book there are lots of different kinds of foxes, some with big ears, some which are white or orange, tiny little ones and great big ones.Thursday 7 November

For my dinner today I made pasta and pasta sauce and lettuce and tomatoes and cucumber! This project is so much fun!  It’s great, I am pretending I’m a witch who lives in a big house full of witches, and it’s my job to follow the budget and feed us all.  Jude made pasta and vegetable hotpot.  It was really sunny today.

In the morning I did knitting.  I’m running out of pink yarn for my pig, but Mum says that’s okay, because I can use brown because some pigs are pink and brown!

In the afternoon I read some more Harry Potter.  I really like all the descriptions of the different characters, Ron is very funny and Hermione is so caring.  They all live in a haunted castle together.

Friday 8 November

We are studying the Celtic people in history.  They were artists who made beautiful carvings of intricate knots and things.  Mum read from the book to us and then we answered questions and made drawings from photos in the book.

In the afternoon we worked on our own projects.  I am still making my knitted pig which I found very challenging today because I had to increase and decrease stitches to make a leg for him.

Jude was sewing beads onto her caterpillar, which is getting very pretty!  I asked her if she thought she would put wings on the caterpillar so that sometimes he could turn into a butterfly, but she said that would be impossible.

We had our geography test, we had to label each country on a blank map of Europe.  I got twenty-six right!  That’s more than half, because there are forty four countries in Europe.  Next we are going to learn all the counties in the UK!

We also gave Dmitri a bath with mint and tea tree shampoo which keeps fleas away. Dmitri looks so sweet and little when he’s wet.  It takes all three of us to give him a bath because he tries to climb out the whole time.

Monday 11 November

We visited The City Museum and Art Gallery and saw paintings and sculptures by an artist called Richard Barnard.  I really like pottery sculptures, I bet it would be fun to make them.  My favourite was a lovely sculpture of a sitting woman.  I think it would be nice if sculptures were painted, because most of the time they are grey or brown, because that’s what colour the clay is.

We got some books from the library about Batik and Shakespeare and a book called Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontё.

When we got home we read Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream which is about a naughty fairy who casts a spell on the fairy queen because he loves her, but all kinds of things go wrong, and everybody falls in love with the wrong person.

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continues Monday.  Have a lovely weekend 🙂

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November began like so

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For the first chapter of What Me And Jude Did While Everyone Else Was At School click here 🙂

Chapter Two:

Monday 4 November

We are doing a project called Operation Independence!  We have to plan and cook our own meals all week!  This morning Mum gave us each £20 and we went to the supermarket and bought all the food we think we’ll need!  We each had our own trolleys, and had to check the prices of different foods to make sure we had enough money.

At dinner time we each made our own dinners!  I made Sosmix, steamed potatoes, broccoli, carrots and gravy, and Jude made tomato soup, muffins and salad.

We have to keep a record of everything we do so that we can write a report at the end of the week!

Tuesday 5 November

In geography today we have been memorising all the countries in Europe and making a map with them all on.  It’s not easy to remember what all the countries are, there are so many!  There’s a tiny little one which I keep forgetting the name of.

Later I baked a chocolate cake which is one of my favourite recipes, the edges are wonderfully crispy and the icing is really thick, it’s called chocolate fudge icing. I really like spreading it out over the top of the cake.

Jude made Hungarian potatoes for her dinner, with broccoli, and I made Sosmix, new potatoes and baked beans. I love baked beans, they are my favourite food. And Sosmix is delicious.  All you have to do is add water to the powder in the box, and make your sausages out of the mixture! Then you can cook them on the grill or in the oven or you can fry them.  I made mine on the grill because Jude was using the frying pan to fry her onions and tomatoes, and the oven to bake her Hungarian potatoes.  Hungary is one of the countries we need to remember for geography!

Wednesday 6 November

After swimming today we cycled through the park to the library. We don’t usually go that way, I have never been through that park before. It had a stream running through it which had some shopping trolleys in it, which is so sad for the birds and fishes, if there are any. I wonder why anyone would put them there? We rode our bikes over a bridge across the stream, and then took a short cut through the supermarket car park.

At the library we chose some books from the non-fiction section about animals because we are starting our own projects. I borrowed books about apes, and Jude borrowed books about foxes.  I also got Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix !  It is the longest book I’ve ever seen! I haven’t read any of the other Harry Potter books, but this one looks really interesting. It’s got a red and yellow phoenix on the front.

When we got home we had lunch and then we read David Copperfield.  Sadly David has come home from his holiday with Peggotty to find that nothing in his house is the way he remembers it, and his mum is all stressed and uncomfortable.

Later on I made mashed potato pie with textured vegetable protein and tomatoes and onions and carrots and gravy. It’s difficult to cut onions without your eyes watering – I tried wearing sunglasses but it didn’t help. I stirred the gravy because it gets lumpy if you don’t stir it.

continues tomorrow 🙂

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Me and Jude’s story continues tomorrow

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Chapter two of What Me and Jude Did While Everyone Else Was At School starts tomorrow!

Don’t miss it! 😉

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Good ole Mr Peggotty

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For the story so far click here 🙂

Jude has been working on her caterpillar again, while I read David Copperfield out loud to us all.  David has gone on holiday with Peggotty to Yarmouth.  They go to stay with her brother, Mr Peggotty, who lives in a boat on the beach with two children, Emily, who is around the same age as David, and Ham, who is older and Mrs Gummidge.  There is a funny conversation where David asks lots of questions.  He finds out that Ham and Emily are cousins, who were both orphaned and then adopted by Mr Peggotty.  Mrs Gummidge was married to Mr Peggotty’s business partner, but she is a widow now, and so lives with him too.  They are all funny and interesting characters, I especially like Mr Peggotty, because you can tell he likes David.After that mum helped me make a design and then I drew it onto a T shirt with fabric pastels!  My design had flowers and a dog.  I used purple and orange and blue pastels.

Thursday 31 October

Today we had the special cereal with the strawberries in it. I love that.  I am always disappointed to find there is no fruit in cereals which have fruit on the box, mum told me that is just a serving suggestion.  But today’s cereal did have fruit in it!  Jude and I always argue over who has taken too many strawberries, but I can’t help it if they happen to fall out of the box into my bowl.

In the afternoon we made pop up cards and collage cards by cutting up magazines and coloured paper.  Jude made drawings of cartoons and stuck them on paper springs, and I cut out pictures of dogs and cats and flowers from a magazine.

This was the last day of our first month of home-school.  I like it.

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Halloween pumpkins and old artefacts

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For the story so far click here 🙂

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Monday 28 October

Mum said that because I haven’t been able to learn to type, I could practise my handwriting instead. I have quite good writing when I am careful, but it gets messy when I rush or get distracted.  After that I read my book.  I’m reading a book called I Want Doesn’t Get  by Rony Robinson.  It’s really good. It’s about a little boy and his two sisters.

This afternoon I had a mental arithmetic test and a times table test.  I am not very good at doing maths in my head, so after the test mum went through all the questions with me and showed me how to do the ones I had done wrong.

I don’t really remember the times tables unless I do them one at a time, in the right order. Jude wrote a story.

Tuesday 29 October

We were going to do science this morning, but we wanted to do an experiment about the greenhouse effect, mum said it wasn’t sunny enough so we can do it another day.  So we did spellings instead.  We had to write out the meanings of the words we learned, and then we did our projects.  Jude’s caterpillar is nearly finished, it looks really good.  I am still working on my pig, which is not nearly finished.

We had tomato paté and salad sandwiches for lunch, and we watched the BBC play, which was about some ladies who go to live in a caravan, which starts to roll down a hill, but then it stops.

I wrote another story for English.  The exercise was to make a plan and then make a story.  This time I wrote a story about a girl called Bernice who meets a goblin in her garden, and then she gets into an argument with him because he won’t let her put the washing out.  Eventually the goblin runs away.

Jude was also writing a story, but hers had to have propositions and complex sentences.  Jude said she was writing a really scary story with creepy monsters and vampires.  She’s really good at making up those sorts of stories.

In cookery lesson we carved Halloween pumpkins!  We scooped out the insides and then we cut out scary eyes and teeth and noses, it was brilliant.

Wednesday 30th October

After swimming we visited the museum at the Heritage Centre.  It is great in there because you can see inside a glass case pictures of what the town looked like a hundred years ago, and there are artefacts like tin pots and badges from the 1920s.  They have an old hair dresser’s chair with a big blow drier fixed to the top.  I don’t like that though because it looks like an evil villain’s brain-washing chair.

I like the little room at the back, which is decorated to look like a little kitchen, and you can look in at all the old food tins and boxes from the early 1900s, and there is an old kettle and an old iron and things.  It’s really interesting.

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continues tomorrow 🙂

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The Robin Hood Pageant

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For the whole chapter click here 🙂

Saturday 26 October

Today we went to the Robin Hood Pageant!  We went on the train to Nottingham in the morning, and when we got to the castle we had our picture taken with a statue of Robin Hood.

At the pageant there was archery, sword fighting and jousting, just like in A Knight’s Tale!  We didn’t go and see that, but there were people dressed as knights, noblemen, noblewomen and peasants from history.  Jude got a bow and arrows so that she can learn to do archery, and I got a wooden toy sword!  And I also got a historical Robin Hood colouring book.

A woman showed us how she was making something on a loom, and there was a spinning wheel.  Mum bought a little loom so that we can make our own cloth!

We saw a potter, and he explained to us what his different pots were for.  He had a great tall pot which he said was for putting pears in, to store them and preserve them for the winter.  He said that you would fill up the pot with pears and then pour alcohol into it, and they would last a long time, and make a nice dessert.

Jude bought a money box from him which had a slot, but no hole in the bottom for money to come out.  You have to break it to get the money out.  The man said you could use a knife and some jam to try to get a coin out, but I think that would be difficult.

People were milling grains with a big mill stone, and they explained to us that they used to make very white flour for the rich people by putting all the milled grains into a piece of cloth to sieve out all the brown pieces, and the rich people would have white bread while the poor people would have the wholemeal bread flour which was left over.  She said that as a result, the poor people were much healthier than the rich people.

I got dressed up as a knight in chain mail and a helmet, which was very exciting.  I had my picture taken and it was great.  A knight’s armor is very heavy, so after I had taken it all off I felt queasy, I don’t know how people could walk around in that stuff, and fight battles.

continues tomorrow 🙂

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The Big Draw

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For the whole chapter click here 🙂

For maths I had to do brain teasers about square numbers and division.  That was exhausting!  This afternoon we made still life pastel drawings!  Mum set it up for us to draw three teddy bears sitting in a row.  They are Jude’s bears, she won them at the Christmas bazaar by guessing the name of the littlest one.Friday 18 October

Tomorrow we are going to the Big Draw!  I can’t wait!  I can hardly think about anything else.  I was distracted all through history this morning.  We were learning about the Bronze Age.  That was when the cave people started melting tin and copper and things to make bronze, so that they’d have something other than stones to work with.  The Bronze Age people invented writing and the wheel.  We looked at pictures of Bronze Age roundhouses and longboats in our history book.

We carried on working on our own projects, I have started a new project, knitting a pig!  I am following a pattern from a book about making toys.

Saturday 19 October

Today we visited The Big Draw!  It was at a big city art gallery.  I had a really good time.  Me and Jude made self-portraits and still life drawings and texture rubbings.  There were tables full of pieces of paper and crayons and boxes of pine cones and feathers and leaves to draw.

After that they took us into a room and there were lots of children making a great big abstract drawing together, on a huge piece of paper on the floor.  There were lots of toy cars and we dipped them in paint and then played with them across the paper, making a drawing.  It was a lot of fun, and there was a raffle to see who got to keep the giant picture, but we didn’t win it.  It was great fun, we had such a good time.

Sunday 20 October 

We are having a half term holiday this week. I got up early this morning and watched cartoons.

When the post came there was a free catalogue of women’s clothes, so I took it out to the porch, cut out all the women and played with them.  They were great paper dolls, but eventually I took them outside to have them swim in the puddle, and they all fell apart.  

I did some drawings of the Power Puff Girls! Bubbles is my favourite because Blossom is bossy and Buttercup is angry.

continues tomorrow 🙂

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It’s a shame about Garth

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For the whole chapter click here 🙂

Tuesday 15 October

We swam for an hour today, and we returned some books but we didn’t get any more out.  It was breezy outside riding our bikes, we put cotton wool in our ears so we didn’t get ear ache after swimming.  In English I have started reading a book called Carrie’s War, about Carrie and her brother who are evacuated from London during the Second World War.  They live with a grumpy shop keeper and his sister, and they make friends with a little boy called Albert Sandwich.

After that I worked in my English workbook where I learned about paragraphs and comparisons.

For dinner Jude made “Hungarian potatoes” and pancakes.  “Hungarian potatoes” has slices of potato, fried tomatoes and onions and gravy and it’s all baked in the oven.  I made a coffee and syrup cake.

Wednesday 16 October

In science we learned how power stations store electricity, and that energy is always changing.  We made experiments out of a knitting needle and a cork and a salt pot which we cut the end off of to demonstrate how a water mill works.

At lunchtime we had peanut butter and Marmite on toast.  I like to make toast and put the margarine on straight away, so that it melts in and gets really soft.  Jude does it like that too, and Dad says she puts too much margarine on her toast.  Mum likes her toast well done, and I like mine so it’s hardly toasted at all, hot but not brown, Jude likes it to be medium toasted.

While we were eating we watched Cheers.  Cheers is great because it’s funny.  My favourite character is the woman who is played by the mum in Matilda, she is really great when she gets angry and goes crazy.  I can’t remember her name. I really like the theme tune.

In needlework we learned cross stitch sewing.  There are lots of different ways to sew, and we practised half-cross stitch and herringbone stitch.  When we finished we stuck them in our scrap books and cut out labels printed off the computer and stuck them in too.  We cut the labels out in decorative ways to make our books interesting.

Jude made drawings when lessons were over, she is really good at drawing cartoon people.  I played with my dolls and one of them broke in half because she fell while she was rock climbing.  The other dolls were pretty worried but it’s okay, because she was rushed to hospital and I Selotaped her back together again.

Jude has dolls from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  She has a Willow, a Buffy and an Angel doll.  But I’m not supposed to touch them, because they are very fragile, and sometimes their arms fall off.  Sometimes I do go and look at them though.

Thursday 17 October

This morning Jude was working on formulae for maths, which is all about triangles and circles and rectangles.  I do English while she does maths, and for English I had to write a story!  I wrote a story about a girl called Rakel who is supposed to go on a bus ride, but she doesn’t, instead she goes into this cave with her friends and finds magic crystals.  It all goes wrong when something bad happens and they have to run for it, and one of them, Garth, gets trapped and they have to leave him behind.  Mum said that was a bit harsh, leaving Garth behind, and I did feel bad about that, but that’s just a tragic part of the story.  I didn’t know how to end the story, so it doesn’t have an ending yet.

continues tomorrow 🙂

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Small hands

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Continued from yesterday 🙂 :

Saturday 12 October

I went to music school and learned how to play the theme tune to Rugrats on my keyboard!  My friend Dana is really good, and she showed me the songs she has been playing at home.  Virginia, who is my other friend, is learning to play the clarinet, and when she has learned to play the clarinet, she says she will learn to play the saxophone, like Lisa Simpson! The teacher played us some of his CDs, which he keeps in a big folder, like a photo album.  Our teacher is called Arlo, and his assistant is called Lucas.  Lucas said that Dana, Virginia and me always wear the same colours, and he asked if we planned it that way.  We laughed because we had never noticed that.

After keyboard lessons was music theory, which never makes much sense because most of the children are naughty, but also because we are all learning different instruments, so it feels disconnected to learn about theory without my keyboard in the room. I would rather they showed me how to play the piano with two hands at once, which is something I can’t fathom.

After music theory was choir, which I really like, I love to sing really loud and they give you sheets of words to lots of songs!

And after that there was drama, (Saturday drama club is different from Thursday drama club) we are making a production of Jack and the Beanstalk, and I am one of the giant’s arms!  We have a lot of songs to learn, and I am a market seller at the beginning, before I become the giant’s arms.  I like playing drama games too.  We play wink murder which is a game where you have to stand in a circle, and someone is the murderer, and if they wink at you, you have to die really dramatically.

Monday 14 October

I got one hundred percent correct on my times table test today! I had to do the fives, which are fun because they are easier than the others.  After that I had typing practice, but my fingers are too small to reach all the keys, so mum said I should wait for now and carry on learning to type when I’m bigger.

I finished reading the book, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator! It was really funny.  Charlie, his whole family and Willy Wonka went up in the flying elevator, but his gran gets frightened, which means Mr Wonka can’t turn around, so they go into space, and start orbiting the Earth, and they get mistaken for aliens and it’s very funny.  That’s what I did in the morning, while mum was teaching BODMAS to Jude.  BODMAS is something to do with long multiplication, or something. Luckily I don’t have to learn it for a couple of years.In the afternoon I did a mental maths test, but I’m not very good at it.  I don’t like doing maths inside my head without writing anything down, especially if I’m being timed. I know now that two, three, five, seven, eleven and thirteen are all prime numbers, but I can’t remember how to calculate a perimeter.

Jude did touch typing, she is up to level 2 now, and she read her reading book.

Continues Monday 🙂

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 vegan, vegetarian, children, home-schooling, education, school, diary, journal, children’s story

Punctuation and sponge-printed Christmas cards

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continued from yesterday 🙂 :

We also did English, and I learned about punctuation and spellings.

We made Christmas cards this afternoon! We made stamps out of sponges and vegetables and then we dipped them in paint and printed onto card.  We made snowmen and Christmas tree and holly stamps, and we had lots of different coloured card.  It was fun to start getting ready for Christmas already! I don’t think it’s ever too early to think about Christmas and to get organised.

We made a lot because we need to send them to all our family and friends.  We couldn’t add baubles to the trees on the cards today because the paint was still wet, but we might be able to do that tomorrow.

I’m excited because the Saturday after next we are going to go to the Big Draw which is in town! That’s a drawing festival full of activities for us to try.

At six o’clock I went to drama club in town.  We are making a production of The Billy Goats Gruff for the old people at the care home and it is a lot of fun.  There are lots of songs to sing and not really any costumes, you have to use your imagination.  My friend Lydia is the littlest goat, and Benjamin is the medium sized goat, and I can’t remember who the biggest goat is.  There are only three goats and a troll in this story, and the rest of us sing.  We are the chorus.

Friday 11 October

In history we are learning about the Neolithic people.  They are the modern cave men, from about 10,000 B.C., although nobody really knows how long ago.  They made tools from stone, but they polished them, which the old stone age people didn’t do. They also lived in villages and made pottery.

This was when they started growing crops instead of picking plants that grew all by themselves, and stopped being nomads.

I think it would be cool to be a nomad, just wandering around and finding food that’s grown by itself.  Although, we did learn that living in houses gave the neolithic people time to do arts and crafts, so I can see how that would be fun too.

After lunch we worked on our projects. My project is knitting squares to make a patchwork blanket.  So far I have three blue ones, a stripey yellow one and a glittery purple one.  Today I made a green one and a purple and cream one.

Jude’s project is making a toy for a toddler, which she designed herself. She made this caterpillar out of fabric, and then she stuffed it with dry peas which we got from the health food shop.  She is sewing on letters and numbers for children to learn from, and a bell that jingles, to make it happy.

Then later on I made dinner. It’s good practice.  I followed all the instructions on the packets.  I made broccoli, carrots, Linda McCartney sausages, chips and gravy.  The broccoli and carrots were fresh, they needed chopping and washing, the other things were frozen, except the gravy granules, which come in a cardboard pot.  The gravy is easy to make, you measure it out with a spoon and boil the water in a kettle.  The sausages are tricky because if you don’t keep a careful eye on the grill they can quickly get overdone on one side.

After dinner we had soya desserts which come in little pots.

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continues tomorrow 🙂

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vegan, vegetarian, children, home-schooling, education, school, diary, journal, children’s story

Swimming like a frog

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Chapter One of What Me and Jude Did While Everyone Else Was At School continues:

Tuesday 8 October

I am getting much better at breaststroke, so is Jude.  Breaststroke is swimming like a frog.  Sometimes I start to sink, so I stand up, but I hardly did that at all today.  When we go swimming there are not many other people at the pool, but if you swim for a long time, which we did today, a swimming class arrives, and they all line up beside the pool and dive in together.  It’s very impressive.  I don’t know how to dive, I wonder if it makes water go up your nose.

We went to the library after swimming, and borrowed some more books.  Jude got five books! I just got two.  I got a book about dolphins and whales and sea creatures, and a book called Charlie and the Glass Elevator, which is the sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I haven’t read the first book, but I’ve seen the film, so I understand what happens in the story.

When we got home we went down the lane to pick blackberries from the hedgerows.  This is fun because you get pink fingers.  It is a careful business, you need to choose the ones which are shiny and dark purple, avoid the red and green ones, which aren’t ripe yet, also avoid the ones which look like they have been half eaten by wasps or birds or spiders.

For cookery I made apple and blackberry pie, and Jude made oat biscuits.  We worked at the table together.  Then we made beans on toast for dinner.  Jude stirred the beans while I put the margarine on the toast, and Mum laid the table.  If you don’t stir beans, they stick to the bottom of the saucepan.  We have a dark blue cooker and a bright orange kitchen.

Wednesday 9 October

In science we learned that energy is everywhere, and we learned about the energy in our bodies, in our blood and in our brains and things.

I like to daydream that we are making important scientific breakthroughs about the Sun, and that we have discovered that actually the Earth is slowly moving away from the Sun! Or that there are actually two Suns!  And nobody ever noticed because they are never in the sky at the same time.

In the afternoon we did sewing! Mum showed us how to do straight stitch and satin stitch, and we practised them on little pieces of fabric. When I’m sewing I pretend I am someone from Little house on the prairie, mending clothes for someone.  With satin stitch I sewed a circle in green, pink, blue and yellow on a white and green striped piece of fabric, and Jude sewed hers on a dark blue piece of corduroy.

Thursday 10 October

In the morning we usually get up early, have breakfast and then I do the washing up, Jude walks our dog, Dmitri, and Mum sweeps the floors.  We do those jobs as quickly as we can so that they’re all done in time for us to watch Bewitched before lessons start.

Last time I did maths I thought I nearly understood mean, median and mode, but they were different today than last time I saw them.  Median is the only one I can remember. At least I’m not doing long division, which is what Jude was studying this morning.

continues tomorrow 🙂

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Reading David Copperfield and painting like van Gogh

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Thursday 3 October

This morning we read some more David Copperfield  and then had a spelling test.  Chapter Two is called  “I Observe” and David talks about his earliest memories of his mother and Peggotty, their servant.  It is very funny.

In the afternoon we made paintings. I painted a scene with sail boats by Matisse, with lots of dabs of pink and blue.  Jude painted A Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh.  I really like Matisse and van Gogh’s paintings, they make everything so beautiful and colourful.  We painted all afternoon, at the table.  It takes a long time to paint in dabs and patches, so we haven’t finished our paintings yet.

Friday 4 October

In history we learned about the Stone Age.  Nobody knows very much about the Stone Age, because it happened such a long time ago.  Luckily the people of that time made paintings in caves for us to refer to.  Mum read about the Stone Age to us, and then we answered questions from the book, and drew pictures of the cave drawings.  Most of the cave drawings were of animals.

At lunchtime we had crackers and watched a program about antiques, which we all like, especially Jude. We have our favourite antiques experts, and it’s fun to see how ordinary things can be worth a lot of money.

After lunch we carried on painting our reproductions. I found it difficult to fit every detail into the picture. 

Saturday 5th October

Today Mum, Jude and me went on the bus to the museum and art gallery in town. They had Stone Age artefacts in glass cases.  It is fascinating to see little pieces of the past all dug up from underground, forgotten for years and now sitting in a display box.

The museum also had an exhibition of different sorts of shoes from history, baby shoes, dancing shoes, working boots.  I liked the red glittery dancing shoes, and the video of the fashion show.  Some of the shoes were really old and fragile.

Near the entrance of the museum there was a giant elephant made out of cardboard, which was amazing! We went in the gift shop and looked at all the souvenirs, they had books and pencils and old coins and toys from history.

Monday 7 October

Today we had separate lessons because Jude is three years older than me, so she needs to learn different maths. Jude and Mum worked downstairs on ratios and long multiplication, while I worked upstairs.  I read my Sabrina reading book, practised typing on the computer, and then practised playing music on the keyboard.

I was trying to learn a song called Beautiful Brown Eyes, but it didn’t sound right.  So far I can only play music with my right hand, which is on the treble clef.  Hopefully one day I will be able to play with both hands at the same time.

In the afternoon it was my turn to do maths.  I studied averages, which is mean, median and mode.  I found this difficult because it’s really complicated.  Median I find easier to remember, because it sounds a bit like “middle” and that’s what it’s all about.  The other two are something different.

Jude did typing and read her reading book, The Worry Website.  She doesn’t want to learn to play the keyboard, so she didn’t play any music.

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continues tomorrow 🙂

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vegan, vegetarian, children, home-schooling, education, school, diary, journal, children’s story

New story starts today: it’s a wonderful vegan life

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What Me And Jude Did While Everyone Else Was At School

Chapter One:  I left school aged 9¼

Tuesday 1 October

This morning we cycled to the swimming baths.  We have decided to go swimming once a week, Mum, Jude and me.  The curtains in the changing rooms were blue and yellow, and we needed a pound coin each for the lockers.  I always try to pack my clothes away with my shoes at the bottom, and my towel on the top.  

Mum is teaching us to swim the breaststroke, you have to keep your fingers together and push the water behind you, at the same time you bend and straighten your knees.  Mum said to picture how a frog swims.  We swam for about an hour and then we went to the library.  

The library is a really comfortable place to browse books and read.  There’s a whole section of children’s non-fiction and fiction, I once found a really good bouncy ball on the floor near the toddler books.  Today I found a Sabrina the Teenage Witch novel for my new reading book, and a book about dogs.  I needed a new reading book because I finished The BFG on Sunday.  Jude chose The Worry Website by Jacqueline Wilson, one of her favourite authors.

At home in the afternoon we read David Copperfield together.  We each have a copy, and we take it in turns to read it aloud.  I’ve written my name in my copy.  David Copperfield is a really long book by Charles Dickens, we started reading it the other day, when Mum got us each a copy from the Heritage Centre.  We finished the first chapter today, it is really interesting.  It starts off when he is born, and then carries on.

 

Wednesday 2 October

This morning we learned that all energy comes from the Sun.  Plants use the Sun’s energy to grow, and so when we eat plants we are eating the energy the Sun gave the plants.

We had a needlework lesson this afternoon.  Mum showed us how to hem, and how to sew running stitch. I really like sewing, we used little pieces of fabric scraps to practise, and then we stuck them in our purple scrap books which is where we record our sewing.

Jude finished her sewing first and she used the rest of her lesson time to flick me with elastic from the sewing box.  This was annoying but it was funny too.  I carried on sewing and finished my running stitches, Jude said she was impressed by my reflexes.

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continues tomorrow 🙂

A Little Sprite – again

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Last night I saw a little sprite

Who told me what to do:

“Eat only plant food,

It’s much better for you.”

****

She fluttered and she floated

And she smiled down on me,

“Plant food is meant for you,

Just try it and you’ll see.”

****

I woke up and I sat up

And I looked from floor to beam.

I saw no sprite, there was no sprite,

She must have been a dream.

****

But still I could not shake her

Which was because, I knew,

She was real inside my head

And what she said was true.

Explain

By

For the first seven chapters click here 🙂

Chapter 8 continues:

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“Explain.  How is this the only waste you personally made this week?”

Luke explained.

“I told my mum not to buy the vegetables an’ fruit in plastic bags an’ nets an’ trays ’cause we don’t need ’em, we just throw ’em away as soon as we get home. So I jus’ put it all loose in the trolley; I laid it on top of a soft bag so it dint get bruises, and then I put it in our own bags when we paid for it.”

The fact that the bags to which he referred were actually pillowcases was an irrelevant detail unnecessary to divulge.

“Ok, good, loose fruit and veg – no need for packaging.  What else?”

“I told Mum to get the loose lentils and raisins that you can weigh, instead of the ones in packets, and we put it in our bags we took with us what we can re-use.”

He paused, waiting for her to acknowledge receipt of this information.

“Go on,” she urged.

“I told Mum to get me the porridge oats what comes in jus’ a paper bag instead of cereal what’s in boxes and plastic bags.  An’ we got flour an’ sugar in paper bags an’ bread in paper bags instead of plastic; an’ peanut butter in a glass jar with a metal lid; an’ vinegar an’ ketchup an’ apple juice an’ sunflower oil in glass bottles with metal lids – but we ‘aven’t finished all of ’em so I on’y brought the juice bottle today – an’ two tins of beans.  That’s everythin’ I ate an’ I made my Mum choose glass an’ tins because they can be recycled over an’ over forever an’ ever, back into bottles an’ food tins, but plastic is bad an’ can on’y be cycled to things like plastic bricks an’ stuff that can’t be recycled in the end.”

Mrs Tebbut was lost for words.  He had read the printouts.  He had done the work.  Impressively.  She looked at the three paper bags, one glass bottle and two baked beans tins and was amazed at how simple it could actually be.

“Well done Luke,” she said, “very well done indeed.”

At the end of the day when everyone else was going to get their coats, Mrs Tebbut called Luke to her desk.

“Good work today Luke,” she said, “is this something you’ve been concerned about for a while?  I mean before we started our project?”

Luke was unused to his teacher’s friendly voice being directed at him but he saw no harm in indulging her.

“Yeah.  Since I saw Spiker caught in the plastic rings an’ all the litter what hurts the animals.  An’ since so many people are jus’ stupid to keep droppin’ the litter I thought the best thing to do is to make shops stop sellin’ it, then there’d be nothin’ to drop, ‘cept maybe paper bags but that won’t hurt no one and it won’t last long.  So I’m teachin’ my Mum not to buy things with plastic.”

“Well, Luke, that’s wonderful, I’m very impre….”

“An’ I’m makin’ new things out of old things as well,” being impressive was new to Luke – he couldn’t stop now, “so I’m recyclin’ ’em myself and I’m reducin’ the buyin’ of new things ’cause of fixin’ things and makin’ new ones out of old ones.”

Mrs Tebbut smiled.

“Really?  What are you making?”

“At the moment,” he said proudly, “I’m knittin’ a blanket for my pet lamb to keep ‘im warm on chilly nights.”

“Wonderful!  And are you using recycled yarn from an unravelled jumper?”

“Kind of, but no, not yarn.  Strips of material.”

She looked confused so he tried to explain.

“I got the idea from me Nan’s magazine ’bout makin’ rag rugs by cuttin’ old material into strips an’ knottin’ ’em together to make long long strings of it an’ then knittin’ with it. It’ll make a thick, soft blanket for Squirt to sleep on.”

“Fantastic!  What material are you using?  What are you cutting up?”

Luke was glad she asked because he’d put a lot of thought into that decision.  He answered with the quiet confidence of a wise person enlightening a complete beginner.

“I decided the warmest stuff would be what blankets are made of and I found two big blankets in the airing cupboard what nobody was usin’ so I used ’em.  I’m nearly finished now.”

Mrs Tebbut smiled again.

“You’ve got a good heart Luke,” she said, “off you go.  Have a nice weekend, I’ll see you Monday.”

Luke, almost overwhelmed by the unfamiliar sensation of being approved of, went to get his coat.

Luke Walker: animal stick up for-er (£4) – the first eight chapters; and Luke Walker: animal stick up for-er: my privut notebook (£2.75) – every member of Luke’s secret sersiety of animal stick up for-ers should have one; are available from Amazon 🙂

   

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vegan, vegetarian, environment, recycling, children’s story, children’s book, vegan children’s story, vegan children’s book, humour, animals, children, sheep, lambs

School Project

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For the first seven chapters click here 🙂

Chapter 8 continues:

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At Besco’s Luke watched her closely with his project in mind.  To Mum it seemed like every time she reached for something he said,

“No!  Not that.  Get this one!”

She found it very trying but at the same time was impressed with her son’s commitment to the project and didn’t want to curb his enthusiasm for anything school-related.  She bit her tongue and cooperated with most his suggestions.

At the checkout, when the lady asked if she’d like any bags, Luke spoke out before she could answer in the affirmative.

“No thanks.  It’s very bad to get plastic bags.  They make pollution.  You should ban ’em.”  Then he put his pile of pillowcases onto the end of the checkout and started filling one with loose vegetables.  Mum flashed the checkout lady an embarrassed smile and said,

“School project.”

When the day came for the presentations to the class, Luke, because his surname began with W, was one of the last to present.  His peers were getting restless.  They had already sat through twenty seven similar presentations in which they were shown similar empty packets, cartons and bottles being thrown out that week by each family.  Those to be recycled included cereal boxes with their internal plastic bags, plastic milk bottles, plastic ketchup bottles, plastic shampoo bottles, Tetra Paks, glass wine bottles, beer bottles, plastic pop bottles, drink cans, food tins and the like.  Those to go to landfill included toothpaste tubes, toothbrushes, brillo pads, polystyrene food trays, plastic straws and crisp packets.  Mrs Tebbut herself was having trouble staying awake at this stage and decided that next year she would get the class to work on a single collective presentation for a school assembly.

Luke waited for Susan Vickers to take her family’s waste off the presentation table and then he walked to the front and stood awkwardly facing his class.

“Ok Luke, how have you reduced waste in your household this week?” asked Mrs Tebbut.

Luke reached into his bag and put onto the table three paper bags, one glass 1 litre bottle and two empty baked beans tins.  He looked at the class and spoke loudly to conceal his nervousness.

“This is my waste for this week.  The yellow and blue paper bag what had oats in will be recycled; the brown paper bread bags will go on the compost; the bottle and the baked beans tins will be recycled.”

Relieved that it was over he waited for Mrs Tebbut to tell him to stand down.  She didn’t.

“That can’t be all,” she said, “I told you to show the class how much waste your household had produced and how you’d helped to reduce it.”

“I did.”

“This is all your family’s waste for a whole week?”

“This is the reduced waste what I made ’em reduce.  I don’t think it’s fair to include the things I told ’em not to buy.  They’re not my fault.”

“Luke, that wasn’t the project.  You’ve misunderstood.”

“I’ve done it fair.  It’s not fair to say I dint do well makin’ my family’s waste smaller if my family won’t do what I tell ’em.  It’s on’y fair to see what waste was made from choices I made ’em make.”

Mrs Tebbut couldn’t argue with that.

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story concludes tomorrow 🙂

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vegan, vegetarian, environment, recycling, children’s story, children’s book, vegan children’s story, vegan children’s book, humour, animals, children, sheep, lambs

Bags

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For the first seven chapters click here 🙂

Chapter 8 continues:

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Mrs Tebbut continued.

“Now can anybody think of ways in which we could reduce our waste in the first place?”

Several hands shot up.

“Yes, Andrew.”

“Draw on both sides of the paper.”

“Very good.  Yes, Katia.”

“Stick a note on your door that says ‘no junk mail’.”

“Good thinking.  Yes, Simon.”

“Get your shoes re-soled instead of buying new ones.”

“Ooh, yes, well done Simon.  Repair things instead of throwing them out.  Good one.  Ok, well done, you’re all thinking now.  What about the choices we make when we buy things like food.  We have to buy food, but how can we reduce waste before we even get it home?”

The class went quiet again.  Everyone was thinking but they weren’t quite sure what she was after.

“I’m thinking packaging here,” she explained, “we eat the food but we throw away the packaging.  How can we reduce that waste?”

“Buy food with recyclable packaging!” Butler shouted out.

“Yes, if we must, but what would be even better?”

Joe’s eyes suddenly lit up and he opened his mouth as if to speak but didn’t.  Mrs Tebbut noticed.

“Joe?  Did you want to say something?”

“Buy stuff without packaging,” he said quietly.

There were a few snickers.

“How ya gonna do that?  Everything comes in packets!” someone scoffed.

Joe went red and looked down at his hands.  Mrs Tebbut frowned.

“Quiet!  Pay attention to Joe, he’s got the right idea!” She turned to Joe, “well done, that’s exactly what I was looking for.  We need to avoid the waste coming into our homes in the first place by choosing things with the least amount of packaging, and even no packaging when possible.  Kenny – see me at the end of class!”

Mrs Tebbut went on to explain their class project: a week on Friday they would all make a presentation to the class in which they would explain how they had reduced waste in their household.  As visual aids they were to bring with them everything being thrown away in their house that week (after it had been cleaned if necessary) and tell the class where that rubbish was headed: recycling or landfill.  She gave them printouts which told them all about recycling.

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After tea on shopping night, Luke was rummaging through the kitchen drawers.

“Come on Luke if you want to come, I want to get this over with,” said Mum.

She hated shopping.

“I’m coming …” said Luke, but didn’t.

“What are you looking for?” asked Mum.

“The shopping bags.  I thought they were in here.”

“So did I.  Oh, I don’t know.  I think I put them in the wash.  I don’t know where they are now.  Never mind, just leave it.  Let’s go!”

“Hang on!” said Luke and he rushed upstairs.

Mum picked up the car keys and headed for the door.

“If you don’t come now Luke, I’m going without you!”  And she went outside.

Just before she released the handbrake Luke opened the passenger door and climbed in.

“What are you doing with those?” Mum asked with alarm as she looked at a large crumpled pile of flower-print and cartoon superhero pillowcases on his lap.

“Bags,” he said, “we need reusable bags.”

Mum inhaled deeply, checked the mirror and reversed out of the drive.

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continues tomorrow 🙂

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vegan, vegetarian, environment, recycling, children’s story, children’s book, vegan children’s story, vegan children’s book, humour, animals, children, sheep, lambs

Last but not least: Luke Walker chapter 8 starts here!

By

Chapter Eight:

Luke Walker and the recycling

*****

“Ha ha ha ha,” Luke laughed, “stop it! I’m nearly finished! Let me finish!”

Luke was sitting on the straw in Curly’s shed, trying to knit a blanket for Squirt.

Curly had given birth to Little Squirt a few days after she arrived at her new home and he was the most playful, affectionate little chap Luke had ever met.  Curly hadn’t let Luke come near him at first but after a while she let Squirt go to him.

“Hey!  I nearly dropped another stitch!  Ok, that’s it! I’m putting it away.  I’ll have to finish it at home.”

Luke preferred to do his knitting in the shed on his plot because at home Jared teased him for it.  He had laughed when Luke first asked Nan to teach him.

“Knitting?  That’s what girls do!  You wish you were a girl don’t you Luke?”

“It’s jus’ like makin’ knots at Scouts Jared!  Don’t you make knots at Scouts?”

“Yeah – knots are useful, for camping and sailing and stuff boys do.”

“And knittin’ is turnin’ string into material to make blankets or mats or clothes or tents or anythin’!”

He believed an outlaw should have the skills to make his own things and be self-sufficient.  Knitting was a useful skill.  Nan had been very happy to teach him.

Luke put the half-made blanket back in his bag and played with Squirt until it was time to go home for tea.  He had to be home promptly today because it was Mum’s shopping night and he needed to go with her for his school project.

****

This half term’s topic was The Environment and Mrs Tebbut had started by talking to them about rubbish, waste and plastic pollution.  This was of great interest to Luke.

On the board she wrote:

Reduce, Re-use, Recycle

“This week we are going to think about how we can reduce waste by the simple choices we make in our lives,” she began. “Although the amount of rubbish being recycled in this country has increased in recent years, the amount being sent to landfill is also on the increase.  In England, we only recycle about 44% of household waste when in fact 80% of it is recyclable.  This means we all need to try a little bit harder.”

“Or a lot harder,” Luke mouthed to Joe.

“So today I’m going to tell you about The Three Rs: Reduce, Re-use, Recycle.  Have any of you heard of this before?”

Lots of blank faces and shaking of heads.

“Ok, well the idea is that, although recycling is very important, we should first try to reduce the amount of stuff we buy in the first place by holding on to the stuff we’ve already got for as long as possible – taking care of it and getting it repaired instead of throwing it away.

“Then, once we have really worn out our stuff and it can’t be repaired anymore, before we throw it out for recycling we should try to think of ways to reuse it.  Old clothes, for example, could be turned into cleaning rags.

“And finally, when we can no longer find a use for something, we should recycle it.”

“Interesting,” thought Luke.

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continues tomorrow 🙂

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vegan, vegetarian, environment, recycling, children’s story, children’s book, vegan children’s story, vegan children’s book, humour, animals, children, sheep, lambs

Wide-eyed Joe

By

Chapter 7 continues (For the first 6 chapters click here 🙂 )

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“…. She belongs to ‘erself. I think she should be allowed to keep belongin’ to ‘erself, don’t you?”  He looked at Joe earnestly.

Joe looked back, wide eyed.

“Yeah, I do.”

Luke smiled, Joe was with him.  But now he really had to think.  Where would the sheep be safe?  If they just left her to wander, someone else was bound to discover her and return her to the farm.  No, he couldn’t let that happen.  He had to get her to a place of safety where the farmer wouldn’t find her.  Joe gently stroked the sheep’s forehead.  Luke was thinking hard.  There had to be a way.  There was always a way if you thought hard enough.  And then it came to him.

“I’ve got it!” said Luke, “I know how we can save her!”

“What? What will we do?” asked Joe eagerly.

“You wait here with her,” Luke instructed, “keep ‘er here, out of sight.  I’ve got to go somewhere and I’ll be back quick as I can.”

“Where are you going?” asked Joe, a little nervous about having sole custody of the refugee.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be quick,” Luke assured him as he turned to run back along the lane towards the village.

Joe continued to stroke the sheep, telling her softly that it would be ok, that Luke had thought of something and he wouldn’t let her down.  Obviously comforted by this, she resumed munching the grass.

It started to rain. Just a few drops at first and then it settled in to a steady drizzle.

“Hurry up,” thought Joe as he became gradually wetter.

The sheep didn’t seem to mind.  Eventually, after almost an hour by Joe’s reckoning (seventeen and a half minutes), Luke returned.  He was smiling and had with him a piece of rope.

“Where ‘ave you been? What are we gonna do?” Joe asked as Luke tied the rope carefully around the sheep’s neck so that he could lead her.

“I’ve got a place where we can take ‘er,” Luke told him, “come on.”

The rain ensured their independence by keeping other people indoors.  They walked back half way along the lane until they came to the back entrance of the allotments.  Luke opened the gate with a key and they went in.  He led his old friend and his new friend past many well-kept plots full of rows of cabbages and turnips and carrots and leeks and all sorts of plants that Luke didn’t recognise.  The sheep was keen to try a few.

“No! Stop ‘er!” Luke half-shouted as she bent her head to some turnip tops.

Joe stopped her just in time and the boys quickened their pace.  After a while the plots began to look a little untidy and, the further they walked, the more unkempt they became.  They stopped alongside Luke’s dad’s plot which was one of the unkempt because he hadn’t had it very long.

“Here we are!” said Luke happily to the sheep, “welcome to your new home Curly.”

“Really?” said Joe.

“Yeah!” said Luke, “I think it suits her.”  Joe shook his head.

“Not the name, the place!  Won’t your dad go mad?”

“Why would he?” Luke asked, a little irritated that Joe was being so negative.

 Then Luke realised that from where he was standing, Joe couldn’t see what he and Curly could see.

“No, not here,” he said, “there!”

And he pointed to something behind his dad’s ramshackle shed.

Joe stepped forward to look.  The plot behind Luke’s dad’s plot had been abandoned some time ago and was quite overgrown.  The former tenant had erected post and rail fencing all around it so that she could keep her Shetland pony there.  And there was a big shed that she’d used as a stable.  Luke beamed.

“This is my plot!”

Joe’s jaw dropped.

“But how? …. When?”

“That’s where I went.  To the ‘lotment committee man’s house.  To rent this ‘lotment.”

“But how … I mean, don’t that cost loadsa money?”

Joe knew the answer to his question almost before he’d finished asking it.  Luke was so happy as he led Curly to her new home.

“Won’t ‘ave time for bike rides now anyway,” he said.

**********************

The first eight chapters of Luke’s adventures sticking up for animals – only £4! Click the pic!

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vegan children’s story, children’s book, books, children, animals, sheep

We Wish You A Merry Vegan Christmas

By

See you next year 😀 ❤ ❤ ❤

******

Kingthings Gothique font by Kevin King

available for download from font squirrel

Jingle Bells – Country Take from http://www.freexmasmp3.com/

Wouldn’t have had to do this with plimsolls!

By

So Luke had new shoes.  Mum said it would be a good idea to wear them around the house for an hour on the first day, then two hours the next, gradually increasing the time until they were comfortable enough to wear all day.

“Wouldn’t have had to do this with plimsolls,” thought Luke as he paced up and down his bedroom.

lace-up-shoe

A week later he wore them to school.  He had to admit it was good timing because it had started to rain and it wasn’t pleasant being stuck in wet socks all day.  His new shoes kept his feet dry.  He would say that for them.  And he got a few compliments.  Joe said he liked them, and so did Eddie and Susan.  Miss Shaw said they were very smart, which undermined his confidence in them a little, but at least Mrs Tebbut hadn’t been impressed.  At lunch time Luke changed into his plimsolls for football on the playground – hard, shiny shoes just weren’t good for running in.  When the bell went he returned to the cloakroom to change back into his shiny shoes and found Simon Butler looking at them.  Luke scowled.

“Wouldn’t have thought you’d wear them ,” said Simon smugly, “that makes you a hypocrite.”

Luke had no idea what a hypocrite was but knew that if Simon Butler was calling him one, it wasn’t something nice.  He assumed he was making some derogatory remark about the shoes and decided he was glad that Butler didn’t like them.  He didn’t like the stupid stuff Butler wore either.

“If I’m a hypocrite so are you – that horrible jumper makes you the biggest hypocrite in the world for wearing it!” said Luke as he walked away, very satisfied with his comeback.

Simon laughed.

“You don’t know what hypocrite means do you?”

Luke blushed.  Simon enlightened him.

“It means someone who doesn’t practice what they preach.  You say you won’t eat animals because you don’t want them killed but you’re wearing cow skin on your feet!”

“I am not!” Luke shouted, “these shoes are made of sprayed canvas, stupid!  Don’t ya think I made sure o’ that before I let me mum buy ’em?  Don’t ya think I’d make sure o’ that?”

 Butler smiled his insufferable smile.

“Those are made of leather, it says so on the label.  Leather is cow skin!”

Luke trembled with indignation.  He knew Butler was lying because he’d seen the label inside his shoe. The word ‘leather’ was not on there.  They had an audience now, the whole class was gathering round, eager to see who would get the last word.  Luke would not let it be Butler.  He took off one of his shoes, looked inside it and then proudly held it up for everyone to see.

“I do not kill animals!  I do not pay for animals to be killed!  I do not eat animals and I do not wear animal skin!” he said with gravity.

“What is going on out here?” Mrs Tebbut entered the cloakroom in search of her missing class.

“Mrs Tebbut,” said Simon politely, “we were wondering what this means,” he pointed to the label inside Luke’s shoe.

*************************

Story concludes tomorrow, but you can read to the end here now if you don’t want to wait 🙂

Luke Walker and the New Shoes – begins today!

By

Luke Walker and the new shoes

Luke was having a stressful day.

“It’s not fair!” he thought, “I don’t want new shoes; I don’t need new shoes.”

He looked down at his left plimsoll for proof and was satisfied that he could hardly see his big toe.

“In fact,” he said out loud, “I’m sure if someone who dint know it was there looked at my feet, they wun’t notice it at all.”

Mum disagreed.  She quite unreasonably insisted that a big toe sticking through a hole in one’s shoe was an unmistakable sign that it was time to get new ones.

It was 4.17pm.  Luke and Mum were in the fifth and final shoe shop their home town had to offer.

“This is it Luke,” Mum said testily, “this is the last one. We will be buying shoes from this shop.”

She picked out four different styles and put them down in front of him.

“Choose one.”

Luke looked at them with disgust.

“ Brown?  You want me to wear brown shoes?  I am not wearin’ brown shoes!”

Mum removed the two brown ones and, through gritted teeth said of the remaining two,

“Choose one of these or I will choose for you!”

If he had to have new shoes when he didn’t even need new shoes he would have chosen blue ones.  He would have chosen blue plimsolls.  They were comfortable. They were good for running in.  And blue happened to be his favourite colour.  But Mum said plimsolls were not proper shoes.  She said they were not suitable for wearing in wet weather.  She said they were not smart enough for school.  She said he had to have those shiny sort of hard shoes that give you blisters for the first two weeks.  Luke had put up strong resistance all day long but now it looked like he would have to compromise.  It came down to two different black shiny shoes and one of them had tassels. 

tassel-shoe

It was clear that he wasn’t going to get the plimsolls so the best he could do was make sure he didn’t get the tassels.  He chose the lace-ups.  Mum exhaled.

“Finally,” she said.

 After Luke had tried them on and walked up and down on the carpet in them, and Mum had squeezed the toe ends of them to see how much growing room there was, the shop lady boxed them up.  But just as Mum was about to pay, Luke remembered something.  He’d heard a horrible rumour at school which he hoped wasn’t true but he had to be sure.  He’d heard Katia tell Susan that shoes are made of cow skin!  It was too shocking to contemplate and Luke had assumed Katia, who was always melodramatic, was making it up to get attention.  But could she have been telling the truth?

“What are they made of?” Luke asked the shop lady.

“These are made from quality …..”

“Canvas!” Mum interrupted, “they’re made of the same material your plimsolls are made of but they’re sprayed with a special substance that makes them hard and shiny.” 

Luke was surprised at his Mum for rudely interrupting someone who was already talking.  The times she’d told him off for doing that.  And the shop lady was obviously surprised at her too as she looked at her quite strangely.  But in a way Luke was glad to discover his Mum didn’t always do everything right.  It made her a bit more human.

*********************************

continues tomorrow 😀

or you can read the whole story here now 🙂

A new one for ages 5 and up starts here

By

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vegan children's story

By Edward Benn

Illustrated by Cynthia Barnett

************

Everyone was excited because it was Grandpa Wollemi’s birthday.

vegan children's story

Kauri had made him a lovely drawstring bag for holding his popcorn when he watched a movie.

vegan children's story

Cedro would have loved to make him something like that but, though he had tried, …

vegan children's story

… he just couldn’t get the hang of sewing.

vegan children's story

Continues tomorrow 😀

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Adrenaline

By

Continued from yesterday

*****

The two of them struck the back window with all their might, again and again.  First there was a crack, then another and another.  They just kept hitting it.

“Hey! Hey!” The man’s voice in the distance didn’t slow them down.

They were nearly there.  There was a head-sized hole in the glass with cracks radiating from it.  The boys put down their weapons and took hold of sections of glass between the cracks with their hands.  They pushed and pulled, working them back and forth until they could be folded all the way down.  Now the hole was big enough for Luke to climb in.  Adrenaline masked the pain of the cuts on his hands as he tried to lift her.  She was weak and limp and too heavy for him.

“Help me!”

Joe climbed in and between them they lifted her to the hole but they couldn’t lift her out because there was no one to hand her to.  It was an oven in there.

“Just get her head outside so she can breathe,” said Luke, “then we’ll prob’ly ‘ave to jus’ push ‘er out.”

But before they did the hatchback opened and there stood the policeman.  He lifted his dog and carried her a few steps to the cool shade of a large tree where he trickled water from a bottle over her mouth. The boys watched, not even caring how much trouble they were in.  The police dog started to lick the water around her lips.  Luke and Joe rushed towards her with cupped hands and she lapped up the water the policeman poured into them.  They sat in the shade for some time.  Eventually the policeman spoke.

“I only left her for a minute. I opened the front windows a little and parked in the shade of this tree, so I thought she’d be ok, just for a minute.  But then I got held up by ……”

He paused, realising there was no point in making excuses.

“I just didn’t think I was going to be more than a minute or two. But I should have known I might be delayed; and the sun is constantly moving so the car wouldn’t have been in the shade for long.”

He shook his head, full of regret.

“And it only takes a few minutes for a dog to overheat and die.”

Luke and Joe said nothing.  The dog wagged her tail.

“Good girl Sheba,” said the policeman, “you’re my good girl.”

He looked at the boys.

“And you boys are heroes. Thank you.”

****

Nan and Grandad were waiting by the phone for the police to call back with any news.  Mum and Dad were frantically searching the park again.

“Marian,” said Dad, “they’re not here. I’m going to walk towards the town.”

“Wait! Look!” said Mum, pointing to the police car she could see pulling up outside Nan and Grandad’s house.

They both ran.

****

When all was explained and forgiven, everyone realised how hungry they were and Nan’s tea went down very well.  It was too late to return the putters and Joe’s ball to the Park Keeper but Dad took Luke back to Swanspool the next day so that he could hand them in.

“… so I’m sorry they’re late,” said Luke after explaining the previous day’s events, “but we dint steal ’em.”

“I never thought for a moment that you did,” the Park Keeper said as he put them away.

*****

You can find chapters 1 to 5 of Luke Walker: animal stick up for-er on our ‘stories for age 8 and up’ page, and the first eight chapters are also available in paperback 😀

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Wait for the Green Man

By

Continued from yesterday:

********

Things were drawing to a close on the bowling green.  Grandad’s team had not won but it had been a pleasant match and everyone was ready for tea.  Nan and Grandad’s house bordered the park, just a three minute walk from the green, so Nan went ahead to put the kettle on while Grandad said cheerio to his team.

“I’ll go and round up the boys,” Dad volunteered.

Mum caught up with Nan.

****

Luke pressed the button and waited for the green man.  When the traffic stopped and the green man lit up, they crossed the main road.

“See,” said Luke, “safe assouses!”

They both looked up and down for the ball with no more success than they’d had so far.  Luke saw a side street which sloped downwards and guessed it had probably rolled down there.  It hadn’t.

“I think we have to go back,” said Joe.

“I know,” agreed Luke reluctantly.

They walked up the side street until they reached the main road.

“The cinema!” said Joe with surprise, “I wonder if they’ve got the new Batman film.”

Luke would also have liked to check out the new Batman but first he wondered how come they hadn’t noticed the cinema on their way out.  Had they passed it and not seen it?  Or was this a different road? Luke looked at the other buildings in the street: a pizza restaurant, a chip shop, a key-cutting shop.  None of it looked familiar.  Well this road must be parallel to the other road.  Luke felt sure if they took the next left they’d be back on track.  They took the next left.  Then the next right.  Then they went straight ahead for a long time.  They were completely lost.

“What’re we gonna do?” Joe was really worried.

Luke wasn’t entirely calm himself but he pretended he was.

“Let’s sit down for a minute to think,” he said.

It was so hot and they were really thirsty.  They sat down on a bench and thought.  Mum and Dad had mobile phones but Luke didn’t know the numbers.  And anyway, there were no phone boxes.

“Just think!” Luke told himself, “I’m an outlaw. I can get us out of this.”

He looked up and down the length of the street and at one end of it he saw something that would solve everything.

******

Continues tomorrow 😀 but if you don’t want to wait you can read the whole story here

The Tenth Earthling Friend

By

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vegan children's book

vegan children's book

vegan children's book

vegan counting book for children

vegan children's book

vegan children's book

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The story continues tomorrow with more games 😀

See you then! Or, if you don’t want to wait that long, you can read the whole story here

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#vegan children, #vegan children’s story, #vegan children’s book, #early learning book, #learning to count book, #vegan counting book

And then there was Tom

By

story continues from yesterday

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18

19

20

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continues tomorrow, but if you don’t want to wait you can read the whole story here 🙂

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Look out for Reflecto Girl’s Lost Notebook

By

Remember that in Reflecto Girl episode 5, Renée left her notebook on the bus?

notebook on bus

Well, because she can’t risk giving away her real identity, she won’t be able to pick it up from the bus depot lost property office.  So it’s just sitting there, going to waste.  And it’s only half full so someone could make use of it.

vegan children's notebook

vegan children's notebook

It’s just a little book and she’s left the personal details page blank for obvious reasons, so whoever picks it up could put their own name and stuff in it.

vegan children's notebook

There is a place in it where they could write web addresses that they need to remember.  Renée’s added a couple but there’s space for a few more.

vegan children's notebook

In the ‘memos’ section, she’s jotted down a few recipes but there’s room for the new owner to add some more of their own.

vegan notebook for children

And then of course there’s Renée’s journal.  Whoever picks up the notebook will learn more about the girl behind the Dounto; about her penpal, her family and why she needed a part-time job.  Her journal reveals where her Grandma went and why she’s stayed away for so long – you’ll never guess!  And her Reflecto Girl adventures, up until she lost the book, are described in her own words.

vegan children's notebook

vegan children's notebook

She’s done a bit of sketching and doodling in there too.

vegan children's notebook

Of course there’s plenty of space for whoever picks up the notebook to do their own sketches and doodles, or write their own journal.  The book’s only half full.

vegan children's notebook

All in all it’s a pretty little notebook and it would be a shame if it went to waste on a dusty shelf.  Oh look, she’s even stuck her logo to the back of it.

vegan children's notebook

If you’d like to get hold of Reflecto Girl’s Lost Notebook, you can pick it up here, but do it quick before someone else does 😉

No harm done.

By

For the story so far click here

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vegan comic

to be continued …

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Now what?

By

For the story so far click here

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to be continued …..

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What’s he talking about?

By

For the story so far click here

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to be continued …

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Help!

By

For the story so far click here

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vegan comic

to be continued ….

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Hold your breath

By

For the story so far, click here

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Continues tomorrow …

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Ring Ring

By

For the story so far click here

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To be continued …

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No deal!

By

For the story so far click here

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continues tomorrow ….

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#vegan story, #vegan comic, #vegan story for children, #vegan children’s comic, #vegan fiction, #vegan superhero

Whatever next?!

By

For the story so far click here

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vegan children's comic

continues tomorrow ….

*******

#vegan children’s story, #vegan comic, #vegan comic for children, #vegan e-comics, #vegan superhero

Oh no!

By

Reflecto Girl Episode 5 continues:

vegan comic for children

vegan comic for children

continues tomorrow ….

Reflecto Girl episode 5 starts here

By

Click here for the story so far

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vegan comic for children

vegan comic for children

vegan comic for children

vegan comic for children

vegan comic for children

Continues tomorrow ….

********

The first four episodes of Reflecto Girl are available in paperback as Reflecto Girl Book 1 and Reflecto Girl and other stories 

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#vegan children, #veggie kids, #vegan children’s stories, #vegan comics, #vegan comics for children, #vegan children’s books

New Reflecto Girl coming soon!

By

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Yippeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!

If you’re not familiar with Reflecto Girl – get caught up before Monday 😀

She’s on the 8 and up page 😉

Part 3 of the plan

By

Story continues from yesterday:

*******

Luke, wearing full school uniform, was finishing his jam and toast when his mum entered the kitchen at half past seven.  She was stunned.  Normally she had to call him at least three times before he’d get up, and even when he was up he had to be constantly nagged to get dressed and breakfasted.  He didn’t appear to have had a shower and he was wearing Friday’s dirty shirt, but Mrs Walker decided to let that go.

“Morning Luke,” she said, apprehensively, “everything ok?”

“Yes thanks Mum,” he replied politely, “I want to get to school early today so I’m bein’ organised.”

“So I see.  Any particular reason?”

“No.”

Mrs Walker, known by Luke to be very distrustful, looked closely at her youngest son.

“Ok,” she said, eventually, “well done.”

Luke smiled, put his gobstopper back in his mouth and went upstairs to clean his teeth.

He was at school a good twenty minutes before most people got there.  Even Mrs Tebbut wasn’t there yet.  He went in to his classroom.

He furtively looked around to confirm he was alone and then rushed over to the drawers.  Everyone had a drawer with their name on.  They kept their books and pencils and stuff in them.  He found Kenny White’s drawer and pulled it out.  Then he took from his bag Kenny’s droppings – 1 panda pop can, 1 crisp packet and one half-empty sherbet fountain.  He pushed them into the drawer and closed it.  Then he ran outside to kick a ball around on the playground until the bell went.

After the register had been called everyone had to line up for assembly.  Luke took his place at the end of the line, followed the rest of his class into the hall and sat down on the floor behind class 3.  He watched all the other classes file in and the assembly began.  He sat still, faced forwards and pretended to be interested.  When it was half way through he tried, quietly, to get Mrs Tebbut’s attention.

“Psst, psst, Mrs Tebbut,” he whispered.

She didn’t hear him.  He coughed.  She didn’t turn her head.  He faked a loud sneeze.  She frowned at him.

“Mrs Tebbut,” he whispered again, “can I go to the toilet?”

She silently shook her head.

“Please Mrs Tebbut, I really need to go,” he whispered a little louder.

The children near him started to snicker and Mrs Tebbut reluctantly gave in.

“If you must,” she hissed, “slip out the back.”

Luke did as he was told.

Once back in the classroom he grabbed his bag and exited through the cloakroom.  He ran to class 6, the long way round so as not to pass the hall, and entered their cloakroom.  He scanned the names above the coat pegs until he found what he was looking for.  Yes! There it was. Haines.

On Haines’s peg hung Haines’s coat and into its pockets Luke deposited Haines’s droppings: 1 Tango can, almost empty, upside down; 1 crisp packet, almost empty, upside down; and 1 used piece of …… oh no! Luke found that the chewing gum he’d wrapped in paper when he’d recovered it from the crime scene, was now as hard as plastic and therefore unfit for purpose.  He needed something sticky.

Of course! With almost no hesitation – he reminded himself it was for a very important cause – Luke spat what was left of his gobstopper into Haines’s inside pocket.  Part three complete.

“Who are you?  What are you doing in here?”

The man’s voice behind him made Luke’s cheeks flush hot.  He turned round and reached into his bag.

“My brother is in this class,” he said, meekly, “’e forgot ‘is English book so I brought it for ‘im.  I was jus’ lookin’ for ‘is bag on ‘is peg.”

He handed Jared’s book to the Year 6 classroom assistant.

“Oh, I see. Thank you,” he said as he took the book, “I’ll see that he gets it.”

“Thanks,” said Luke and ran back to his own class.

He opened the door just in time to witness Mrs Tebbut holding up a cola-soaked, sherbet smeared, grease-stained copy of the new History text book while shouting at Kenny White.

Luke sat down quietly and waited for lessons to begin.

****************

You can read the whole of Chapter 3 here, and the first eight chapters are available in paperback.

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Taking note

By

Story continues from yesterday:

****

Luke put the gobstopper back in his mouth and wiped his sticky hand on his trousers.  There were seven Year 6 boys again.  The missing two had returned with snacks.  Luke knew their faces but not their names.  One of them was Katia Haines’s brother so his surname must be Haines.  Luke picked up his comic again and peered over it in their direction.

The big boys hung around the swings, some sitting, some standing.  The tall one thought it was funny to throw one of the swings over the top of the frame, over and over again until it was too high up for anyone to sit on.

They all had crisps and pop.  Katia’s brother spat chewing gum on the ground before getting stuck in to his crisps.  There was a litter bin next to the swings and when the boys had finished snacking they, one by one, tossed their rubbish into it.  Each boy took his throw further from the bin than the one before him, to demonstrate his superior skills.

Haines went last and missed.  The others laughed and teased him for his ineptitude when his rubbish hit the ground, so he proved them wrong by hitting every one of them with the football.  All seven scuffled noisily out of the park.  

Luke picked up his notebook and pencil,

LITTER: 1 TANGO CAN, 1 CRISP BAG, GUM

DROPPER: HAINES, YEAR 6

then he went over to the swings and collected the rubbish.

Suddenly he heard Butler’s loud shouting voice.  The class 4 kids were coming back!  Quickly he ran north and concealed himself behind the trees next to the pony paddock.  He watched them through his binoculars.  They sat together on the bench, eating crisps and drinking pop.  Kenny White also had a sherbet fountain.  Luke waited patiently for Butler to drop his rubbish on the grass.  His pencil was poised for the inevitable notebook entry.  Simon Butler would then be taught a lesson.  But Simon Butler did not drop his rubbish on the grass.  He put it in the bin, as did Christina and Becca.  Luke was begrudgingly impressed.

He looked at his watch.  It was 1.54pm. 1.54!  Mum had said 2 o’clock, don’t be late!  He had to get home for dinner!  But he couldn’t come out from behind the trees, they’d know he’d been spying on them.  He had to wait.  So he waited.  And he waited.

“Don’t you lot ‘ave ‘omes to go to?” he asked under his breath.

He looked at his watch again: 2.01.  He heard Becca shouting.

“Let’s go on the swings!”

They all ran and Kenny, being the last to get there, found no swing for him (the fourth having been wound around the top of the frame).  He shrugged and said he was going home for dinner.  The rest of them followed his example.

2.09.  Luke emerged from his hiding place and ran across the park.  As he sped past the bench something caught his eye.  He stopped.  Looked back.  There was something on the ground under the bench.

LITTER: 1 PANDA POP, 1 CRISP BAG, 1 SHERBET FOUNTAIN

DROPPER: KENNY WHITE

Sunday evening.  It was nearly bedtime.  Luke emerged quietly from his brother’s room.

“Hey! What are you doing in my room?” Jared scowled.

“Jus’ doin’ you a favour, that’s all!” said Luke, returning the scowl. “You left your school bag downstairs so I put it in your room.  Mum gets cross when you leave stuff out so I’d say I did you a favour alright!”

Jared eyed his younger brother suspiciously.  It wasn’t like him to be so considerate.  Luke stomped off to his own room.

Monday morning.  Time to implement part three of the plan.

********

Continues tomorrow, or if you don’t want to wait you can read the whole chapter here.  The first eight chapters are also available in paperback.

vegan book for children

Spiker

By

Story continues from yesterday:

******

And so the morning continued.  Dad read the paper; Dudley sniffed, peed and eventually laid down; and Luke resentfully picked up other people’s rubbish.

He spotted a set of six-pack rings in the long grass and reached for it.  It moved.  He reached for it again and it moved again.  Luke parted the long grass and found, with one of the rings caught tight around his body, a little hedgehog.

hedgehog

“Oh dear oh dear,” said the vet, “come on fella, let’s get this horrible thing off you.”  

She cut it off and then gently cleaned the hedgehog’s wounds.  

“I would say, going by the severity of the cuts around his neck and behind his forelimb …”

“His armpit,” Luke clarified in case anyone was unsure to which wound she was referring.

“er, yes, if you like,” the vet went on, “and the fact that he is quite undernourished, that this unfortunate animal …”

“Spiker,” said Luke.

“I’m sorry?”

“That’s his name.”

“Oh, I see.  I would say that Spiker has been struggling with this horrible appendage for over a week.  It’s very lucky you found him when you did.”

Luke suddenly saw the job of picking up litter in a very different light.  It was a very important job and, in conjunction with punishing droppers, was outlaw work.

The vet said that she would take care of Spiker until he was better and then she would call them to pick him up and they could release him where they found him.

“That means,” thought Luke, “I need to make sure the park is safe for him to come back to.”

On the way home, Luke formulated a plan: 

➔ First he would clean up all the rubbish;

➔ then he would keep watch and record the names of all the droppers and what they dropped;

➔ then he would teach them a lesson.

All afternoon Luke and Dad picked up litter.  They filled three and a half large dustbin bags with bottles and cans, crisp packets and sweet wrappers, fast food containers and carrier bags.  Luke also found a £2 coin which Dad said he could keep for being such a good worker.

“Nice to be ‘preciated for a change,” thought Luke and spent 99p of his hard-earned cash, on the way home, on a giant gobstopper.

Part one of his plan was complete.  Now, on Sunday, he was carrying out part two.

It was slow going. His eyes glazed as he stared across the empty park.

“There’d be no shame in bringing more than one comic in future,” he decided.

Then, at 10.06, on one side of the park, seven Year 6 boys entered, laughing and pushing and kicking a football between them.  At the same time, on the other side of the park, came Simon Butler, Kenny White, Becca Nithercott and Christina Burkiss, all from Class 4 – Luke’s class.  Becca and Kenny were carrying large, brightly-coloured kites.  

Luke shrank down behind his Beano.  The Year 6 boys raced around chasing their ball and shouting insults at each other.  The class 4 kids took it in turns to run across the field trying to keep their kites aloft in the windless sky.  

Luke kept his eyes on them all as discreetly as he could.  No litter was dropped. He was getting awfully tired of sitting still.

Then the football suddenly flew higher and further than intended and landed in one of the back gardens. Luke watched as one of the Year 6 boys vaulted the fence to retrieve it.

“What are you doing here all by yourself?”

Simon Butler!  Where did he come from?  Luke tried to look nonchalant.  With slow deliberation he took the gobstopper out of his mouth.

“Readin’ me comic. What’s it to you?”

“Reading my foot!” Butler scoffed, “you’ve been sitting here with your comic against your chin for the last ten minutes. Are you waiting for someone?”

This was no good.  Butler was drawing attention.  And he was distracting.  Now there were only five Year 6 boys – where did the other two go?  Simon Butler climbed onto the bench next to Luke and sat on the back of it, his feet on the seat.

“Who are you waiting for? What are you waiting for?”

This was infuriating.  Flamin’ Butler!  Luke had to get rid of him and he could only think of one way to do it.

“Is that yours?” he pointed to a £1 coin on the ground.

“er, oh yeah, I must have dropped it just now,” Simon lied as he stooped to pick it up.

He called to his friends.

“Anyone fancy some crisps?”

And he ran off without giving Luke another thought.

“Expensive,” thought Luke, mourning the loss of the last of his money, “but worth it.”  

******

Continues tomorrow but if you can’t wait that long you can read the whole chapter here and the first eight chapters are also available in paperback.

vegan book for children

Luke Walker Chapter 3 begins here

By

Chapter 3: Luke Walker and the Giant Gobstopper

SUNDAY

LITTER: 1 PIZZA BOX AND 1 COKE CAN

DROPPER: UNNOWNE

Luke tutted and looked across the park.  At 8.27 there was no one else there but he knew they would come.  And when they did, he would be ready.

On one side of the park was the school, on the other, the pony paddock.  The top and bottom edges skirted the ends of back gardens.  With his binoculars Luke could see it all clearly.  He waited.

At 8.49 a dog walker entered the recreation field and walked around twice.  Luke pretended to read his comic while secretly watching the person’s every move.  No litter was dropped.

At 9.12 and 9.18 two more dog walkers arrived at opposite sides of the park.  One threw a ball for his dog, the other kept her dog on a lead.  No litter was dropped.

For Luke time was passing extremely slowly.  He had read his comic three times and it was losing its appeal.  At least his enjoyment of the gobstopper was not waning.

“The solitude of the outlaw life might be too much for some people,” Luke mused, “but I’m used to it now, I can handle it.”

Twenty four hours earlier he had been less philosophical:

“I don’t see why I should have to clean up other people’s mess!” Luke complained to Rusty who was sitting on a cabbage leaf, watching him.

Mrs Tebbut had followed through on her threat to send home a letter after the zoo trip and Luke’s dad had sentenced him to a month of weekends cleaning up litter.  Luke was bitterly resentful at the injustice of it all.

“I mean, I could see the logic if I was a litter dropper myself.  Makin’ me pick up litter would serve me right.  But I’m not a dropper.  I’ve never been a dropper.  I won’t ever be a dropper – so what kind of lesson is this s’posed to teach me? A lesson I already know, that’s what!”

Rusty, Ash and Scratcher, the only witnesses to this tirade, did not attempt to answer him.  They were used to his rhetorical rants and knew it was best to just let him get it off his chest.  Sitting with his friends in ‘the damson patch’, as it was now known, letting off steam with the only ones who really understood him, was a kind of therapy for Luke.  He always felt better afterwards.

But at the park Luke felt humiliated.  It was Saturday morning; scouts were having football practice; skateboarders were zooming up and down their ramps and slopes; little girls were skipping rope and playing hopscotch.  Luke felt like everyone was smirking at him picking up litter.  It was disgusting.  Disgusting people had dropped their disgusting rubbish and he was forced to clean up after them.  It made him so cross.

litter

Then he noticed his dad trying to get his attention.  Maybe he was going to let him off.  Maybe he’d done enough now.

“Luke, look, behind you. Dudley’s done his business.  Make sure you pick that up as well.”

Dad went back to reading the paper and Luke seethed.  It wasn’t fair!

******

Continues tomorrow, but if you can’t wait you can read the whole chapter here now😀

and the first eight chapters are also available in paperback

vegan book for children

Luke Walker’s Privut Notebook

By

vegan book for children

We’re so glad you’ve been enjoying the adventures of Luke Walker, animal stick up for-er, and thought you might be interested to know that he has made a notebook.  It’s not the prettiest of notebooks as it’s just an exercise book, originally intended by Mrs Tebbut to be his maths book, which Luke felt would be much better put to another purpose.

vegan book for children

He’s setting up a secret sersiety of animal stick up for-ers and welcomes others with prince pauls like him to join.  All new outlaws should have a copy of this notebook and put their name on the list of proppa members.

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All member outlaws must agree to the plej …

vegan book for children

… and follow the sersiety rules.

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According to Luke, to be an outlaw you must think to question everything you’re told …

vegan book for children

… to consider if it’s really true.

vegan book for children

Luke has worked hard on this notebook, all by himself.  He has included lots of useful information – like people from history who had prince pauls, …

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… and how to make your own secret code-maker/breaker which is an essential for every secret sersiety member.

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Plus he has left lots of space for new members to write in.

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vegan book for children

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There is even a top secret coded message which new member outlaws will be able to decipher when they’ve made themselves a code breaker.  And there’s space for more coded messages to be added by new members.

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All in all, Luke is very pleased with his Privut Notebook which is available from Amazon at the very reasonable price of £2.75

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Luke-Walker-animal--er-notebook/dp/1530311284/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1469185270&sr=1-1&keywords=luke+walker+animal+stick+up+for-er

You can’t say fairer than that 😉

Here are a couple of Luke’s friends with their copies:

Chatting away non-stop

By

Story continues from yesterday:

****

In a few short minutes Luke and Emma were crossing the meadow side by side, heading for the woods.  Luke chatted away non-stop while Emma swished her tail and listened contentedly.

“Truth is Emma,” he explained, “I’d love to take you home with me but I really don’t think me dad’d let me.  Honestly, you should ‘ave ‘eard the fuss ‘e made over a couple o’ rabbits.”

On the other side of the wood was another meadow, even more beautiful, with trees here and there and, to Luke’s delight, something else.

“Ooh quick Emma, over here!  It looks like a lake or somethin’!”

Luke rushed ahead laughing and calling her to follow.  Cautiously, she did.  It was such a lovely hot day that Luke couldn’t resist getting into the clear, cool water.

“Come on, it’s ok, it’s not deep,” he called, “come in with me, it’s fun!”

Emma tentatively dipped her trunk into the water and had a good long drink.  Luke grinned.

“Yeah, that’s it!  Now come all the way in and play with me.”

He laughed and sloshed about and splashed her so that soon she wanted to join in.  She reached out her trunk to him and he put his hand out to her and she trod heavily, slowly, down into the lake.  She drew up a big trunk full of water and showered it all over herself, and Luke.  She splashed and she played and felt free.  And so did Luke.  It was just the best afternoon.

When they got out of the water Emma laid down on the warm grass to be dried by the sun, and Luke sat with her, leaning against her chest.  Eventually, reluctantly, he looked at his watch. 4.32.

“I have to go now,” he told her sadly, “but I will come back if I can.”

He didn’t know when that might be.

“You do like it here don’t you?”

He knew she must and was satisfied his outlawing had paid off again – she’d be much happier here than in that concrete enclosure.  She’d have freedom; she’d have space; he only wished she wouldn’t be on her own.

“There’s prob’ly rabbits here,” he told her, “rabbits make good friends.  The thing with rabbits is, you ‘ave to be patient.  They might seem a bit stand-offish at first but once they get to know you they’re very friendly.”

He stood up and said goodbye, confident she’d understood.  

He slipped back in to the zoo and locked the gate so that everything, well, almost everything, was as he’d found it.  He decided it would be a good idea to hang on to the keys – he’d need them next time he visited Emma.  

It was 4.57 when he arrived at the coach so he was in good time for Mrs Tebbut’s prompt 5pm departure, but for some reason she was crosser than he’d ever seen her.

“Luke Walker!  Do you have any idea what you’ve put us through?  You have disrupted the day for the whole class!  You are a selfish, thoughtless child and I will be sending a letter home to your parents!”

“For what?” thought Luke.

_______________________________________________

Unbeknown to Luke, seven months later, in a national newspaper:

THE DAILY NEWS

Elephant Finds Sanctuary At Last

Emma in newspaper for web page

Seven months after the 24-hour disappearance of the lonely elephant at Dillingsgate Zoo, she has been found a place at The Elephant Sanctuary.  ‘Companions for Nelly’ campaign organiser, Joanne Russell said she cannot adequately express her joy at today’s outcome.

“We can only thank God for bringing to light Nelly’s lonely existence by causing her to wander off by herself and ignite a media storm. If it hadn’t been for the zoo’s mishap of leaving her gate open, the world might never have been aware of her miserable solitary confinement.”

Seven months ago the alarm was raised at Dillingsgate zoo when keepers discovered that Nelly was missing. She was found the following day in neighbouring woodlands but not before the news was reported in local, national and international media.  This put the spotlight on conditions in which Nelly was kept.

“Elephants are very social animals,” said Ms Russell, “and it was heartbreaking to learn that Nelly had been without any companionship of her own kind for almost twenty years.”

Thanks to the overwhelming public support for Ms Russell’s campaign, Nelly has now been found a place at the award winning Elephant Sanctuary where she will be able to live out her days in natural surroundings in the company of her own kind.

*********

You can read the whole of Luke Walker: animal stick up for-er Chapter 2 here.

Chapter 3 coming to this site soon!

Want it now? No problem – just order the paperback from Amazon! (It’s got the first eight chapters) 😀

Keeping a low profile

By

The story continues from yesterday:

******

It didn’t take long for Luke to work out where he might find what he was looking for.

“Somebody what works here will have keys!”

It never occurred to him that he would need a particular key for the particular lock he wanted to open but, as it happened, that wasn’t going to be a problem.  When the zoo was built over thirty years earlier, it boasted the largest number of animal enclosures in the country.  It was deemed impractical to have hundreds of different keys so the same three locks were fitted to everything: one for animal enclosures; one for outer gates; and one for buildings.  Each key-holder carried the same three keys.  That was all anyone needed.  It was all Luke needed. 

zoo keys

Back in the hubbub of the zoo, Luke kept a low profile.  It felt good to be outlawing again.  He saw plenty of zoo workers but there was no way of knowing whether they had keys without asking them.  Then he heard a familiar jangle.

“I know what that means,” he thought, triumphant, “that man’s got keys on his belt!”

The man was alone.  At a grassy, low-fenced enclosure inhabited by small, furry animals Luke didn’t know the name of, he caught up with him.  The man seemed engrossed in what he was doing, or perhaps lost in his own thoughts.  Luke could see the keys dangling against his hip and crept up so close behind him he could almost reach them through the wire fence.  Just as he was about to touch them a loud voice, crackling from the man’s walkie talkie, startled his hand back.  The voice sounded impatient.

“Brinley! Can you hear me? I need you to open the Goods Entrance – the delivery’s just arrived.”

“I heard you! I’m on my way.”

The man, and the keys, hurried out of the enclosure.  Luke followed him at a discreet distance.  He went past a sign which said ‘STAFF ONLY’ and up to a big gate.  No one else was around.  The walkie talkie shouted at the man again.

“HURRY UP BRINLEY! It’s that bad tempered lorry driver!”

“I’m coming! I’m coming!” said Brinley.

In his rush he left the keys in the gate after unlocking it and rushed up the track.  He would probably only be gone for a moment or two.  But that was enough.

Luke ran as fast as he could to get back to the elephant.  It was easier to go unnoticed than it had been on the way out because there was some kind of commotion on the other side of the zebra enclosure.  He overheard something as he passed through which assured him it was nothing to concern him.  The elephant was waiting right where he’d left her.

“I got it! I got the key! Sorry it took so long.”

He unlocked the gate and led her out.

“That’s it, out you come,” he encouraged her, “I don’t know your name so if you don’t mind I think I’ll call you ……… Emma.”

Emma seemed as happy as he was about her outing and she trumpeted with joy.

“Shhh shhh,” Luke looked up into her big, dark eyes, “we’ve got to be sneaky, remember?”

He pointed to a gate behind Emma’s enclosure beyond which he could see a wide open space – a meadow bordered with woodlands.

“Let’s go this way,” he suggested, “don’t worry, no one’ll see.  They’re too busy lookin’ for a lost little boy. Hope they find ‘im.”

elephant rescue

*****

Story concludes tomorrow but if you can’t wait that long you can read the whole thing here 🙂 or buy it in paperback 😉

Might as well make the best of it.

By

Continues from yesterday:

*****

But, it was nice weather, and anything was better than being stuck in a classroom.  Luke decided he might as well try to make the best of it.

Mrs Tebbut pointed at two big tigers.

“What can you tell me about the tigers in this enclosure?” she asked the group.

Luke was shocked.  He put up his hand.

“Are they criminals?” he suggested.

“Don’t be silly Luke, of course they’re not criminals.”

“Well it don’t seem fair to put innocent animals in prison.”

“Can anyone give me a sensible answer?”

Simon Butler read aloud from the board on the fence.

“They’re Bengal tigers; well known for their power and strength; one of the most feared predators in nature.  In the wild they scent mark large areas of up to 100 square kilometres to keep their rivals away.”

“Very good Simon,” Mrs Tebbut smiled.

Luke didn’t think there was much to smile about.

“The wild ones live in massive places, prob’ly bigger ‘n Bournemouth, and this cage is smaller ‘n my back garden.  No wonder they look fed up,” he thought.

They moved on.  Luke lagged behind with diminishing enthusiasm.  Mrs Tebbut drew everyone’s attention to another enclosure.

“Can anyone tell me what these guys are?”

“They’re penguins,” said Anna.

“That’s right. Does anyone know what type?”

“They’re bored penguins.”  He knew the moment he said it that he’d said it too loud.

“Luke Walker!  I am tired of your attitude!  If you can’t enter into the spirit of things with a smile on your face and some genuine effort then kindly do not participate at all.”

That was fine by Luke.

“Why do teachers ask you what you think if all they really want you to tell ’em is what they think?” he grumbled to himself.

When Mrs Tebbut was distracted by Katia getting a splinter, Luke decided to take her at her word and ‘not participate at all’.  He was better off on his own anyway.  He wandered around the zoo, looking at the animals and feeling sorry for them.

“Don’t seem right to lock animals up when they ‘aven’t done nothin’.  It’s like the Sheriff of Nottin’am all over again.”

He noticed an empty bench in front of a line of trees, away from the busier zoo paths, and decided to have a sit down.

“It’s a shame about zoos,” he thought, disappointed.

While he sat there he looked around.  Over his left shoulder, behind the trees, he saw another enclosure.  It was off the beaten track and smaller than the others.  It was concrete and contained nothing of beauty or interest except its occupant.  There stood the biggest, most breath-taking, awe-inspiring individual Luke had ever encountered.  An elephant.  All on her own. 

“All on your own,” Luke sympathised, as he made his way to her, “another damson in distress.”

He climbed up on the fence so that he could talk to her over the top of it and she walked towards him to get a closer look.

“I’m on me own too,” he continued, “not stayin’ with the group if I’m not wanted!”

Then he had an idea.

“Would you like to come out an’ play with me?”

The elephant seemed interested so he went on.

“Ok, listen, we’ll have to be a bit sneaky.  You wait here while I find a key; then I’ll open this gate and you can slip out before anyone sees.”

It was a brilliant plan!

*******

Continues tomorrow, but if you can’t wait you can read the whole story here now 😀

and the first eight chapters are also available in paperback 🙂

vegan book for children