The tambourine’s tale

The tambourine

The tambourine sat on the floor with all the other instruments and rattled quietly to himself as the children stomped round the room looking for something to play with. The tambourine loved his own tinkly, crashy, smashy sound, and he loved being picked up and shaken violently. It made his life really exciting.

He was sort-of friends with the maracas, but he didn’t really like their rattly insides. He was best friends with the drums, because he liked loud noises. But their noise was different – more bang-y and thumpy, so he didn’t mind if the children chose them as well as him. He could always make himself heard. He liked to be loudest and best.

Suddenly, he found himself being pushed to one side. Kaylee had picked up the triangle. The tambourine frowned and rattled his bells a little bit. Surely a tambourine was better than a triangle?

Kaylee tinkled a little on the triangle and then said to Mark, “Come and make some music with me.”

Mark came over and took up the maracas. He shook them and made them shush-shush a little.

“Listen to the little peas inside these maracas,” he said to Kaylee. “It’s like the wind in the trees.”

Kaylee grinned and tinkled the triangle a few times. “I’m making a noise like wind chimes.”

Ben came and picked up the drums. “I’ll make some thunder,” he said and whammed on the drum so hard that everyone jumped in surprise.

The tambourine felt very sad. He really wanted to join in but no one had any spare hands to hold him with!

Mark made his maraca-wind blow louder and louder. The peas in the maracas were whacking hard from side to side.

Kaylee shouted. “We need some lightning! Someone find something to make lightning with!”

The tambourine held his breath and hoped and hoped. He thought he could be good at lightning. But there was no one to pick him up.

Suddenly the door of the playroom opened and Kaylee’s mum called, “That’s a fabulous storm but it’s now bedtime. Put the instruments away, please!”

“Mum! No!” called Kaylee. “Please come and make some lightning so that it’s a proper storm!”

Mum looked round and saw the tambourine on the floor. “This is just perfect for lightning,” she said and grabbed him with both hands. The tambourine was ecstatic! Mum moved him fast. Up, down, pause… up, down, pause… The light from the bulbs in the ceiling flashed on his bells even though Mum was careful not to make them ring. The tambourine knew he was making the best lightning ever. Without a single rattle.

At the height of the storm, Kaylee called, “Right, make the storm die away. Wind, you go first.” And Mark gradually made the maracas grow quiet.

“Now the wind chimes can’t chime,” said Kaylee, and put the triangle down.

Mum stopped flashing the tambourine about and said, “No more lightning. The storm has moved away.”

Ben made the drum-thunder roll away into the distance. Everything was now quiet.

The children put the musical instruments into the music box and the tambourine smiled to himself as he fell asleep. He knew now that he didn’t always have to be the noisiest or chosen first to be an important part of the action.

The moral of this tale is that everyone has something else they’re good at even if they aren’t aware of it.

The tractor’s tale

The red and blue tractor

The little lego girl, Jaz, drove her red and blue tractor up and down the field in the sand tray. It was a bit boring. Up… down… up… down she went, getting hotter and hotter in the afternoon sun. She wished Ben would think of something else for her to do.

She liked Ben. The other children always played with the police car or the fire engine, and made loud noisy stories with lots of accidents. But Ben liked to do other things, like race his cars, make gardens and houses, or shift sand with the digger. Today he was ploughing fields. Or rather Jaz was.

Suddenly, without warning, a cow jumped out in front of the tractor. Jaz slammed on the brakes.

“You silly cow,” she shouted. “I nearly knocked you over. Why are you wandering over my nicely ploughed field?”

The cow mooed sadly and told Jaz what had happened. “The wind blew so hard in the night that it knocked down the fence round our field. And now my calf, Daisy, has gone missing.”

“Oh dear,” said Jaz. “I’ll keep an eye open for Daisy while I’m ploughing my field. But please take care not to get run over!”

Jaz was now happy to plough up and down. She wanted to help the cow find her calf.

“Daiseeee!” she called every few minutes.

Ben made her drive all round the field, looking behind bushes and trees. She also looked into the ditches that drained the water. But she didn’t find Daisy.

“I’ll have to call in the police,” said Ben with a sigh. “They’re good at finding lost things.”

Jaz was upset. She didn’t want the policeman to come. She wanted to be the one who found Daisy. So she crossly made some zig-zag lines with her plough, so that it would be difficult for the policeman to walk around the field or drive his car across it.

Ben brought in his cleverest sheepdog, too, and made them all search high and low for Daisy. But when supper time came, there was still no sign of her. Her mother was mooing quietly in the corner of the field and refusing to eat her hay.

Jaz drove the tractor back to the farmyard. Just as she was getting out, she heard a funny muffled sound.

She jumped off the tractor seat and raced to the old wooden barn. She had to pull really hard on the door to open it. And there inside was Daisy the calf, lying on the floor and whimpering in the dark. Her hoof was caught in some wood that had fallen on her.

“Oh Daisy!” said Jaz. “What happened?”

“The wind blew the door shut and then I couldn’t see in the dark,” said Daisy. “So I stumbled into the wood pile.”

“I’ll go get the policeman and Ben,” said Jaz. “Between us we’ll be able to lift this wood off you.”

It was nearly bedtime before Daisy was free. By this time, the sheepdog had guided her mother all the way down to the farmyard. She licked Daisy and mooed her thanks to Jaz for rescuing her calf.

“We all helped set her free,” said Jaz. “I was just the one who found her. Now you take her home, and we’ll mend the fences so that Daisy can’t get lost again.”

And that’s exactly what they did. But they didn’t have to worry about the noise of their hammering and nailing. Daisy was fast asleep after her adventure, and her snoring was the loudest sound in the field!

The moral of this tale is that you often need to work as a team if you want to get something done.

The white owl’s tale

White Owl

White Owl spread her wings and said to Little Owl, “Hop on my head and I’ll do the flying today. That way, we can go exploring in far-away places.”

Little Owl fluttered onto his mum’s head. And White Owl set off to show him proudly to everyone who would listen.

First they visited the cave under the table. Ben was there, making all the dinosaurs run around and attack each other.

“Little Owl is growing big and strong,” said White Owl. “See how well she holds her wings out!”

“Show off!” said Ben, and went back to his dinosaur fight.

White Owl twittered crossly. Ben was being horrible today.

She flew out of the cave and soared into the air. She loved the feel of the wind under her wings. Soon Little Owl would be able to fly as well as she could. “Hold tight, Little Owl!” she said. “We’re coming in to land.”

And she folded her claws in and landed on the doll house roof.

Jodi was helping the dolls cook tea. “Don’t land there,” she scolded White Owl. “You’ve rattled everything and made it fall over.”

“Sorry!” said White Owl. “I just wanted you to see how Little Owl is growing so big and strong.”

“I’ll visit you another day” said Jodi. “I’m busy now.”

White Owl felt cross again. Nobody wanted to talk to her.

Well, maybe the puppets would like to see Little Owl…

“Hold tight!” she said to Little Owl. “We’re off to see Lion and Koala. They’re always friendly.”

White Owl flexed her wings – it was a long way across the room to puppet land.

The puppets were all busy. Lion and Tiger were talking about their hunting trip. Frog and Rabbit were having a competition to see who could hop the highest. Dog and Cat were chasing each other round in circles. No one even saw White Owl and Little Owl land.

“Er… HELLO!” called White Owl. “We’ve come to visit!”

No one answered.

Little Owl fluttered down off White Owl’s head and wobbled over to where Wolf and Monkey were huddled in the corner, discussing something loudly.

“Don’t go far!” White Owl called. “I want everyone to see how big and strong you’ve grown.” She was so proud of him, she didn’t notice anyone else.

Suddenly, Little Owl called, “Twit-twoo, Mum! Come here! Quickly!”

White Owl went to see what all the fuss was about. And what she saw was terrible.

“Oh twit-twoo, twit TWOO” she cried, looking over the ledge down to the floor. “Poor Giraffe. How did he fall?”

“He tripped on this rock,” said Wolf, pointing to a huge brown stone. “It’s too far down for me to jump.”

“And it’s too steep for me to climb,” said Monkey.

“Well, that’s easily sorted,” said White Owl. “I will fly down and carry him back in my strong claws.”

And she did. The puppets all clapped when she set Giraffe back on the ledge. “Thank you, White Owl,” they said.

And then, while Wolf and Monkey gave Giraffe some leaves to eat, Little Owl looked at his mum.

“You were the star of the show,” he said. “But can we go home to bed now? I’m too tired to visit anyone else.”

So White Owl flew them quickly back to their tree, and they slept for the rest of the day, as owls do.

The moral of this tale is that if you want friends, it’s best to be interested in other people and not yourself.

The doll house’s tale

The doll house

The doll house was feeling bored. No one played with her any more. Minnie Doll sat where she had been left, in the bathroom on the mat. Grandpa Doll was downstairs on the settee. He hadn’t moved for a month. The baby was still in his high chair in the kitchen, but no one was feeding him. Berta Doll was on the floor staring at nothing. She’d been staring at nothing for weeks. “Oh, when is someone going to play with me again?” thought the doll house.

The doll house was special. Every room could be taken away and stood on its own. The rooms could be piled high like a block of flats, or stood on their own like posh mansions. But the children who played in the playroom seemed to have forgotten about the things she could do.

Suddenly the door of the playroom burst open and Jake and Leona rushed in.

“Bagsy play with the animals,” shouted Leona.

The doll house felt her floorboards creak and groan. The breeze blew through her windows and sighed like a ghost.

Jake must have heard, because he looked over at her and said, “Hey! That doll house comes apart, doesn’t it? Let’s make a row of houses and garages!”

And before she knew it, the doll house was in pieces on the floor. The square section that had been the bathroom was lined up first, the living room second, the kitchen third, the bedroom fourth, and the attic room last in the row. Jake had made a street of houses!

Jake pulled the furniture out of two sections. “These are the garages,” he said, and put the police car, the fire engine, and the ambulance in one, and a posh shiny car in the other. “The rest can be houses.”

Leona stood Grandpa Doll at the door of his new little house. Jake sat the baby in his pram outside a house further down the road. Grandpa waved to the baby and the baby coo-ed and grinned back.

Suddenly Berta Doll tripped over the carpet in her new house. “Ow!” she cried.

“Emergency!” shouted Jake. “Get the ambulance.”

Leona grabbed the ambulance from its garage and raced it down to Berta’s house.

“You’ll be okay,” she told Berta. “But you’ve broken your leg.”

She drove Berta in the ambulance to the hospital. Jake picked up the doctor’s and nurse’s equipment and started operating on the broken leg.

After a while, he said, “Now don’t walk on this leg for six days. You’ll have to hop on crutches.”

Leona made Berta some crutches from two pencils, and they laughed as she hopped and jumped to her new house.

The doll house was pleased she was being played with again, and was even more pleased when Leona planted trees and flowers round the row of houses. Jake put fences round the gardens.

Then Leona’s mum came in and said: “Time to go to bed, kids!”

“Bother, bother,” said Jake. “I was just going to change these houses into something else. Something even better!”

Something better? The doll house was so excited she didn’t think she would be able to sleep at all. But soon she was fast asleep, dreaming of being a skyscraper in New York, or a village of igloos in Iceland. She would never be a bored old doll house again!

The moral of this tale is that things don’t have to stay the way they are. They can be changed.