|
|
Sparkle Sprite and the Spangly Sprats
Sparkle Sprite, the intrepid explorer, was getting ready to spring into action on a new adventure.
She was spraying her spanking new knapsack a rather fetching shade of purple to match the paint on her spanking new yacht (pale peach sprinkled with purple stars).
She packed her maps and set off to the port in her new Esprit motor car.
"What a spree this is going to be," she hummed to herself as she drove along. "I just can't wait to get there!"
Where is "there"? You may well ask. Sparkle wasn't the sort to plan as thoroughly as she should and her final destination was a point somewhere on an island called Sprout Island (mostly because it was shaped like a Brussels Sprout - a happy choice as Brussels Sprouts were Sparkle's very favourite vegetable...don't let's even think about that one!).
Anyway, Sparkle sprinted from her Esprit on to her pale peach (musn't forget the sprinkling of purple stars) yacht. She cast off and the yacht sprang out of the harbour like a spanner from a sprocket ("a spanner from a sprocket?" I hear you ask - I rather like it myself!)
Sparkle had spread her maps out on the cabin table and was measuring measurements and generally looking very professional, when the yacht stopped.
She sprang out of the hatch and leaned over the rail. The yacht was lodged in a huge shoal of what looked like sardines.
"Oooer!" spluttered Sparkle as she looked around. "Cor blimey and luvverduck!!" (did I forget to say that she was born within the sound of Bow Bells?) "It's a load of blooming sardines, that's what it is".
The fish were sparkling and shining in the sun-lit sea, sprinting this way and that and having the most wonderful time. However, when they heard Sparkle's comments they all froze on the spot and looked up, as one, at the yacht above them.
"I do beg your pardon," said the head fish. "But, actually, if you don't mind, we are NOT BLOOMING SARDINES. We are SPANGLY SPRATS!!"
Sparkle was so taken with the sparkling, shimmering throng of fish in the sea she didn't really listen.
"What's that?" she cried "Spangly Pratts? You look like blooming sardines to me but then who am I to say, eh?"
At that, in a swirl of spangles and sparkles, the whole shoal of sprats leaped as one onto the pale peach (yes, yes, sprinkled with purple stars) yacht and slithered and sprawled all over it's lovely peach deck.
Sparkle sprang over the side of the yacht in panic and set off in her spritely dinghy to as far away from the yacht as she could.
The spangly sprats soon spruced up the pale peach (...purple stars...) yacht with sprinkles of slimy scales and bits of seaweed until it was just as they liked it (the purple spanking new knapsack didn't make it through I am afraid) and sailed off into the wide blue yonder singing sea shanty songs and telling fishy tales as they went.
Did Sparkle make it to Sprout Island? I rather think she may have done, eventually, after a few more adventures about which you may read at a later date of course.
Are the spangly sprats still roaming the oceans blue? Well, at times, in the deepest dark of night, in the most odd corners of the world, a strong smell of fish can be smelt, a flash of pale peach (sprinkled with purple stars) can be seen and a mixture of "Yo, ho ho and a bottle of rum" and "The Old Man of the Sea" wafts across the rolling waves. Beware though if this ever happens to you - those who smell, see and hear the sprats rarely come back alive!
1. What colour was Sparkle spraying her spanking new knapsack?
2. Where was Sparkle going to?
3. Just out of interest, what is your favourite vegetable?
4. What does "born within the sound of Bow Bells" mean? (ask for a hint if you have no idea!)
5. What did the sprats spruce up the yacht with?
6. We know that Sparkle had more adventures. Can you think of something else strange she may have met up with on her way to Sprout Island?
|