Big Bertie
Bertie was cuddled up in bed and his Mummy was sat in a chair by the bed, ready to begin that evening’s bedtime story.
“Mummy?” said Bertie
“Yes poppet?” replied Mummy tucking his favourite teddy in beside him.
“Is it true that when you’re small you grow while you’re asleep?” asked Bertie curiously.
“Well, yes I think that is true Bertie, you’re growing all the time so it makes sense you’d grow while you’re in bed too. Your fingers look longer to me already and you’ve only been in five minutes!” she joked. “Right are you comfortable? Let’s start tonight’s story; it’s going to be about a blue dog called Fluffy…”
But before Mummy had even got half way through, Bertie had already drifted off to sleep, dreaming about Fluffy’s adventures, chasing after a huge purple bone, covered in magic stars.
Bertie!! Time to get up for school or you’ll be late!” Bertie heard his Mummy shouting from downstairs and could smell cooked toast wafting up from the kitchen.
“Wow” he thought, “I’m soooo tried and I’ve had loads of sleep!” The other thing he thought was “Why does my bed feel so little this morning?”
One foot was resting on the floor, one knee was squashed up near his face and his head was touching the wall. He rolled over to get out of bed and slowly got up… and up… and up… until his head bumped the ceiling.
“Ouch!” he thought rubbing his head. “What’s going on??”
He ducked through his bedroom door and squeezed down the stairs. Mummy was in the kitchen getting a cup of juice ready for him and drinking her tea.
“Marmalade or honey on your toast Bertie?” she asked without turning around.
“Honey please Mummy.” Replied Bertie in a very deep voice.
“Oh no have you got a sore throat…… Bertiiiiiieeeee!!!”Mummy got such a fright as she turned around to see her giant son standing behind her that she dropped his toast (butterside down of course) on the floor.
“What in the world has happened to you!?” She asked, poking him to check he was real.
Bertie shrugged his huge shoulders. “I think I’ve grown in my sleep!”
“Well,” said Mummy, “That’s no excuse not to go to school I suppose… although you’ll have to go in your pyjamas, none of your other clothes will fit!”
Bertie grabbed his other piece of toast and his bag and headed out the door to make the short walk to his primary school. But what a shock he had as he got to the school gates, as towering over the fence and bumping around in the playground were all his giant classmates!
“Morning Bertie.” said his best friend Tom, squeezing his way through to greet him. “I see you’ve had a major growth spurt too?!”
Just then a very teeny-weeny Mr Granville their class teacher came out of school blowing his whistle.
“Students!” he shouted. “Clearly we cannot have our lessons inside today as you wouldn’t fit! So we’ll be learning outside… thank goodness for sunshine!”
They had their music and reading classes outside in the school yard, sessions where they could sit down in their own space as anything like PE would have been a nightmare!
Soon it was lunchtime and the poor dinner staff broughtout 10 plates per child, which they gobbled down in one go. Just as they were starting to complain about how hungry they still were, there was a deafening “WOOF, WOOF, WOOOOF!” from the other side of the playing fields and along came a humongous, bounding dog.
“Hey that’s Pooch, Mr Jones the caretaker’s dog! He’s been geneticized too!” said Bertie.
But suddenly while Pooch was sniffing around Bertie looking for snacks, Bertie had an idea.
“Wait a second,” he said “Pooch is the only other one of us who’s big… I sneaked him some of my lunch yesterday as he was hiding under the table…….. IT’S THE SAUSAGES!!!!”
Mr Granville looked at the sausage in disbelief. “How has this happened and how do we fix this!?” he gasped.
Mrs Croob the very, very old cook who has been at the school forever stepped forward. “I think I know how we could fix this. I remember the same thing happened in 1987…”
“This has happened before!?” gasped Mr Granville. “Well what did you do to fix it ‘last time’?”
Mrs Croob dug around in the school kitchen cupboards and pulled out…. a giant tin of CUSTARD!
Sure enough, when the adults went and checked a left over sausage in the fridge, if you looked very closely,they were covered in a fine sparkly dust which twinkled when you held it up to the light. And even though everyone thought the idea was completely bonkers, everyone including Bertie, Tom and even Pooch went to bed with custard on their nose that night and in the morning…. …. everything was back to normal, phew!!
“A dab of custard on the nose just before bed should do the trick.” she said.
But from that day on, Bertie watched Mrs Croob in the school kitchen as she mixed and stirred her cauldrons of soup and stew for their lunch and one day as she added her herbs and unusual jars of spices…
…Bertie was sure she saw her wink at him from across the hall and smile.
