PART 3
After their adventure in the wood both Sally and Ronnie were ravenously hungry and that evening ate all their dinner and more besides. Although Ronnie didn’t tell either of his parents about his super strength, he did keep looking in the mirror to see if his muscles in his arms were any bigger (they weren’t). After their bath they both sat on Sally’s bed talking about what they would do the next day, which was a school day. Rufus sat on the mat and watched them with his head tilted slightly to one side.
Ronnie stood in front of Sally’s mirror and flexed his arm muscles for the tenth time. Sally rolled her eyes, sometimes boys could be very annoying.
‘Why don’t I have big muscles in my arms? It’s not fair!’ he said rather grumpily.
‘Maybe because your strength comes from magic and not from exercise?’ said Sally as though it was obvious. ‘You need to stop looking in the mirror all the time, people will begin to think you are crazy.’
Ronnie got bored with checking his muscles, ‘I’m going to bed’ he said before lifting Sally’s bed (with her on it) above his head.
‘Put me down, you idiot!’ Sally said as she hung on to the bed, frightened that she might roll off.
After Ronnie went to bed, Sally was joined by Rufus the cat who often came and curled up on Sally’s bed. He liked to sleep at her feet all night. If Sally woke up during the night she could hear Rufus breathing. Occasionally Rufus would get up, stretch, walk around in circles a couple of time before settling down and going back to sleep.
Sally said to Rufus, ‘Meeooww’ (which in cat language was ‘Hello Rufus, are you coming to sleep on my bed?’)
‘Yes I am’ said Rufus (although to anyone other than Sally it would have sounded like ‘Meeeoow’). He sat and started to wash his back leg starting at his hip but slowly working towards his foot which he spent quite a bit of time on. Eventually he put his foot down and looked at Sally with a curious look on his face. ‘How long have you been able to talk cat language?’
Sally knew she couldn’t divulge how she’d got the power to talk to animals so she said, ‘Not long Rufus, but I’m really pleased that I can talk to you!’
‘Your parents were talking about you today,’ said the cat as he licked his front paw and then wiped it over his face a couple of times, before doing the same thing with his other paw. ‘They are pleased you are doing so well at school but are worried about your brother.’
‘Why?’ said Sally.
‘They are worried about his reading, whatever that is.’ said the cat as he curled up and sighed before closing his eyes and tucking his face under his tail.
Anyone watching Sally and the cat talking would have seen Sally saying ‘Meeooww’ followed by Rufus saying ‘Meeooww’ back to her. Sally was amazed that humans have hundreds and hundreds of words to choose from when they speak to each other, but cats only have one. The secret was in how the word was said, for example, you could say ‘Meeooww’ which means ‘I think I will go into the garden and hunt butterflies’ or you could say ‘Meeooww’ which means ‘‘This fish is nice’. Sally thought it would be so much easier if human language was like cat language. Think how easier spelling lessons would be? Once you mastered how to spell ‘meeooww’, which is not all that difficult, you could go out to play. So much more sensible!
The following day they were up early, dressed and finishing breakfast when their Mummy said, ‘Here are your play-lunches’ and she gave one box to Sally and one to Ronnie.
Sally picked up her Barbie back-pack and opening it half expected to find it full of mushrooms (it wasn’t), before putting her school books and play-lunch inside. She remembered what Rufus had said the night before so she said to her Mummy, ‘Ronnie has asked me to help him with his reading.’
Her mother looked surprised, ‘Really?’ turning to Ronnie she said, ‘That’s very clever of you Ronnie, I’m really pleased!’ and she gave him a big hug and a kiss.
After they left the house and on their way to school Ronnie said to Sally, ‘What was all that about? I didn’t ask you to help me with my reading.’
Sally smiled at her brother, ‘Rufus told me they were worried about your reading so I thought I’d say something to make them worry less.’
‘What a good idea!’
‘That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try harder.’
‘I prefer to kick my football than read a silly book.’
‘You just haven’t found the right books. When you find a good book you won’t be able to put it down, you see. I’ll even help you find good ones if you like.’
‘Okay, thanks Sal,’ and having said that Ronnie quickly looked up and down the street before lifting a car above his head and moving it across the street under a No Parking sign.’
‘RONNIE, what did you do that for?’
Ronnie had a great big smile on his face, ‘Remember our grumpy neighbour who wouldn’t give me back my football when I kicked it over his fence?’
‘Yes’
‘Well that was his car! Ha ha, that’ll teach him.’
‘But you’re only allowed to do good things,’ said Sally, worried that her brother had just made a really big mistake.
‘That’s okay, he was parked in front of a fire hydrant so it was good that I moved it out of the way. If there was a fire in this street the fire engine will be able to get to the hydrant for a supply of water.’ He tapped his head, ‘Up here for thinking!’
It was late afternoon and Sally and her brother were walking home from school when someone came running down the street yelling, ‘Stop the train, stop the train.’
‘Whatever is the matter’ Sally asked the man as he ran past them.
‘A huge gum tree has fallen across the railway line near the railway station. We must stop the train!’ And he sprinted off down the street waving his arms and shouting ‘Stop the train, stop the train.’
‘Come on,’ Sally said to her brother, ‘if we get there in time you can lift the tree off the railway line.’
They started running down the street and when they came to the big park they turned into it (the railway station sat just the other side of the park). As they got closer to the station they could see the tree as well as hundreds of people standing on the platform holding their heads saying, ‘What can we do, what can we do?’
‘Quickly,’ said Sally, ‘lift the tree off the track, I can hear the train coming!’
‘But won’t the people see me? I’m not allowed to show anyone my secret strength!’
‘Oh my goodness, you’re right! We need to distract them!’ Sally looked around the park and spotted a large flock of Cockatoos that were sitting in a big tree minding their own business. She put two fingers in her mouth and whistled really loudly. All the Cockatoos looked up and when Sally saw she had their attention she made this awful Cockatoo squawk ‘SQAAARRWK’ (which in Cockatoo language meant ‘Quickly, we need your help!’). All the Cockatoos immediately took off and flew over to Sally who them gave them more instructions, ‘SQAAARRWK SQAAARRWK’ which caused them to immediately take to the air.
‘What did you tell them?’
‘You’ll see, but you need to quickly get ready to lift the tree. When I see that everyone is looking at the birds I’ll give you a signal okay?’
Ronnie raced over to the tree and got ready to lift it. He could already hear the train in the distance thundering down the track but he kept his eye on Sally who was studying the crowd of people.
The people, who were still holding their heads and saying ‘What can we do, what can we do?’ suddenly saw the flock of Cockatoos swooping down towards them. Instead of flying in all different directions (as Cocky’s are want to do) they were flying in FORMATION! The people had seen nothing like it! There were 3 groups of birds, each group was led by a single Cockatoo who was followed by 2 Cockatoos, who in turn were followed by 3 Cockatoos, who were followed by 4 Cockatoos! They looked like 3 huge white triangles swooping down and showing off to all the people.
All the
people switched from saying ‘What can we do, what can we do?’ to saying ‘Look at the birds, look at the birds’.
Sally knew this was the moment and gave Ronnie a wave to tell him that it was okay to lift the tree.
Ronnie saw the signal and immediately started to lift the HUGE tree. It moved quite slowly as it was a very BIG tree indeed and certainly bigger than anything Ronnie had lifted before. He had only just got it off the track when the train came ZOOMING under the tree and past the station (it didn’t stop at this station which was something else the people complained about).
As it shot by, people sitting on the train, who had been watching the scenery out of the windows suddenly saw a small boy HOLDING THIS ENORMOUS TREE OVER HIS HEAD! They rubbed their eyes in disbelief and when they opened them again the train had shot past Ronnie and all they could see were cows in a paddock chewing grass.
Ronnie quickly put the tree down and smacked his hands together (they were covered in dust from the old tree) before racing over to Sally.
‘Well done Ronnie, that was amazing and only just in time!’ She then lifted her head and put her hands around her mouth ‘SQAAARRWK’ she called and the moment she did the Cockatoos broke out of formation and started flying as they normally did.
The people on the station’s platform, who had been holding their heads and saying ‘Look at the birds, look at the birds’ saw the birds stop flying in formation and also realised that the train had gone through the station! They immediately began holding their heads and saying, ‘The train jumped over the tree, the train jumped over the tree!’ before noticing that the tree was no longer over the track, but was now laying parallel with the railway lines.
Sally saw the puzzled look on the people’s faces and turned to Ronnie, ‘I think this would be a good time to start heading home, before people start asking questions.’
As they began walking home they heard the Fire Engine arrive at the station ringing it’s bell. The Chief Fireman got down from his bright red fire engine and called to the people on the platform. ‘We were told a tree was across the track. Who called the fire brigade?’
All the people on the platform looked at him and then, holding their heads started looking at each other saying, ‘Who called the fire brigade, who called the fire brigade?’
The Chief Fireman shook his head and climbed back into his fire engine calling to the driver, ‘Okay, back to the Fire Station, we’re not needed here after all!’
Sally took hold of Ronnie’s hand and together they began skipping down the road. They were HEROS!