emma1

Emma was a little girl who was 4 and lived with her mother on a big boat full of people on holiday.
Emma’s mum was called Ann and she worked on the boat playing the drums in the dance band.
The boat was as long as a railway station and had swimming pools and shops and a big playground on it with trampolines and sand pits and a big merry go round with horses on it. (not real ones though)
Emma would usually wake up early and get dressed herself, and being careful not to wake Ann, because Ann played drums very late at night and liked to sleep in, Emma would go outside, onto the top of the boat.
Sometimes she would play at the playground and sometimes she would talk to the grownups lying around sunbathing and sometimes she would go to the edge of the boat and hold onto the rails and look down at the water going past and think of all the fish in the water and wonder if fish had holidays.
Emma’s best friend was called Lucy and she was 7.
Lucy had long red hair and a very loud laugh and was quite naughty, but she could be good as well.
Lucy lived on the boat with her father called Eric who was the person who worked at the swimming pool, looking after the people in the water.
One day Emma was playing in the sand pit when Lucy came up with a big heavy shopping bag, and, trying hard not to laugh, showed Emma what was inside.
Inside the bag were 20 green frogs, all jumping on top of one another.
The frogs were bright green and had shiny blue eyes.
Emma and Lucy made a big house for them in the sand pit and put them in it, but they kept jumping out the windows and trying to run away so they put them back in the shopping bag and decided to take them down to show Ann.
Ann and Emma’s rooms were a long way down in the boat and sometimes their windows had to be shut because the sea would splash in if there were big waves.
Ann had one room with a bed and some drums to practice on and a big picture of a man with a chicken on his head. (don’t ask me why)
Emma’s room had a bed and some bookshelves with lots of childrens books and toys on the floor and a dolls house and on the walls, lots of drawings that Emma had made herself, and in one corner there was a big plant with yellow flowers.
Emma and Lucy ran all the way down to Emma’s room and as they ran the frogs would go jump/bump, jump/bump inside the shopping bag.
Lucy was laughing her great big laugh and Emma was singing, See-saw-marjory-door, and getting puffed because Lucy was running too fast.
When Emma got home, she and Lucy dropped the frogs in her room and went to see Ann. Ann was having a shower and shouted, “Hi Emma-Hi Lucy, I’ll be out in a minute and we can have baked beans and fruit salad for lunch if you like.”
The girls said “OK Yummy”
Just then the phone rang and Emma answered it and said, “Hello, Can I help you?”
and a mans voice said
“Hello little unit, Is your mother the item there please?”
Oh No, thought Emma, Its silly Tod- the singer in the dance band.
Emma said “My mothers in the shower. Can I take a message?”
Tod said
“Tell Ann that practice is at 3 this afternoon”
“OK” said Emma and hung up-”Phew.”
She shouted “Practice at three.” -to Ann and then she and Lucy went back to her room to play with the frogs.
But when they looked in the shopping bag all the frogs were GONE!
“Oh No” said Emma and Lucy together, “The frogs have run away”
“Quick.” said Emma, “They have to be still in the room, lets find them before we get into trouble.”
So they looked everywhere in Emma’s room.
They found 4 frogs under the bed,
and 5 frogs hiding in the dolls house,
and 1 frog inside a shoe,
and 2 frogs in the pot plant,
and 3 frogs in the bookcase,
and 1 frog behind Emma’s pillow
and 1 frog on the window sill. (Lucky the window was shut thought Emma)
and 1 frog was on the lamp shade,
and 1 frog was behind Emma’s pencil case on the floor.
The two girls put the frogs back in the bag and counted them.
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15-16-17-18-19......
There was still one frog missing
Just then Ann put her head around the corner to call them for lunch.
Emma and Lucy showed her the frogs and told her about how they all got out and how they couldn’t find the last one. Ann just laughed and told them not to worry, it would probably turn up later.
So they tape the top of Lucy’s bag so no more frogs could get out, then went to the top of the boat and had baked beans and fruit salad and watched the seagulls floating in the air above the boat.
Emma said “Good lunch aye”
and Ann said “Don’t say aye”
and Emma said “Sorry?”
and Ann said “Don’t say sorry-Say pardon.”
and Emma thought-Phew!
After lunch, Ann went to practice with the band.
Emma and Lucy played hop-scotch and took the frogs back to Lucy’s and did some drawings.
After practice, Ann took them to the movies and they watched cartoons, a story about a little pony who wanted to be a taxi driver.
After that it was getting close to bed time, so they had some dinner.
Lucy rang her father, Eric up and asked if she could sleep at Emma’s overnight.
“No problems.” said Eric.
So they got into their dressing gowns and played with the dolls house until Ann came in and put them both to bed and said “Sweet dreams” and went out again.
Emma and Lucy had turned the light out and said goodnight to each other, when, from under the bed, they heard a small squeaky voice, singing-
“I wish I didn’t wait so long
for everything to happen
I’ve been a frog for two years now
and can faintly see a pattern”
“What was that?” Cried Emma and Lucy
Leaning over, they both looked under the bed.
Right under the bed, next to the wall, sat the missing frog.
“Hello girls.” it said in it’s little voice, “I expect your a little surprised I can Talk.”
“Wow!” said Emma
“Gosh!” said Lucy
“How come you’re a frog and you can talk?” asked Emma
“Well” said the frog. “I’m a frog because of tradition I suppose, because frogs are usually what magicians turn things into.
I used to be a hairdresser and its a very long story, but I’m a frog now and as far as being able to talk, well I just listened to people and learnt I suppose. I can speak English and a little Spanish and a little French.”
“Ola.” said Emma
“Ola” said the frog.
Lucy had jumped out of bed and, being brave, she picked up the frog to see if its lips moved.
“Say something.” said Lucy
“Well I must say I find your red hair adorable.” said the frog
(His lips did move-so it wasn’t a trick)
“Why thank you.” said Lucy, who was quite proud of her hair.
She put the frog down on the bed next to them and they both looked at it.
Emma and Lucy were amazed and astonished and a little bit shocked that they had a frog that could talk staying in their room.
“well.” said the frog, “You’re probably wondering what I’m doing here aren’t you?”
“Well, Yes we are actually.” said the girls

“Well its quite simple really.” said the frog. “To be perfectly honest I was getting bored with all the other frogs because they couldn’t talk, and I haven't talked to anyone in 2 years. I thought I would find some children and have some fun, and I could show them my special trick that I haven't shown anyone yet.”
Emma and Lucy both grinned, they liked tricks.
“OK” said Emma “Thats fine by us, you being in our room, we won’t tell anyone, but what is your magic trick?”
The frog smiled. “My trick is that I have magic spit.”
“Ooh Yuk” cried the girls
“Spittings not nice.” said Emma in a shocked voice.
“Spitting is messy.” said Lucy very seriously.
“Well yes.” said the frog, a little put out. “Children shouldn’t spit and I’m not encouraging you to take it up, but we frogs spit all the time. Oh yes we certainly do!
We spit on the ground, we spit on our food, we spit on flowers and bushes and because I’m a magic frog, I have magic spit..Watch !”
The frog made a little noise in its throat and spat a tiny bit of water on one of Emma’s books on the floor and the book suddenly went flying all by itself up to the roof and hung there.
“Thats not all-watch this.” said the frog and the book flew down next to him and the frog jumped onto the book and went flying round and round the room.
He whizzed about very quickly and sang out in his little high voice.
“ I’ve often wondered what would come
of spitting out my wishes
A life too full when all is done
for sadness no-one misses”
Then he landed on the foot of the bed with a little bump.
Emma and Lucy were very excited and bouncing on the bed and clapping and making quite a bit of noise and the frog became worried that someone would come and find them so he said,
“Well, that was great, this is the most fun I’ve had in ages,
but now I’ve got you all excited and you’ll want to stay up all night and tomorrow
you’ll be all ratty and bad tempered and I want to have fun tomorrow too,
so what I’m going to do now is give your pillows a little lick of magic spit
so when your head touches the pillow, you’ll fall asleep right away
and have especially good dreams.”

Then the frog jumped up and licked Emma’s pillow, just a little lick at the side, and then Lucy’s pillow the same and then jumped down on the floor and waited
Emma didn’t want to go to sleep, but she thought she would give it a try. As soon as her head hit the pillow she couldn’t open her eyes for tiredness and drifted straight off to sleep.
Lucy saw Emma fall asleep and tried her pillow and she fell asleep straight away as well.
The frog jumped up into the dolls house and slept in one of the dolls beds.
LUCYS DREAM
In Lucy’s dream there was a competition for the naughtiest girl in the world.
All the naughty girls were on a stage and the judges were school teachers and policewomen and ladies who sell make-up in department stores.
The first test was for general naughtiness and everyone had a turn at loosing their temper.
Lucy yelled and screamed and cried and kicked a chair and threw a cushion and hit another girl and argued with everybody, saying “No I Won’t” and she won that part of the competition but was quite tired because being naughty was hard work.
The next part of the competition was food naughtiness.
There was a pretend kitchen and someone would bring food in and try and make your lunch and you had to be as naughty as possible.
Lucy loved that because food naughtiness was her favourite.
She didn’t want brown bread, she wanted white bread and she wouldn't eat it until the crusts had been cut off and she didn’t want milk she wanted apple juice, and she didn’t care that there wasn’t any in the fridge, and her eggs were too hot so she played with them and dropped them on the floor and she tipped all the sugar out of the bowl on purpose and won the whole competition.
She got given a prize of 50 packets of potato chips that she could eat all at once if she wanted.
She was very happy, but very tired because its hard work being naughty.
So after her dream she fell into a deep sleep without any more dreams that night.

EMMA’S DREAM
In Emma’s dream, she was in the country with Ann and they stayed in a bus with beds inside, and she met two boys called Patrick and Thomas and they went for horse rides across green hills, down to the sea and then they played on the beach and collected shells and found bits of wood for walking sticks
In the dream Emma went for a swim and the water was so warm it was almost like a bath. Then Emma and Ann and Patrick and Thomas had a picnic and Emma ate the most out of everyone
After their picnic everyone got on their horses, Thomas and Patrick on one horse and Emma and Ann on the other and they had a race down the beach and Emma and Ann won by about 2 inches.
After that they went back to the bus and there were lots of people there, having a party with loud music and a big outside fire.
Emma met lots of people and they were all very friendly and everyone was dancing and singing songs, and it must have been a very good dream because when Emma woke up in her bed in the morning, she was laughing and Lucy was asleep and the frog was looking out of the dollshouse.What happens next, I’ll tell you later in the next part of the story-But now its time for you to go to sleep and have good dreams and maybe wake up laughing...
Goodnight.