The CBB :: View topic - CBB Advent Calendar December 14th

#1: CBB Advent Calendar December 14th Author: CBB Triumvirate,

Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2004 8:29 am

Just a word of warning, there will be some people who crop up in more than one drabble as the person, and some phrases used more than once, as they were suggested by yourselves in different combinations. I have NOT checked wether or not this applies to today's drabble, but we have been meaning to warn you for a few days.

Joey dropped the last of the socks she was darning into the workbasket and smiled. Darning her husband Jack Maynard’s socks was one of the few sewing tasks she never minded. Her hatred of sewing was legendry within the school, and most of her peers were surprised that Mdlle had any hair left, part of her job being to oversee the sewing of the girls. It was not that Joey was a bad needlewoman, by the standards of many English schoolgirls she could sew well, and it was a long time since Matron had sent back any of her mending, but by the standards of her European school friends she would never be anything other than a beginner. This was the girl who had once managed to sew her skirt to her pillowcase when she was mending a rip in the later.

Darning for Jack had once been a chore, when they were first married she could not tell how he had managed to wear holes in his socks so quickly, but she did it because that was what she fondly imagined a wife should do. Then came the awful news of Jack being lost at sea and one of her clearest memories of that time was thinking, as she lay in bed one day ‘I’ll never need to darn his socks again’. It was this most mundane of tasks that made her feel the most acute loss. After he had been found alive and well, Joey rejoiced in doing whatever she could for him, and this time saw the darning not as the ‘thing to do’ but as another way of showing her love for Jack. Anna might do the mending for the children, but Joey darned Jack’s socks.

“Crumpets for tea,” I think she said to herself as she carried the basket of mending upstairs and carefully put the socks away. Looking at the time she decided to join the children for tea. Whenever she could Joey presided at nursery tea herself, and today was in plenty of time finishing her chores and the latest chapter of her book before that.
“Mamma,” the triplets ran across the room to greet her as she entered the light and airy room set aside for them at Plas Gwyn.
“Hello my dears, what have you been up to this afternoon?” she asked as she entered the room and sat down by the fire, “Anna, if you fetch the crumpets and butter, the girls and I will toast them.”

Tea progressed normally - or as normally as it ever did in the Maynard household. With triplet girls and two young boys things were never exactly quiet at Plas Gwyn.
When all had finished and the meal had been cleared away, Joey sat down with her children clustered around her.
“What shall we do now my chickabees,” she asked.
“Want an adventure,” said Stephen. “Tell us a ‘venture story please Mamma.”
“Very well,” said Joey. “Here we go then. “Once upon a time there was a volcano,” she began. “Now volcanoes are very strange mountains, with a life of their own and this one was no exception. Do you all know what a volcano is?”
“I do Mamma,” said Len eagerly. Being the eldest she always liked to feel that she knew more than the others. “A volcano is a mountain that is sometimes sick!”
Joey smothered a choke of laughter at this description, but her fertile imagination immediately leapt off on a tangent and the new story unfolded itself almost ready-made.
“You are quite right my darling. And this volcano was more sick than most. It was running a high temperature and looking very flushed. And slightly green too, for it was very sick indeed.”
“Was it really being sick Mamma?” asked Steve, feeling every small boys delight in horrible things.
“Oh yes Stephen. Its tummy was full of rocks and things that were making it very ill, and it had to get rid of them somehow.”
As Joey spoke the Nursery faded away and the little family found themselves sitting in a glade beside a stream, with a mountain towering above them. This was Joey’s magic. That she could transport them into any story she told them. It had got her into hot water at school, for it was rather disconcerting to the authorities to find an empty dorm on their nightly checks. However, that had been many years ago now, and Joey knew that she could indulge herself with her own family. They were squealing with delight as they realised that today was going to be one of those stories.
Len looked up at the mountain above her. It was very high, cone shaped as every proper volcano is, with a cap of snow over the summit. A wisp of smoke ascended from the very top, showing that this was THE volcano. Len could see that the snow was coloured a sickly red in places, almost splotched with it, and everywhere else the snaow had a funny sickly green tinge to it. A very sick volcano indeed. Even as she watched the smoke increased in density.
“Look everyone,” she cried. “Look at the mountain.”
As they all raised their eyes upwards, the ground shook slightly, and the mountain coughed. There was no other word for it. It was a horrible heaving sort of cough, as if it had something nasty lodging deep in its stomach that it desperately wanted to get rid of. The smoke got heavier, though in great puffs like enormous smoke signals. Then with a final heave, that made the mountain look as if it was bending in the middle, it erupted. An enormous column of flame-shot smoke belched from the top, and they could see great boulders flying upwards as the mountain vented itself of the contents of its stomach. As they watched a river of lava spilled over the top and began to run down the side straight towards them. It was a long way away and moving very slowly, but Joey knew that she would have to keep a good eye on it and get the children out before it got too close. She had nearly lost Simone once because she hadn’t realised that people could really get hurt when they visited one of her stories.
“Can we get closer?” asked Margot. It would be Margot, Joey thought. She had inherited her adventurous side as well as all her mischief, the two things going pretty well together.
“What about the people living here Mamma? Will they get hurt?” Con, though she was the dreamy one, often got to the heart of things before the others, especially Len, who was often too wrapped up in her role as the eldest to see things clearly.
“I hope they won’t Con,” said Joey. “I haven’t thought about the people yet, just about the mountain. It doesn’t want to be sick like this you know.”
“Make it better Mamma!” demanded Mike, with the total trust of a young child that his parents are infallible.
“I’ll try my darling,” said Joey. “But volcanoes have a mind of their own and we can’t change it very easily.”
Mike took her hand and looked up at her in such a trusting way that her heart went out to him. However, she was aware that this story would follow its own path, whatever she did. It was already doing so in fact, for she had not mentioned a lava flow.

Joey began to think. There were times when she wished she had been keener on geography, but her fertile imagination soon came into play, and within moments the children where scuttling behind her, clutching onto her skirts as a giant loomed up in front of them. He grinned and waved at Joey, and she quickly began to tell the children who he was, the friendly giant hedge-doctor, Dr Rumbletum.
“Remember dears, a hedge doctor will doctor anything, not like papa who treats just people.”
“And animals,” added Charles, who only that week had brought in a baby hedgehog that Jack had showed him how to feed through a pipette before releasing back into the garden.
“Occasionally animals, but a hedge-doctor will doctor anything at all, and I think Dr Rumbletum has come to see to the sick volcano.”

The children watched with solemn interest as the giant reached into his pocket and pulled out a large bottle of pink mixture. He shook the bottle and took out the cork and a marvellous smell of mint wafted over to where the group stood. The watched as the giant took a large wooden spoon from another pocket and carefully measured out a dose, which he then poured into the spewing mountain. There was a small tremor and the volcano began to subside. Putting his medicine away Dr Rumbletum came over to the Maynards with a single step.
“That should put Yr Wyddfa to rights, for a while at least.”
“I am so glad you came,” said Joey.
“At your service Madame, I am always happy to help out an old friend.”

At this the scene began to fade and the Maynards soon found they were back in the nursery. They began to chatter excitedly about their adventure and recalling past ones.
“Do you remember when mamma told Bride and her friends about the wooden horse of Troy?” asked Len with a giggle.
“Oh yes and Rosalie Way screamed when she found we were all in the dark,” recalled Con.
“Silly girl, it had to be dark inside a big wooden horse, if they used torches it would set on fire,” added Margot with some superiority.
“You’re just saying what Tom Gay said to her,” Len informed her younger sister, “You were frightened as well.”
“Was not,” Margot exclaimed, indignant at this claim.
“Was too, I saw you cling to Julie Lucy’s hand.”
“She took hold of mine.”
“Mary Helena Maynard, Mary Margaret Maynard, I hope you are not arguing, if you are I may have to stop telling my special stories.”
This threat soon put paid to any further trouble as Joey had known it would, and soon all five children were tucked up in their beds while visions of sugarplums danced in their heads.

#2: Author: Susan, Location: Carlisle

Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2004 9:58 am

Wonderful!

This is another difficult one, but here goes.

Julie Lucy

Jack Maynards socks

'A volcano is a mountain that is sometimes sick.'

#3: Author: Amanda M, Location: Wakefield

Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2004 10:43 am

Len Maynard
Socks
"Her hatred of sewing was legendry within the school"

Star Wars

#4: Author: Nell, Location: London, England

Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2004 10:47 am

Con Maynard
Crumpets
“A volcano is a mountain that is sometimes sick!”

#5: Author: Dawn, Location: Leeds, West Yorks

Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2004 10:47 am

Excellent - but I've no idea of the person or object

Anna
Jack Maynard’s socks
“A volcano is a mountain that is sometimes sick!”

#6: Author: Laura, Location: London (ish)

Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2004 1:20 pm

Julie Lucy
Jack Maynard's socks
'A volcano is a mountain that is sometimes sick'

#7: Author: Guest,

Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2004 2:06 pm

What wonderful imaginations you all have

Margot

Crumpets

“A volcano is a mountain that is sometimes sick!”

#8: Author: Guest,

Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2004 2:08 pm

Ooops The guest was me, as we've had a new computer and work and I don't know my password to login at work. The home computer has it stored.

Ellen D.

#9: Author: Chelsea, Location: Your Imagination

Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2004 2:48 pm

Rosalie Way

Jack's socks

"A volcano is a mountain that is sometimes sick"

#10: Author: Kathy_S, Location: midwestern US

Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2004 3:03 pm

Well, my first inclination would be to go with Joey, socks, and “A volcano is a mountain that is sometimes sick!” Then again, to preserve my record of being almost 100% wrong, I could try Charles, hedgehog and “What shall we do now my chickabees.”

Love the idea of a hedge doctor dosing a sick mountain!

#11: Author: Kate, Location: Ireland

Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2004 3:22 pm

Joey
Jack Maynard's socks
'A volcano is a mountain that is sometimes sick'

#12: Author: Vikki, Location: Sitting on an iceberg, freezing to death!!!

Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2004 8:19 pm

Len Maynard

crumpets

'a volcano is a mountain that is sometimes sick'

#13: Author: LizB, Location: Oxon, England

Posted: Wed Dec 15, 2004 8:02 am

A little late but...

Mary Helena Maynard
latest chapter of her book
"crumpets for tea"

Liz

#14: Author: CBB Triumvirate,

Posted: Wed Dec 15, 2004 8:59 am

How many of you got the right answer?

Tom Gay
Jack Maynard's socks
A volcano is a mountain that is sometimes sick

#15: Author: Dawn, Location: Leeds, West Yorks

Posted: Wed Dec 15, 2004 11:23 am

CBB Triumvirate wrote:

How many of you got the right answer?

Tom Gay
Jack Maynard's socks
A volcano is a mountain that is sometimes sick

Nobody got Tom Gay at all Shocked

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