Welcome to Story Quest, a weekly podcast where we bring your stories to life!
In this episode we bring Dede’s story – Mr Brown’s Swimming Surprise- to life.
If you have a story idea, you could be like Teddy and have it turned into a Story Quest. All you have to do is send us your story idea here. We know you have the best imaginations and together we can create the most brilliant stories!
That’s just what dede did. You can watch the story they suggested come to life below, plus they tell us all about the inspiration behind the story at the end.
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Read along to Mr Brown’s Swimming Surprise here!
You can read along to the story while you listen. Just follow the text below. Don’t worry if you find a word tricky – you can pause the video whenever to give yourself more time
Mr Brownâs Swimming Surprise
If you work at a swimming pool you probably should be able to swim – right? Well Mr Brown, the caretaker at the Pumbleton Pool had never got around to it – something he instantly regretted when he fell into the pool with an big SPLASH! But more about that in a bit. Weâre also going to find a furry surprise in an enormous bowl of cereal – can you imagine that?
The story actually starts with something that wasnât enormous – a very small mouse. He was called Bobby Wiggle Bum, and Bobby was a BRILLIANT swimmer. He loved nothing more than diving into the cool, blue water of the pool and paddling around until his little paws were prune-like. Every night, after everyone had left, Bobby Wiggle would sneak into the pool area and dive in, taking great care to avoid the watchful eyes of the caretaker. As you can imagine mice werenât welcome at the pool. Unfortunately his luck was about to run out. So letâs find out what happenedâŚ
Now Iâm not calling Bobby Wiggle daft or anything – mice are very clever, in fact But Bobby Wiggle was⌠how do I say it? OK Iâve changed my mind. Bobby Wiggle Bum WAS quite daft. He didnât always think things through and this was going to land him in trouble. BIG trouble.
He’d carelessly taken a nibble on a bit of cabling because, well thatâs what mice do, and fortunately he hadnât electrocuted himself but it HAD made the lightbulbs flicker. So that got the caretaker scratching his head and investigating. Bobby Wiggle had to scurry into the dark corners of the rafters to hide – only moments before the Caretaker shone his torch into the dark. Luckily he didnât spot the little mouse.
Eeek! That was a close shave!
Another time he found a rather lovely bar of flapjack in the bin – he LOVED flapjack and so carried it carefully away to his nest. But Bobby Wiggle wasnât actually THAT careful and didnât notice that heâd left a trail of crumbs behind him. The Caretaker followed the trail, feeling determined that there MUST be a mouse – and luckily for Bobby Wiggle his nest was very well hidden, in the cleaning cupboard in the changing rooms, under an old mop and so once more he remained undiscovered.
Eeek Another close shave!
The day that Bobby Wiggleâs luck ran out was when the pool had to be shut and all the water drained away. A bad thing had happened during the childrenâs swimming lesson – I wonât say exactly what it was, but letâs just say there was something in the water that really shouldnât be there – no, not a mouse, something yukky – everyone had to get out and the pool was shut for some very thorough cleaning. All day heâd watched the pool slowly be refilled, and waiting for the engineer to leave, but it was taking ages. He might have been daft but he knew an engineer would tell the caretaker and his plan would be foiled.
Bobby Wiggle was very very sad about this. He never missed a dayâs swimming and so he moped around until he came up with what he thought was a brilliant idea.
He remembered that Mr Brown always had a big bowl of chocolate pops for supper at the pool and he would put so much milk in the bowl that it would be almost brimming over. Bobby thought that a swim in a bowl of chocolatey cereal would be amazing – he loved swimming AND chocolate – whatâs not to like about that! So he hid in the shadows of the staff room and watched greedily as Mr Brown filled the bowl, looking for a chance to take a dip. The chance came when Mr Brown was called away by the supervisor for a moment, and he set the spoon down and left the table. Squeaking happily Billy Wiggles dived into the bowl and began to luxuriate in the lovely chocolatey milk. He did forward crawl, and then backstroke, and then some fancy moves known as mouse stroke and went round and round in circles in delight. Delight untilâŚ..
He surfaced from the water to see a very large face glaring down at him. It was the face of someone whoâd just found a mouse swimming in his cereal and who was absolutely FUMING! Well, you would be wouldnât you? You couldnât eat your cereal after a mouse had been swishing around in it! He was also amazed – I mean that mouse could SWIM! Heâd never seen anything like it!
Eeeek! The game was up! Bobby leapt out of the bowl and scurried towards the pool.
“I knew it!” The caretaker exclaimed, grabbing a Brown and chasing after the mouse. “I’ve got you now, you little rascal!”
Bobby squeaked in fright and jumped into the water – it was time for his best fastest stroke and he swished across the water in a flash- the engineer had just left for the day but Bobby didnât care if he was seen now, he just needed to outrun Mr Brown. The caretaker was hot on his tail as he ran around to the other side of the pool – but you probably know, itâs a very bad idea to run around swimming pools – right? Well Mr Brown obviously forgot this in his eagerness to catch the mouse – and yes you guessed it, he slipped on a wet patch of concrete and fell into the pool with a huge SPLASSSHHHHH!
As he floundered around in the water, trying to stay afloat, the caretaker realized that he was in too deep – quite literally. He struggled to keep his head above water and called out for help. He was spluttering too much to be heard and
Bobby knew that he had to help, but how?!
Then he came up with a plan – there were large fire doors at the edge of the pool which were activated by a button. When the button was pressed a loud alarm would sound to help people find their escape route. Fortunately it had never been used in an emergency but it was tested sometimes and boy that alarm was LOUD!
He leapt out of the pool and scurried up to the button and with all his might JUMPED and JUMPED and JUMPED on it until it clicked down and OOOOOOEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOEEEEEEEE!
The loudest alarm imaginable began to ring out – and in a flash the lifeguards ran in, and quickly jumped in to save Mr Brown – and just in time!
Phew! Bobby was trembling with terror and knew he had to move but he just couldnât seem to – the lifeguard saw him and shouted âMOUSE!â
Uh Oh – Bobby thought that he was about to come to a sticky end⌠But to his surprise, Mr Brown, who was shivering and gasping, wrapped in a towel and catching his breath shook his palm and said âLeave him – he saved my lifeâ
In relief Bobby scampered off to his nest, after all a mouse was a tiny thing compared to someone having a serious accident, and he was soon forgotten about.
Well⌠not completely forgotten about. Mr Brown was so grateful to Bobby that after everyone had gone home he left a bowl of cereal on the floor in the changing room as a thank you and crept back to see Bobby furtively dipping his toe in.
âItâs alright! I wonât disturb youâ he said quietly. Iâll make a deal with you. As long as you stay out of sight, you can swim in the pool every night. Itâs the least I can doâ.
Bobby squeaked happily – after all chocolate milk was tasty but the bowl wasnât as big as a pool and he liked to get proper lengths in. And so thatâs what happened. Mr Brown left Bobby to his secret swimming and sometimes peeped in to watch the little mouse do his best strokes. And inspired by Bobby he even decided to take some swimming lessons himself – maybe heâd join Bobby for a dip one day!
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