Saffron & Bruno and Tricks and Japes

The sun was still shining on a wonderful summer.  It had been a few weeks now since Saffron, Bruno and their family had moved to their beautiful new house.  Saffron’s bedroom was now untidy with books and festooned with pictures and drawings all around the walls.  She appeared to have a particular favourite subject she liked to draw: ghosts.  Not just any ghosts, of course.  These ghosts bumped into walls, sang songs about pizzas and had food fights, and they were specific in number. The ghosts in the pictures were the Sixteen Stephens and Andrew and Saffron was delighted to have discovered these funny fellows living in her attic.

Saffron was sat on her bed reading a book and cwtching Bruno.  She was thoroughly enjoying her book.  It was about a group of children and a tree and all the adventures they had climbing up it and sliding down it.  Saffron had just got to a particularly entertaining bit of the book when she realised she could hear nothing.  This, she thought, was odd.  She checked the clock on her bedside cabinet.  There was most certainly something odd.  It was quiet when it shouldn’t have been quiet.  The clock on Saffron’s bedside cabinet read time-for-the-Sixteen-Stephens’-walking-through-walls-practice.  And there was not a noise to be heard.

Saffron put the book down on her bed.  Keeping Bruno tucked in under her arm, she walked over to the door and opened it.  There on the landing was a huddle of ghosts.  There were all peering over or through the bannister railings and were trying to suppress their giggles.  Every now and again, one of them would look at the others and manage a “ssssh!” through the giggling and then would instantly turn his head back to look at whatever was holding their attention.  Saffron walked over to the staircase and looked over the heads of the ghosts.  Down in the hallway, three other ghosts were balancing on each other’s shoulders and resting a bucket on a slightly opened doorway.  They leaned the bucket just so, so when the door was next opened, down it would fall and the contents would land on the poor person who opened it.  Saffron was aghast.  What a terrible trick to play.  She quickly rushed down the stairs and shooed the ghosts away.  She rushed to the kitchen, grabbed a chair, hurried back and just got the bucket down and the chair returned before her mother opened the door and, unknowingly, escaped a soaking of, what turned out to be, raspberry flavoured jelly.

Climbing back up the stairs, Saffron twitched her nose and scowled a little at the errant ghosts.  They looked at where their feet might have been if they had any feet and then they swiftly floated back up toward the attic.  After them went Saffron.

Sixteen very bashful faces greeted Saffron when she walked through the door to the attic.  Andrew was looking quite stern.  There was a little bit of nervous shuffling and perhaps a sniff from one or two of the Sixteen Stephens.
“Well?”  Said Andrew after a while.

“We’re sorry we nearly covered your Mum in raspberry jelly,” chorused the Sixteen Stephens in a sing-song fashion.

“The bucket could have bumped on her head!”  Said Saffron.  Stephen Number Eight held out a “We’re Sorry” card that had quickly been made from a piece of paper and some crayons.  Saffron noticed that Stephen Number Ten was almost fit to burst.  He was going a funny purple colour and shaking.

“But we’re so bored!”  He moaned, “You’re forever reading your book and we keep practising walking through walls and you never come to see our red noses and watch us go bump.”

“Oh,” said Saffron.

“What if one of us finally managed to walk through a wall?  You wouldn’t be here to see it!”  Stephen Number Ten went on.

“Oh,” said Saffron again.

“And we all love tricks and japes and we haven’t done any for such a long time and we thought that since you were reading we would go and get a jolly good trick played on someone.”  Stephen Number Ten had gone a little bit blue now, as he tried to get all the one long sentence out in just one single breath.

“Oh,” said Saffron for a third time.  “I love tricks and japes!”  She added, “But if you’re going to play a trick or jape on someone you must play it on my dad!”  The ghosts smiled smiles of the complicit.  Stephen Number Ten rubbed his hands with glee.  It was time to play some tricks and japes.

*

Saffron’s Dad went out to his shed to enjoy a cup of tea and a read of the paper but, most important of all, Saffron’s Dad went out to the shed to enjoy some peace and quiet.  He opened the shed door, walked inside and closed the door. Nothing.  Not a noise.  Not a whisper.  Not even gentle birdsong.  Quiet.  Saffron’s Dad gave a satisfied sigh at the tranquillity, and he sat down.  PARP!  There was the loudest parping sound you have ever heard.  Saffron’s Dad shrieked with fear and jumped up in the air!  This was immediately followed by the laughter of Sixteen Stephens, and Andrew and a Saffron and Bruno.  Saffron’s Dad stood up with a fright and went straight back into the house.  The lounge looked quiet.  He walked in and listened.  There was only the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece.  He sat down in an armchair.  PARP!  The sound rang out again.  The laughter rang out again.  PARP!  PARP!  Every seat gave off a tremendous parping sound whenever Saffron’s Dad sat on one.  At last, he lifted the cushion of the latest offender and saw the whoopee cushion.  He giggled.  Saffron and Bruno, Andrew and the Sixteen Stephens had tears streaming down their faces they were laughing so hard.

*

Saffron’s Dad had pulled on his welly boots, picked up a trowel and was off out into the garden to plant some bulbs in the flowerbeds.  It didn’t take him long to get his hands and knees dirty and his back into his work.  He whistled a merry tune as he planted.  Soon, the promise of daffodils and tulips in the coming spring had planted a smile on his face as well.  Saffron’s Dad looked up as he heard footsteps on the path.  Saffron was stood in front of him with an outrageously gorgeous flower in her coat lapel.  The bright yellow and orange daisy sat on her coat all ripe for smelling and Saffron’s Dad couldn’t resist.  WHOOSH!  A stream of water splashed over his face.  Saffron laughed and the sound of the Sixteen Stephens and Andrew’s laughter echoed her own.  He bent down again, a little more cautiously this time, but the result was the same.  WHOOSH!  The water hit him right on the nose!  Saffron jiggled her feet, she was laughing so much.  The ghosts roared with laughter too, Stephen Number Five was rolling on his back laughing.  Stephen Number Eleven lay on his stomach and pounded the floor with laughter.  Saffron’s Dad giggled.

*

Saffron’s Dad got the ladder out of the garage, filled the bucket with warm soapy water and picked up his chamois leather.  Whistling once more, he carried his equipment to the front of the house and set the ladder up.  He climbed the ladder and, with the water and the chamois, began cleaning the windows.

Down below, at the foot of the ladder, the Sixteen Stephens quickly manoeuvred a bucket of custard into place.  And then they watched and waited.

Down the ladder came Saffron’s Dad.  Step, step, step, step…SPLOOSH!  He stood in the bucket of custard.  The bucket skidded out from underneath him.  He slipped over on to his bottom.  His legs went high in the air.  The bucket somersaulted up and over, up and over and dropped its contents all over Saffron’s Dad’s head.  Before the bucket landed, PLOP, Saffron’s Dad could hear the laughter of his daughter once again.  The Sixteen Stephens and Andrew were laughing too.  This time, Saffron’s Dad giggled a bit and then he stopped.  And he had a little think.

*

The night sky was clear and bright.  The stars sparkled and the moon glowed.  If you looked closely enough, you could see a milky way up there.  A mug of hot cocoa was stood on the garden gatepost.  Next to it stood Saffron’s Dad.  He was looking up to the sky through a telescope and a satisfied smile was on his face.

Saffron walked down the path and stood next to her Dad.  She had a mug of cocoa too.  She looked up into the sky to see if she could tell what her Dad was looking at.

“I’m sorry we played so many tricks and japes on you today,” she said.

“That’s ok, sweetheart,” Saffron’s Dad replied.

“I’m glad you found them funny.”  Saffron said.

“Yes,” said Saffron’s Dad, “Although that last jape was quite dangerous.  You need to be careful when people are up heights or on ladders, you know.”

“I know,” Saffron said, “We just couldn’t resist.  And you did look ever so funny with the custard all over you and the bucket on your head.”

“I imagine I did,” Saffron’s Dad agreed.  “Um,” he added, a little confused, “Who’s ‘we’?”

“Oh,” Saffron said with a start, “Why, Bruno and me, of course!”

“Ah, of course,” nodded Saffron’s Dad.  He looked back at the stars and put the telescope back to his eye.

“Can you see anything interesting, Dad?”  Asked Saffron.  Saffron’s Dad didn’t reply, he just handed his daughter the telescope and pointed to a bright, bright star way up in the night sky.  Saffron put the telescope to her eye and looked.  “I can’t see anything.”  She said.

‘Look harder,” her father instructed.  Saffron squeezed the telescope against her eye and stared furiously.  There was nothing there, she was sure.  “Try the other eye,” suggested her father, “you might have better luck with that one.”  Saffron switched eyes.  Her father giggled.  And then he laughed.  And he laughed and laughed.  Saffron took the telescope from her eye.

“What’s so funny?”  She asked.  Saffron’s Dad, through the laughter, pointed for her to look in the window and see her reflection.  Saffron did so.  Around each eye was a perfectly formed black circle.  Saffron looked like she was trying to do a panda impersonation or like she was wearing inept face-paint.

“Gotcha!”  Laughed her father, his belly and shoulders shaking with mirth.  Saffron started to laugh too.  She had fallen for one of the oldest tricks and japes in the book: boot-polish on the telescope.  How embarrassing.  Through the laughter came the sound of the Sixteen Stephens and Andrew joining in the in the fun.  Saffron’s Dad paused for a moment, sure he could hear someone else laughing along with him and his daughter.  He shook his head.  There was no one else about.  He must have imagined it.

*

Saffron climbed the stairs to the bathroom and washed her face.  It had been a tremendous day of tricks and japes.  The whoopee cushions, the fake flower and the bucket of custard…not to forget her dad getting his own back on her.  Saffron couldn’t remember laughing quite so long and quite so hard for ages.  The muscles in her belly were still aching from all the laughter.  She smiled and dried her face with a towel.  What a day it had been.

Saffron climbed into bed, pulled the duvet up under her chin and gave Bruno a big cwtch.  These Sixteen Stephens and Andrew were proving to be lots of fun.  Saffron wondered what other adventures she would have with them.

As she started to drift off to sleep, she heard the soft bump of the first nose hitting a wall.  Walking through walls practice was getting underway.  Saffron closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

That raspberry jam could land right on Mother's head!

 

Saffron and The Sixteen Stephens and Andrew laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed!