The Doorstop Sagas

Chapter 1 ~ In Which Gertrude and Humphrey Arrive In Shalford

"Hello, I'm Gertrude and I'm reticulated and not everyone can say that ~ unless they happen to be particularly articulate in which case it shouldn't be a problem. But speaking of problems, I've got them!" 

"First of all, I'm forever getting it in the neck from my parents. They simply do not understand what it's like to be a young giraffe with very attractive reticulations, which no self-respecting giraffe would ever want to keep to herself. 

"And then there's Humphrey! Humphrey's my friend. He's a camel with two humps but he's convinced that he should really have three 'cos of his name ~ Humphrey ~ Hump-three. Get it! 

"I've explained that his name is nothing to do with how many humps he should have but he simply won't have it. In fact, he goes on about it the whole time and is becoming an absolute pain in the neck and, I must say, that, if you're a camel with a pain in the neck, then it's not to be sneezed at and talking of sneezing ~ Well! ~ let me tell you, well is something I am not. In fact, I'm not at all well. I have a sore throat. Can you imagine? A sore throat of all things. Granny's knitting me a muffler but I don't intend wearing unless it's reticulated like the rest of me. Even then, it would make me look bulbous and who wants to go round looking bulbous at my age. 

"It's alright looking bulbous in the neck department if you're an old giraffe like my parents but at my age 'bulbous' ~ I don't think so!

"Humphrey wants to go to the seaside with his bucket and spade. I've told him it's irresponsible but he's insisting and he might get grumpy and when he gets grumpy he can really get the hump ~ which is exactly what he wants, of course, in a manner of speaking, that is ~ but not what I want and not that kind of hump anyway, so, I suppose we'd better go.

"But the seaside is quite some distance from where we are in 

sub-Saharan Africa and it's not as though we haven't already got a great deal of sand, as it is, right here, but Humphrey says that it's not the right kind of sand for sandcastles and who am I to argue? We'll just have to catch a bus."

Gertrude and Humphrey waited patiently for a bus. They'd never actually seen a bus go past but they could always hope as Gertrude's Granny was always saying with a longing and wistful look in her eyes.

They waited and waited ~ Gertrude with her pink handbag and a box of tissues and Humphrey with his bucket and spade ~ and one day, much to their surprise, a bright red bus came and pulled up right beside them.

"Excuse me," they asked in their most polite 'we're hoping to go to the seaside' voices" and with Getrude giving a little excited quiver of her upper flanks, "does this bus go to the seaside?"

"It goes wherever you want it to go," the driver answered, without appearing to even move his lips, "Hop on."

"Hop on! Hop on!" Humphrey repeated, to nobody in particular and with a look of high indignation that only camels seem able to pull off, "what does he think I am ~ a kangaroo?" but he hopped on, nevertheless and Gertrude followed with some difficulty.

They couldn't help themselves from doing their little happy hums that came over them at such moments.

"Dee diddle dee dee, dum de dum de dum," was Gertrudes favourite little number.

As for Humphrey's happy hum, his was more, "De de de der der der der dum de dee," with a distinct touch of 'La Marseillaise' to it because, as Humphrey was only too keen to point out at every opportunity, he wasn't just an ordinary camel ~ oh no ~ he was a figurine and not even an ordinary figurine ~ oh no ~ he was a Papo figurine, at which point of telling, he would draw himself up to all of his full four centimetres and adopt something of a French air of honourable disdain.

Papo, of course, with their multitudinous figurines is entirely French and Humphrey took this French connection very seriously yet, even so, he could frequently be heard to say, very wisely, he thought, that:

"Not all camels are figurines and not all figurines are camels, you know" and he would look down his nose in a rather haughty fashion at anyone who might be listening, which, as often as not, was nobody!

The road, if it could be called by such a name, was very bumpy and with every bump Gertrude and Humphrey felt themselves becoming more and more soporific until, eventually, they fell asleep. They slept and slept and slept and didn't wake up until the bus came to a halt with a jolt.

"Are we there?" they enquired, jointly.

"Yup," the driver answered, without again moving his lips.

"But it doesn't look like the seaside," said Gertrude, swinging her neck in every direction and peering about somewhat forlornly.

"That's because it isn't the seaside," said the driver, with what appeared to be a smirk which, as ever, he accomplished without moving his lips.

"Not the seaside!" they asked with horror writ large upon their eager faces, "where are we then?"

"We're in Shalford!" exclaimed the driver, triumphantly.

"Shalford!" Humphrey and Gertrude repeated, in perfect unison, "but what, how, where, when...?"

"Exactly," said the driver with what appeared to be a note of finality as well as one of satisfaction, "and this is where I get off."

With that, he clambered from his seat, grabbed his sandwich pack and flask of tea and began walking, somewhat hurriedly, towards Wonersh, a delightful village just two miles from Shalford, but forty miles from the seaside and four thousand miles from the 

sub-Sahara region of Africa.

"Oh dear," said Gertrude, in a bewildered type of voice.

"I agree," said Humphrey, nodding.

It was then that they both spotted Carousel, the World's Biggest, Little Gift Shop.

"Look," Gertrude called out, "isn't that Carousel, the little shop that everyone talks about in sub-Saharan Africa?"

"I believe you may be right," Humphrey replied and they both strode, purposefully, across Shalford cricket green, completely unaware of what fate held in store for them, of the adventures that lay before them, of the friends they would make and of the unforgettable moments that they would, well, never forget.

And nor will you, as the story unfolds!