Old Henry and the Pumpkin Festival

In Goomeri, we all love the Pumpkin Festival and everyone helps make sure there's something different each year.

One morning not long before the festival, three people were collecting their mail at the post office at the same time.

Mrs Toffee, the owner of the lolly shop, was picking up another parcel of new lollies and she saw the manager of the Pumpkin Festival with a big smile on his face.

'What are you so happy about Blue?' she asked him.

'This letter here is the insurance for the festival. Now the festival can go ahead. Nothing can stop it now.'

'Look. Here's old Henry. He's ridden his bicycle all the way in from Tansey to pick up his mail. I don't know how he does it.'

'What have you got there Henry,' asked Blue as Henry carried his heavy little parcel out of the Post Office.

'None of your business. It's mine,' said Old Henry as he walked back to his bicycle and started to ride back to his farm.

No one knew what Old Henry took back to his farm that day but another day he was seen to park his bicycle in front of Mrs Toffee's Lolly Shop. He came out with a parcel and a smile and he rode back to his farm.

Well on the day of the Festival everyone in town was there. There were lots of tourists buying pumpkin scones and getting ready for the pumpkin roll down Policeman's Hill.

'Hey look who's coming. It's Old Henry.' shouted some kids.

Everyone looked and, sure enough, there he was puffing up the hill on his bicycle and on the back there was a big pumpkin.

He waited till everyone had had a go rolling and then stepped forward. 'Ladies and Gentlemen. I have the best pumpkin of all. All children must hold out their hands and open their mouths.'

He put his pumpkin down on the start line, lit the fuse sticking out of the pumpkin and gave it a shove and it went rolling down the hill.

'Ahh! It's a bomb. Duck for cover!' But before anyone could move, the pumpkin went off like a giant firework.

Bang! Ziiiiii. Ziiiii. Ziiii. Zup-zup-zup-zup-zup.

Fireworks went zipping everywhere over Policeman's Hill and out of them flew lots and lots of bright colourful pumpkin shaped lollies.

'Hooray!' Kids ran here and there scooping them up and when they tasted them they fizzed and zipped in their mouths like yummy, sweet fireworks.

'That's what was in that parcel at the post office,' said Blue. 'The Pumpkin Festival will get another tourism award for sure this year. Thanks old Henry. That was the best.'

Old Henry had his photo taken with the festival committee and Mrs Toffee from the Lolly Shop and all the happy smiling children before he hopped on his bike and rode back to his farm.

Created by Daryll Bellingham and the students from years 3, 4 & 5 at Goomeri State School.

No pumpkins were hurt in the production of this story.

© 2010

Old Henry and the Pumpkin Festival

Daryll's podcast

Emerald Dragons

Emerald in Queensland is a nice place to live. There's plenty of work for parents and the children can play lots of sport. One day, some children were kicking a football around at Emerald North School and one of the boys said, "Hey! Want to play a game that my Dad used to play when he went to school?"

"What's it called?"

"Force-Em-Back. You see there are two teams. One team kicks the ball to the other and, if they catch it on the full, they can advance 5 steps and kick it back but, if they don't, they have to kick it from where they stop it. Eventually one of the teams is forced right back to the fence and they lose."

Well that's what they did. The game was going fine until one of the kicks went so high it went right over the school fence. No one knows whether there was a sudden gust of wind or what but that ball flew over the neighbouring houses and towards the river with the team in hot pursuit.

They saw it flying over the trees on the river bank and thought, "Oh no, someone is going to have to swim for it."

When they got to the river bank however, the ball wasn't floating on the water or anything. They couldn't see it anywhere. All there was in sight was a bearded dragon sitting on the grass.



One of the girls said, "That bearded dragon looks a bit strange. Its got marks on its back."

"Maybe the ball landed on top of its back and left those marks. They look like the marks of a football."

"No," said the girl, "The marks are on the inside. Hey, guess what, I think the football has turned into a bearded dragon."

"Ha, ha! Don't be silly. How can a football be turned into a bearded dragon?"

"Yeah. I know but let's pretend. We'll take it back to the school and pretend it's the football. Should be a laugh."

Well, that's what they did. They picked up the bearded dragon and took it back to the school fence and said to the other team, "Sorry it took so long but the ball turned into a bearded dragon and we'll have to kick it instead."

They held it up and pretended to kick it but the bearded dragon flew from their grasp went sailing up into the air and down towards the other team.

'Catch it! Catch it!"

As the bearded dragon bounced the whole team dived on it and grabbed hold but they could not stop the dragon. It flew up into the air with the students holding on. Higher and higher it went and they all went flying up through the air and back over towards the river.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Call the Principal! Call the teachers! Help!"

The other students ran into the office and called out "Emergency! Emergency! The kids have disappeared! "

Admin dialed 000 and it wasn't long before there was police, ambulance and fire brigade in attendance. Every one headed down towards the river and started searching for the missing students. They couldn't find them any where.

Once the police and fire brigade had gone home however, the students saw 10 little bearded dragons sitting on a log. They took them carefully back to the school and fed them all their favourite foods - pies, sausage rolls, chocolate and ice cream - and eventually they started to grow slowly back into children again.

Do you know what though, every single one of them had long skinny finger nails and marks on their backs like football laces.

It's not surprising, I suppose, that no one plays 'Force-em-back' at Emerald North School these days. They do take special care of bearded dragons though.

Here's where it all happened -
View Larger Map

(Story created by Daryll Bellingham, Storyteller and students from year 1b/2a at Emerald North School, following a Chinese folktale about a magic tortoise with a special mark on its head.)


Emerald Dragons by Daryll Bellingham and students of Emerald North School is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.
Based on a work at austoryplace.blogspot.com.


(Bearded Dragon image, a Flickr Creative Commons download by Arthur Chapman)