Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Story Time: Cheleb

Every day I am forced to make up at least one story. So this week I am going to write them down. You may think they are bizarre and that I have been drinking too much banana juice, but we (my mate Sam and I) like them.

Most of the stories revolve around three characters. Buttons is a small, grey hippo who is a little bit plump. He has two friends: Harry who is a very thin hippo and always does the right thing and Fats who, yes, is a very fat hippo who rarely does the right thing and always gets stuck. The only one of these characters who we have actually seen is Buttons. The others exist purely in our imagination. If you see them, tell us what you think they're like.

Some things that everyone should know about these hippos. Buttons likes drinking pickled onion juice and loves Cheleb (bread from Poland) really just because he likes the sound of the word. All three hippos love marshmallows.

Buttons with Cheleb toast and Marmite

OK onto the first story. Let's call this one Cheleb.

Buttons loved Cheleb. Mainly because he liked the sound of the word, but also because it makes the most fabulous crunchy toast. He knew the bread originally came from Poland, but he didn't know much else about it. One day Buttons was making some Cheleb toast when he noticed a competition on the wrapper and the prize was a trip to the factory in East London where Cheleb was made. Buttons read the wrapper over and over again. Entering the competition seemed easy: you had to make an amazingly delicious sandwich using Cheleb, take a photo of it and send it to the address on the wrapper.

Buttons went into the kitchen and looked through every cupboard and the fridge to see what he could find that would make an amazingly delicious sandwich. In the end he decided on peanut butter, strawberry jam, salami, holey cheese and a large pickled onion. It certainly looked amazing. Buttons' mouth began to water and he was about to bite into the amazingly delicious sandwich when he remembered the photo. He found the camera and took photos of his amazingly delicious sandwich from various angles. Then he bit into the sandwich. WOW! The strawberry jam was running down the edge of the sandwich and mixing with the pickled onion juice which made the amazingly delicious sandwich and Buttons' paws very sticky. Yum. He finished the amazingly delicious sandwich and licked his paws. Then he sent his photo off to the address on the wrapper.

A few weeks later a letter arrived addressed to Buttons. He ripped open the envelope and blinked as he read the letter inside. He'd won the competition. His amazingly delicious sandwich was going to be served in the Cheleb factory cafe. The envelope contained two special tickets for a train journey to London. Two tickets meant that Buttons could take a friend, so he decided to take Fats. Buttons and Fats were very excited when they arrived at the Cheleb factory and even more excited when they saw the bread being made into Buttons' amazingly delicious sandwich. But they could also smell something sweet, something that smelled like Christmas. Buttons and Fats stood on the steps of the factory and looked across the road to where the sweet, christmassey smell seemed to be coming from. There was a little bakery across the road where they were making Panettone. Yum. They loved Panettone. The two hippos went and pressed their noses against the window and decided to take some Panettone home for Harry. It was very hard not eating the Panettone on the train on the way home, but they didn't, not one nibble. When they got home they shared the Panettone with Harry. 'Even better than my amazingly delicious sandwich' said Buttons.