Dear Readers,
"They washed her there on the beach and threw her chattering into a heavy woolen robe."
"Iiliana lay sprawled on the sofa in her chambers, her bronze hair flaming up the sofa back."
"The old lion tamer cut an odd figure, with the wild ginger-and-silver mane that fringed his bald pate."
Those are examples of sentences from a terrible book called The Glass Salamander. I hope you will find the Tea and Crumpets just as funny, but not quite as terrible.
Mary Moberly
Senior Editor of the
Tea and Crumpets
The Cow Story
Benjamin: There was a cow. The cow was white with black spots. His name was Charlie. And one day, a farmer came, and he fed the cow.
Mary: And Charlie's babies came out. And the farmer took all the cows out to the pasture to graze. Then they walked too far and crossed too many streets and they found themselves at a place where there was lots and lots of sand and lots of water. Brown, murky, muddy water. The cows liked it a lot. And they pooped all over the place. Then the cows started walking into the water. They found out that this was a very bad idea, because there was a shark in the water. That was why the beach was deserted.
"ROAR! CHOMP! CHOMP!" Those were the sounds the shark made as it ate the mommy cow. Then the shark spit her out because he didn't like her. The calves' names were Johnny and Sunny.
Emma: Johnny liked mysteries. Sunny liked friendly things. They started walking into the water and they met a turtle. They said, "Hi! How are you? What is your name?" and the turtle said, "My name is Flubbergust. What are your names?"
"My name is Johnny, and my name is Sunny, and my name is Charlie!"
"Wow!" said Flubbergust, "Would you like to ride on my back for awhile?"
"Yes!" said Johnny and Sunny together, and they got up on the turtle's back. But they couldn't fit.
Mary: So they had to leave Charlie in the water to die--I mean, to swim back to the shore. Meanwhile, Johnny and Sunny rode on the turtle's back all the way to an island in the middle of the ocean. The island had a bunch of palm trees on it, and there was no sign of civilization anywhere. And there was plenty of grass to graze and plenty of room to litter with poop.
Benjamin: There was no way to go back home. It was lonely. There's a zebra far away, you know. They had to walk over there.
Mary: When they finally reached the zebras, they were amazed at how the herd could be wild. There was not a person in sight! The zebras were eating black plants. All the plants were flowers and leaves and grass but they were all black. The cows thought this was the dullest thing since cornmeal. They couldn't understand how these zebras could be able to stand such dull stuff. But since they were over there and they were pretty hungry, they decided to try some anyway. They stepped over to where the flowers and leaves were and chewed a few. It was rather interesting--it wasn't very interesting, it tasted like ashes! They just couldn't eat it. But they tried and tried, to be polite, and finally, they got it down.
And in a matter of seconds, the cows suddenly had black stripes on them! The cows were turning into zebras because they had eaten the zebra's food! This was horrible! They suddenly realized that these zebras weren't all zebras. They probably used to be any other animal that was stranded on this island. They had to find a way to free them!
Suddenly a lion came up and talked to them. The lion said if they could find the green fire, then the zebras would turn back into their normal shapes, and the zebra plant would forever be destroyed. They asked for further information, but the lion disappeared.
Emma: Well, the cows decided that they must find the green fire. So they started looking for it!
They looked in bushes, and under rocks, and inside hollow trees. But it was nowhere to be seen.
Benjamin: And then, they looked in the jungle, and they fou--
Mary: and they didn't find it. Johnny remembered that the lion said that they could only see the green fire if they were zebras. So they ate some more zebra plant, and then finally they were zebras instead of cows. But they were still cows inside, so they couldn't see the green fire.
So they looked for the big herd of zebras to see if any of them were true zebras.
The herd was consisting of exactly 3,475,333,675,432 zebras. And not all of them were true zebras, but they thought that some of them might be. So they went around asking all of the zebras if they were true zebras. All of the zebras said yes, although they didn't have time to ask all of them. They asked each zebra they could see, and each one said, "Yes." And when they asked about the green fire, they had no idea what it was.
The cows (which were now zebras) were a little hungrier now, and so they ate some more of the plant. All the sudden, the cows (who were now zebras) weren't cows anymore. Not even inside. They became true zebras. They thought they were zebras, they