Foxes, Frogs & Rice Pudding

By Bill Allerton

Foxes, Frogs & Rice Pudding contains a series of compelling stories and poems initially imagined by children themselves and written to fullness based on their ideas by the author Bill Allerton. The content encompasses a compendu=ium of characters such as Dragons, Magic, Unicorns, Dinosaurs, Giants, Lions, Tigers, Foxes, Frogs, Fish, Girls, B

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cybermouse Multimedia
• Release date: Mar 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9780954837365

Bill Allerton

Bill Allerton lives and works in Sheffield UK. His partner, Bryony Doran, is also a prize-winning author. Bill retired from a successful business to write for a living, but mostly that's become 'living to write', given that so few authors actually make it to the megabucks stage. During his working life Bill has had many occupations, giving him a broad experience from which to draw new lines for his characters, so if you feel that you know them... perhaps you do... perhaps it's you...His influences are: Ray Bradbury, Malcolm Lowry, Herman Melville, Thomas Pynchon, Arthur C. Clarke, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Cormac McCarthy, Keith Waterhouse and Spike Milligan. Prizes: Fish Prize 2001 (Story anthologised and attended West Cork Literary Festival to read his submission 'To Kill a Wish')Chesterfield Pomegranate Theatre: New Playwright Awards'To Kill a Wish', the Fish Prize story, reworked for the stage and performed live.BBC Radio Sheffield: Six pieces of short fiction recorded and broadcast.Past Mentors (at least a week in the company of each)Anne Enright, Colm Toibin, Bernadine Evaristo, Ruth Padel, Peter Sansom, Berlie DohertyNoted writers he has worked with closely in the publishing of an anthology of short fiction ('Watch & Wait', 2014) on behalf of The Lymphoma Association.Ian McMillan, Marina Lewycka, Bryony Doran, Susan Elliott Wright, Berlie Doherty, Angela Robson, Judith Allnatt, Danuta Reah, Lesley Glaister, Caroline Pitcher, Kirstin Zhang, Henry Shukman, David Swann and Jemma Kennedy among others.

Book preview

A Wish for Wings

Hudeifa and Hanna raced across their favourite meadow, the grass flying swiftly beneath their hooves.

A silver fire spread around Hanna as she began to draw quickly away, leaving Hudeifa behind.

‘That’s not fair!’ said Hudeifa. ‘You always use Magic to beat me.’

‘But you are bigger and stronger than I am,’ said Hanna, ‘and that’s not fair either.’

Hudeifa stopped and began to walk slowly towards the river in the bottom of the shallow valley. There were trees lining each bank and once inside them he knew that all he would hear would be the sounds of the free birds and the ripples of the water trickling over stepping stones. It was a place where he could forget Hanna, and the way she always used her Magic to win.

As Hudeifa walked, the sun shone down on him and was absorbed by his night-black coat. There were tiny patches where silver hair grew, making him appear like a flowing piece of starry night. His muscles were strong and never-tiring and they rippled under the surface as he walked. Hanna slowed down and trotted back to join him,

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but you are such a fine black stallion that it’s the only way I can keep up.’

‘I’m surprised you can’t fly, with all your Magic,’ snorted Hudeifa.

Hanna shook her brilliant, silvered, spiral Unicorn horn at him, ‘You know that’s the one thing I can’t do,’ she said. ‘So don’t tease. Let’s have a drink at the river and I’ll race you back up the meadow.’

‘No Magic?’ said Hudeifa.

‘No Magic,’ agreed Hanna.

At the waters edge it was silent except for the rippling of the slow river and the tremble of the birdsong. They admired each other’s reflections in the still pool from which they liked to drink.

Hudeifa could see what a fine, white Unicorn Hanna was, and could not help but admire the beautiful silver horn that stood straight out from her forehead. As he watched, she bent forwards until her horn touched the surface of the water, where a soft shimmering glow spread out from it.

Hudeifa dipped his head and drank from the pool. The water was just the right temperature, as he knew it would be, and tasted faintly of fresh apples.

‘Alright,’ he laughed. ‘I agree. Magic can be useful… sometimes.’

Suddenly, the ground beneath their hooves began to shake and shudder so much that Hudeifa and Hanna almost lost their balance. From beyond the trees came a loud roar.

‘What was that?’ asked Hudeifa, still trembling.

‘Let’s find out!’ said Hanna, already setting off across the meadow.

Hudeifa caught up with her and together they flew like the wind through the tall grass, the long stalks waving and bending with them as they passed. Hudeifa drew ahead of Hanna as they crested the ridge beyond which the meadow sloped away towards the forest.

He turned his head to shout.

‘No Magic, remember!’ when suddenly the ground opened up beneath his feet.

As Hanna came over the ridge, she too was unable to stop and they cascaded downwards like falling leaves, twisting and turning into the huge hole that had appeared in the meadow. Down and down they fell, bumping and twisting from the sides until, bruised and battered, they came to rest on a solid floor.

Hanna shook herself and climbed unsteadily to her feet. When she looked up, she could see daylight at the top of the huge hole down which they had fallen, but it was so far away she knew she could never reach it, with or without Magic.

Hudeifa lay still where he had fallen. His breathing was quick and sharp, like someone in great pain.

‘What is it, Hudeifa?

‘My… my… leg. I think… it’s broken,’ he gasped.

‘Let me look,’ said Hanna. She closed her eyes and concentrated really hard on her Magic until her horn began to glow. Just the tip at first, then it spread all the way along until there was a large pool of silver light around them. She bent to examine Hudeifa’s leg. It lay crumpled beneath him at a strange angle and she could see at once that he was right.

‘You’ll have to find your way back without me,’ said Hudeifa.

‘Don’t be silly,’ said Hanna. ‘There is a way I can help, but there is a problem. If I use my Magic to heal your leg, some of it will stay with you for a while, perhaps long enough to grant you three wishes.’

‘Then we will be even,’ said Hudeifa, ‘and you won’t beat me any more.’

‘Just remember,’ said Hanna, bending to touch Hudeifa’s broken leg with her horn, ‘Magic can be a dangerous thing. You have to promise me to be very careful until it wears off.’

From Hanna’s horn there came a strange silver fire. It crackled and sparkled as it covered Hudeifa’s leg and moved around him, healing and mending.

‘Try that,’ said Hanna.

Hudeifa struggled to his feet and tested his leg by tapping his hoof on the floor.

‘That’s fine,’ he said. ‘Thank you for the Magic. I wish…’

‘NO YOU DON’T!’ said Hanna, quickly. ‘Don’t wish for anything until it wears off. You never know what you might get!’

Hudeifa tapped his hooves in frustration. He had never felt so good before, so alive and swift as the wind.

‘Where are we?’ he asked, anxious to be off.

‘I don’t know,’ said Hanna, ‘but it appears to be a tunnel of some kind. I don’t know what these are…’ and she tapped the steel rails on the floor with her hoof.

‘Listen!’ Hudeifa turned his head to hear better. ‘There’s someone coming. I can hear them snorting!’

From one end of the tunnel they could hear the snorting and panting of a very large, heavy creature. The sound came rapidly closer until, in the light from Hanna’s horn, they could see it. It filled the tunnel from side to side and from top to bottom. There was a glow of fire surrounding it and it was belching smoke so thick and so black that Hudeifa thought it must choke itself.

‘RUN!’ shouted Hanna, and together they galloped into the darkness away from the approaching creature. They ran and ran as fast as they could but the creature followed them effortlessly and tirelessly along the tunnel. The light from Hanna’s horn shone before them, lighting their way in the deep blackness until they rounded a bend and there before them was… daylight!

They sped from the end of the tunnel into bright sunshine and jumped from the rails into a river that ran beside the tracks as the creature sped past them, still belching smoke from a round chimney at the front. The creature was long and was made of connected pieces on wheels that rattled past them on the rails. They stood in the shallow water and watched it rattle away while drinking and catching their breath.

‘What… was that?’ panted Hudeifa.

‘I don’t know,’ said Hanna.

Hudeifa took a long drink from the river, then shook his head and said, ‘Why didn’t you use your Magic to stop it?’

Hanna trotted out of the stream to examine the tracks, ‘Because once you have used it, Magic takes time to recover before you can use it again,’ she said.

‘I wish…’

‘NO, YOU DON’T!’ said Hanna.

Hudeifa trotted out of the water to join her and they turned to look around this strange new land. The grass in which they now stood was as tall as their shoulders. They stopped to sniff the scent of a flower with a head as large as their own. The trees were tall enough to almost blot out the sun that shone fiercely down upon them. The stepping stones in the river were huge boulders, ten times the size of the ones in the stream by the meadow where they lived.

Back on the track, it took Hudeifa four big strides to cross the gap between the rails.

‘Come off there,’ said Hanna, ‘in case the creature comes back.’

Together they trotted off along the open space beside the rails, moving away from the tunnel to see if they could find somewhere they recognised. In the distance they could see a tall building with pointed roofs and towers and the flat ground on which they walked seemed to be leading towards it. They walked on and on in the hot sun until Hudeifa felt that a shadow had passed over them. He looked up but could see nothing except the brightness of the sun, and what might have been a bird, high up in the sky. On and on they walked, but the towers seemed to come no closer.

‘Look out!’ shouted Hanna, as another creature came hurtling from behind them, belching huge, billowing clouds of black smoke. Sparks and steam shot out beneath its wheels and the horses jumped aside as it screeched past.

Through the gaps between the wheels, Hudeifa could see Hanna at the other side of the tracks where she had jumped. Above them, the sky turned black as an enormous bird shape swooped down and plucked Hanna from the ground in its claws. With vast sweeps of its green, scaly wings, the creature carried her off into the sky towards the towers in the distance.

‘Help!’ she cried, ‘Hudeifa!’

Hudeifa could only watch as the dragon carried her away. The creature on the rails continued to rattle past in the same direction until Hudeifa saw that the last part of it was a flat truck with a wooden floor. He galloped as fast as he could alongside it then with the last of his strength he jumped up and landed safely on it. He stood there feeling a great sadness as the wind whipped around him and the truck