Sterlington Stairlift Stories for Children

Sterlington Stairlift Stories for Children

by Philip W Baker

Contents

Story One

Sterlington and the Burglars

Sterlington's Ever Ready Friend

Sterlington's Needy Neighbour

The Crocodile's Dentist

The Morecambandwheezer in Africa

Lopsided Larry

Laura's Lovely Ladies' Laboratory

The Techies

Aqueous Film Forming Foam

Story One The Beginning

A stairlift is like a chair on wheels and goes up and down a staircase on a rail, ratherlike a sloping train track!

They are used by some people, including children, who can't walk up and down stairs on their own very easily. The person sits on the seat and the stairlift carries them.

Sterlington Stairlift lives on a straight rail on a staircase in a very nice house indeed.

Along the road is Sterlington's friend Curvy Flo, who lives on a lovely curved rail which rolls around the bends and up the slopes, over the soft, thick carpet, and all the way to the top landing.

These two stairlifts have something in common. They both have a 'dream glide' control which is so smooth and soothing that the person on the stairlift usually fallsasleep on the way up the stairs because it is so very, very comfortable.

That is how Sterlington and Curvy Flo first found out about each other. Stan the man with the van, who came to check the dream glide controls every so often, went to both houses and each stairlift heard him talking about the other one to the peoplewho live in the house.

"Where are you off to next?" asked the lady at Sterlington's house. "I'm going to number 69 to see a curved stairlift!" said Stan the man with the van. "After that I reckon it will be time for my lunch, so MacDonalds here I come!"

Stan the man with the van was a happy chap and always had a joke with his customers. He thought people deserved to have fun and tried to help by making them laugh.

When he went to number 69 Curvy Flo heard him talking to the gentleman there about Sterlington. "Is this your first call today?" asked the gentleman. "Almost right!", said Stan the man with the van. "You're my second this morning. I've just been along the road to check a straight stairlift called Sterlington".

That was when Curvy Flo's arms nearly popped out of their sockets. "Goodness gracious" she thought. "Another stairlift with a name and just along the road, how amazing! I must send a signal!"

All the stairlifts in these Sterlington stories have very special signals. They can talk to each other in stairlift language that people can't hear. All through the night when children and their mums and dads and brothers and sisters and uncles and aunts and grannies and granddads and all the others are fast asleep, the stairlifts are wideawake and swapping ideas about all kinds of things.

The signals are tiny vibrations and the go all the way along the rail, through the air at the top of the stair, through the glass in the windows, along the road, past the trees and lamp posts and telegraph poles, through the glass in the windows of the next house, through the air to the top of the stair, along the rail right to the next stairlift.

When Sterlington found out about Curvy Flo it was the middle of the night on Tuesday and rather cold and quiet. He was checking his batteries when suddenly there was a vibration through the rail. "Can't be the ginger cat", he thought. "That went into the garden two hours ago". Then he realised it was stairlift signal, put on his best listening look and stayed very still and quiet.

"Hello!" the message said. "This is Curvy Flo the stairlift at number 69. Is that Sterlington?"

"Wow!" thought Sterlington. "A curvy stairlift sending me a message!" He quickly sent a message back and that is how the Secret Society of Smooth Stairlifts began. The Society is now so large that it has members in almost every country in the world and they can all send messages to each other through their secret stairlift signal system.

In the next story we will tell you how the stairlifts stopped burglars from robbing a poor old lady who lived on her own.

The End of Story One

Sterlington and the Burglars

Curvy Flo, Sterlington and Stan the man with the van had become good friends.

There was also a stairlift on a straight staircase not far away, in a great big house called "Little Oak". That stairlift didn't have a name. It had a number but the other stairlifts couldn't remember numbers, so they called it Little Oak after the house.

Stan the man with the van didn't look after Little Oak because it wasn't on his list, but Sterlington and Curvy Flo found out about it through the night-time vibrations that stairlifts used for talking to each other.

The old lady who lived in the Little Oak house got up one night because she couldn't remember whether or not she'd locked the front door.

She was only half awake and fumbled around a bit, but found the key in her pyjama jacket pocket as she was riding down the stairs on Little Oak.

But as she was getting off the seat she dropped the key onto the rail that Little Oak went up and down on. "Oh dear!" she said. "I am a clumsy old granny, what on eartham I going to do with me!"

She looked around on the stairs, bent down and looked under Little Oak, looked under the telephone table and by the coat rack, she even looked in her pyjama pocket in case it had bounced back in there! But she couldn't find it.

The old lady was a bit deaf, otherwise she might have heard the key when it landed on the rail with a very loud 'ding!' But she didn't.

She was also still drowsy because she had just woken up and had just got out of bed.

If she had been wide awake she might just have heard the key land on the rail with avery loud 'ding!' But she didn't.

If she had put her hearing aid in her ear she might just have heard the key when it landed on the rail with a very loud 'ding!' But she didn't.

So there she was, very late at night, without her key without her hearing aid, withoutknowing if the front door was locked properly, a bit deaf, and still very sleepy.

"Oh well", she mumbled to herself, "No use worrying about it now, the best thing is to go back to bed!"

She got onto Little Oak's very comfortable seat, which had lovely soft material, moved the switch to go up the stair and waited for the motor to start. 'Click' went theswitch, 'whirr' went the motor in its soft, friendly way, "crrruuunnnccchhhhh!!" went the key, which jammed under poor old Little Oak the stairlift.

'Jerk' went the seat as it stopped. "What in the name of size ten knitting needles wasthat?" said the old lady, who was suddenly woken right up.

She might have been a bit deaf, she might have been rather old, she might have needed a stairlift to go up and down the stairs, she might have forgotten to put her hearing aid in her ear when she got out of bed, she might even have forgotten to lock the front door properly.

But she was still a sensible lady who knew it was best not to get upset if things went wrong, so she stayed sitting on Little Oak's very comfortable seat, which had lovely soft material, and thought what to do next.

After a while she got off and had a look to try to find out what had gone wrong. She remembered that one of her relations, little Godfrey, had bought her a torch for her birthday and she had put it in the cupboard in the hall.

So she went and got it, and tried it, and it worked. It worked because little Godfrey checked it all before he gave it to her and made sure it had the very best batteries so it would always shine for her when she needed it.

The old lady sat down on the floor and shone her bright torch, which little Godfrey had give her, and looked around, and up and down, and on top, and underneath, and all the places around Little Oak that she could possible see from where she sat. But she couldnt see what was wrong.

She stood up and got onto Little Oak's very comfortable seat, which had lovely soft material, and tried again to go up the stairs. But Little Oak wouldn't move up. So shetried to go down the little bit that Little Oak the stairlift had moved before the crunch.

Yes, it moved backwards just a little bit. She tried up and she tried down but it was the same each time, it went up just a little bit, down just a little bit, but wouldn't go any further.

So she got off, switched off the electricity that Little Oak used and had another look underneath. That was when she saw it!

The key was jammed between the rail and the bit underneath Little Oak that moves italong the rail. She knew it was too hard for her to get out and decided to leave it until the next morning and phone for help.

Without the stairlift to take her upstairs she couldn't sleep in her own bed, so she got a great big blanket from the cupboard in the hall where she also kept the torch that little Godfrey gave her, then she went into the front room, snuggled up on the big settee and went fast asleep.

Sterlington and Curvy Flo had heard the "crrruuunnnccchhhhh!!"

It sent a special vibration that went all along the rail under Little Oak, through the air, through the window on the landing, through the air in the street, past the trees and lamp posts and telegraph poles, through the windows of the other houses, through the air in the houses, along the rails of the other stairlifts, until every stairlift for miles around could feel it.

"Ouch!" said Sterlington.

"Double ouch!" said Curvy Flo.

"I'll bet that hurt!" they said together.

They didn't know it was a key or how it happened but to a stairlift a crunch as loud as that was like hearing a baby cry and they knew something was very wrong.

Whilst the old lady was fast asleep on the big settee in the front room two men were walking very quietly along the road looking for things to steal.

They knew some of the people in the road lived alone and sometimes some of the people went away to stay with friends and left their house with nobody at home.

So the two men, who were called burglars, walked along the road, hid in shadows, and tried the front doors and back doors of the houses to see if they opened.

When they got to Little Oak, the old lady's house, they tried the front door very, very quietly and very, very carefully, and, you know what? That old lady had forgotten to lock the door and it opened.

It opened very quietly, without a creak or a squeak, or a knock, or a bang or any other kind of sound. Because little Godfrey had an oil can which his dad gave him for a present, and when he visited the old lady's house little Godfrey went around oiling hinges and locks and catches and latches and hatches and pulleys and other things that he though needed some oil. He was a very kind chap and wanted things to work properly.

Little Godfrey even tried to oil Little Oak's rail one day, but the old lady said it didn't need any oil, and the oil would drip onto her lovely red stair carpet and make it look all patchy.

But she let him oil the hinges and the lock and the latch and the catch on the front door, so when the two men tried the door, it opened without a sound.

They didn't know the old lady was asleep on the big settee in the front room. The old lady didn't know there were two men called burglars in her house, because she was fast asleep and she didn't have her hearing aid in her ear, and she was verytired because of all the bending around looking for the key with the bright light fromthe torch that little Godfrey gave her on her birthday.

The burglars went up the stairs very slowly and brushed past the rail that Little Oak went up and down on. They didnt think anybody knew they were there! But those two silly burglars didn't know about stairlift vibrations!

As their trousers brushed past the rail, all the way from the bottom of the stairs, all the way to the top, one after the other, one leg at a time, the tiny vibrations went all along the rail under Little Oak, through the air, through the window on the landing, through the air in the street, past the trees and lamp posts and telegraph poles, through the windows of the other houses, through the air in the houses, along the rails of the other stairlifts, until every stairlift for miles around could feel it.

"Something wrong there!" said Sterlington to Curvy Flo in his special stairlift voice. "That was leg vibration we felt from Little Oak's rail, but the old lady who lives there can't walk up the stairs, so it can't be her. Sound like Little Oak needs some help".

"Quite right!" said Curvy Flo. "First there was that dreadful 'crrruuunnnccchhhhh!', then Little Oak was going up and down just a little bit at a time, which was very, veryunusual, now there seems to be someone walking up the stairs! Definitely something wrong there, what can we do about it?"

"Buzz all the others!" said Sterlington, tell them what we heard.

So Curvy Flo and Sterlington sent vibrations in special stairlift language to all the other stairlifts in the town and asked for help.

"I'll wake up Stan the man with the van", said Mini at the telephone exchange. "I've got a special vibration that makes his bleeper go off if someone's stairlift breaks down.

"But Little Oak isn't on his list" said Curvy Flo.

"It doesn't matter" said Mini. "I'll give him the number for a new job and with any luck he'll go there and see what's wrong".

"OK" said Curvy Flo, "try it, we may be lucky!".

Buffalo Brook was the name of a big, strong, stairlift that carried a wheelchair up and down the stairs for a man who lived near the railway station. "I'll check my remote controller" said Buffalo. "Sometimes I can play tricks with it".

A few minute later Buffalo Brook sent a message to the other stairlifts and said he could make the burglar alarm go off at the house two doors away from Little Oak.

"Shall I give it a try?" he asked them.

The replies came all at the same time. One hundred and fifty seven stairlifts sent their special vibration and it almost shook Buffalo Brook right off his rail.

"DO IT!!!" they said.

So he did. The alarm went "ding a ding a ding a ding ...!" and echoed through the quiet road. Lights started to appear as people were woken up and looked out of their windows.

The light in the Police station control room went on and the policeman listened to the message "burglar alarm at 'The Barn', Stanhope Lane", "burglar alarm at 'The Barn', Stanhope Lane, "burglar alarm at 'The Barn. Stanhope Lane' ... over and over.

He sent the message to a police car that was nearest to The Barn and off it went to see what was wrong.

The two burglars were in one of the old lady's bedrooms looking for necklaces and things to steal when the alarm at The Barn went off.

They didn't look out of the window in case somebody saw them. They didn't go downstairs in case somebody came into the house. They didn't go into any other rooms, just in case somebody appeared.. They didn't know what all the noise was about, but they didn't think anybody knew they were there, so they just kept quiet and stayed very still in the corner, by the side of a big wardrobe.

All the time the old lady was fast asleep on the big settee in the front room, without her hearing aid in her ear.

The police car stopped outside The Barn and two policemen had a look around. The people who lived there were away on holiday but the man next door had a key and let the policemen in.

The two policemen couldn't find anything wrong so they turned the burglar alarm offand locked the house up again. They thought the alarm might have been set off by acat or something and were just going to drive to the Police Station when Stan the man with the van arrived and stopped at Little Oak.

He saw the police car and thought the policemen were just having a look around as part of their job, so he went to the front door of Little Oak and had just realised it was open when the two policemen walked up to him.

"Could you tell us what you are doing here?" one of the policemen asked.

"I got a call to fix a broken stairlift" said Stan the man with the van.

"A bit strange at this time of the night!" said the policeman.

"That's what I thought" said Stan the man with the van. "But some people with stairlifts are awake all night and things can go wrong so I have bleeper to wake me up, then I can go and check".

"We had a burglar alarm go off just along the road a little while ago" said the policeman". "There's something not quite right here, so we'd better have a look around this house too. Wait in your van please!"

So Stan the man with the van went back to his van and waited very patiently.

One policeman went to the back of the house and the one went in through the front door.

The two burglars stayed very still. They heard someone come in through the front door and they looked out of the back window to see if they could escape, but there was a policeman in the back garden, so they stayed in the bedroom and hid by the side of the wardrobe again.

They didn't know the policeman had seen one of them looking out of the window, and they didn't see him quietly walk round to the front of the house again and go inside to help his friend. They didn't see Stan the man with the van watching the house from the front and they didn't know that altogether there were five people in the house.

They didn't know Little Oak the stairlift had sent signals, and they didn't know that one hundred and fifty seven other stairlifts knew something was going on in the town.

The two policemen discovered three other people in the house - the two burglars and the old lady who was still fast asleep on the big settee in the front room. Oh yes, they also found a cat who had quietly padded in because someone left the frontdoor open!

The policemen called for a van to take the burglars away to the Police Station and then they let Stan the man with the van into the house to look at the stairlift. He quickly found what was wrong and managed to pull the key out with a special stairlift mending tool. He tidied up the rail and checked that Little Oak was alright then tested it by going up and down the stairs a few times.

Stan the man with the van was quite clever and somehow knew that stairlifts could all talk to each other. So when he finished his mending job he got a screwdriver witha plastic handle and gently tapped on the bottom of the rail "tap, tap-tap-tap, tap-tap".

The vibrations from his tapping went all along the rail under Little Oak, through the air, through the window on the landing, through the air in the street, past the trees and lamp posts and telegraph poles, through the windows of the other houses, through the air in the houses, along the rails of the other stairlifts, until every stairlift for miles around could feel it - and they all knew everything was alright!

The two policemen didn't want to wake up the old lady but they found a note near the telephone with numbers of people to call if something was wrong. So they calledthe old lady's daughter and she came round to look after the house until the next morning.

When the old lady woke up it was a lovely sunny day and as she rubbed her eyes she saw her daughter there with a nice cup of tea and a slice of buttered toast.

"What a lovely surprise she said, but what are you doing here?"

"You just enjoy your tea, mum" said her daughter. "Then I'll tell you all about it!".

When she had heard what had happened the old lady said "what a silly old twinkle I am, what on earth am I going to do about me!"

Just then there was knock on the front door. The old lady went to open it, with her daughter close behind her. Standing on the doorstep with a great big smile on his face was little Godfrey.

He had his oil can in one hand and in the other hand was a brand new door key!

The End of Sterlington and The Burglars

Sterlington's Ever Ready Friend

Part One. The Beginning

Sterlington knew a stairlift in a big house with pillars each side of the front door.

In the house lived a girl called Fiona Fortune. Her mum and dad and brother lived there too, but their neighbours all knew Fiona best of all because she was so chatty.

Fiona spoke very politely and always dressed in smart clothes. Because she was sosmart, instead of calling her Fiona, some people thought they should be more formal so they called her Miss Fortune.

"Good morning Miss Fortune!" they would say when saw her on her way to school. "Good morning Miss Fortune" when she went into the village store. "Good afternoon Miss Fortune" when she was going home from school. "Sweet dreams, Miss Fortune" her dad would say when he kissed her goodnight at bedtime.

Her brother, Laurence, was not so smart. He usually looked scruffy and his clothes always had a stain on them, usually ink or mud or something horrible like that. But his friends still liked him and instead of "Laurence" they called him "Lance" for short.

"Good morning Laurence!" grown-up people would say when they saw him on his way to school. But when his friends saw him they would say "Hiya Lance!".

Part Two. Grannie

Fiona and Laurence had a grandma who lived in a house a few kilometres away. Sometimes they would go to visit her and they liked that because she used to give them some most delicious chocolate biscuits.

Grandma's name was Eileen Pound and when she was young she was very pretty and had ginger hair. But as she got older her hair turned a bit grey and she became unwell.

The children called her "Grannie Pound" and they did have lots of fun when they went to see her.

Because of being ill and having an accident Grannie Pound had bad legs and she used a stairlift to get upstairs to bed and to the bathroom.

When Miss Fortune and her brother Lance Fortune went there they wanted to ride on the stairlift, but Grannie Pound wouldn't let them.

"You'll wear my batteries out if you play around on the thing, then how am I supposed to get upstairs?" she asked them.

The stairlift had a key, just like a car has a key, so without the key the car won't go and neither would Grannie's stairlift.

So Grannie used to remove the key and keep it in her pocket when the children werearound.

Part Three. Ever Ready

The stairlift was called Ever Ready because he had always worked properly and always seemed ready to go, and Eileen Pound was very pleased about that.

But Ever Ready knew that Fiona Fortune would really like to have a ride upstairs on his very comfortable seat if she got the chance.

One night Sterlington Stairlift and Ever Ready were having a chat in their special stairlift message language.

They sent tiny vibrations which went along the rail, across the landing, through the landing window, out into the fresh air, between the trees and lamp posts and telegraph poles, through the landing window in the other house, across the landing,along the rail, straight to the other stairlift.

The stairlifts in the town sent message to each other every night, but nobody else knew, no cats or dogs or foxes or birds, or people. It was all done very quietly and only stairlifts knew!

That was how Sterlington knew that Ever Ready was a bit worried about Fiona Fortune wanting a ride on his very comfortable seat, because Ever Ready told him in a secret stairlift message.

Part Four. Clothing

In the hot weather Laurence, whose friends called him Lance, and Fiona, whom people called Miss Fortune, wore lovely light summer clothes so they wouldn't get too warm and sticky.

Fiona always looked very cool and smart but Laurence always seemed to get some kind of stain on his shirt and trousers. On the 18th of June he got grease on his clothes. He was doing something to his bike and it was new, clean grease but when it got on his nice shirt it made it look all gungy and horrible.

But Fiona looked very smart in her long summer dress with stripes and with her hairtied in a pony tail with a lilac coloured ribbon.

On that day their Mum took the children to Grannie Pound's house and told them to be very good whilst she went to an important meeting in the town.

Part Five. The Garden

They were in the garden, sitting on a wooden bench, when Fiona said to Laurence "Show me what you've got in your pocket, scruffy old Lance".

"NO!" said Laurence.

"Go on" said Fiona, "I know boys always carry a lot of junky things around with them, I want to see what junk you've got".

"Don't know what I've got, can't remember" said Laurence.

After a bit more prodding and teasing Laurence started to empty his pockets.

It was amazing just how much stuff came out and even more amazing how he managed to get so much stuff in his pocket to start with. Fiona thought it would be even more amazing if he managed to get it all back in his pockets again.

There was a screw, a pen knife, an elastic band, a plaster, some string, a tube of bike grease, a piece of rag, seven bus tickets, a piece of wire and nine other things which are too horrible to mention in a nice story like this.

Fiona, whom people called Miss Fortune, looked at all the junk, including the nine other things which are too horrible to mention, and thought about what she could do with them.

She picked up three things, but none of the ones which are too horrible to mention.

"Let me borrow these. I'll hide them in the house and you have to find them, but giveme a little while to find some good places!" said Fiona.

"OK" said Laurence, who like finding things, "call me when you've hidden them".

Part Six. The House

Fiona went into the house and saw Grannie Pound, who looked a bit tired.

"What are you cheeky monkeys up to?" she asked. "We are going to play a hide and find game" said Fiona. "I'll hide some of Laurence's things in the house and he's got to find them.

"Alright" said Grannie, "I might have a nap soon so play nicely and wake me up if you need anything".

"OK, thanks Grannie!" said Fiona. "I won't hide anything in here, though, then my scruffy brother won't disturb you". She went out of the room, closing the door so Grannie could enjoy her nap in peace.

It took Fiona about two minutes to realise she was all alone with Ever Ready the stairlift. She sat down on the very comfortable seat, pushed the lever, but nothing happened.

"Why won't it work?" she wondered.

Fiona, whom people called Miss Fortune, wan not very good with machines but she could work some things out.

After a quick look around she saw the lock but there was no key in it. That was because Grannie Pound had taken the key out and put it in her pocket so the children wouldn't play around and wear her batteries down.

She sat on the bottom step and looked at the things she had borrowed from Laurence. One of them was the piece of wire.

She pushed the end of the wire into Ever Ready's lock and turned and twisted and prodded and poked the other end of the wire, this way and that way, up and down, round and round, until, suddenly, some lights came on.

"That's it" thought Fiona, "now it should work".

While she was playing around with the wire it sent some vibrations to Ever Ready and he knew something was wrong.

Sterlington also knew because the wire moving around in the lock made some scraping vibrations which went along the rail, across the landing, through the landing window, out into the fresh air, between the trees and lamp posts and telegraph poles, through the landing window in Sterlington's house, across the landing, along the rail, and right into his brain box.

"Something wrong?" asked Sterlington in his special stairlift message language.

"It's Miss Fortune" answered Ever Ready. "She's poking a piece of wire around in my lock and made my lights go on. I'm afraid she may start riding up the stairs".

"What's wrong with that?" asked Sterlington. "I thought that's what stairlifts like us were made for!"

"Yes, I know that" said Ever Ready "but Grannie Pound took the key out to stop the children playing around on my seat. Not only that, Miss Fortune is wearing a long dress and it could easily get caught under my little wheels and she may get hurt if she's not careful".

"Oh, I see!" replied Sterlington. "Then whatever happens don't give in to Miss Fortune. Even if she does all the right things, refuse to move and wait till her Grannie comes along.

Fiona tried about six times to make the stairlift work but Ever Ready didn't take any notice and kept still.

"Rotten stairlift" said Fiona, "why won't you go?"

Just then Laurence, who had waited for a long time in the garden walked into the hallway. "What are you doing?" he asked Fiona, whom some people called Miss Fortune.

"You know we're not supposed to touch the stairlift".

"I think I'll change its name to Never Ready" said Fiona, "because it won't go".

"Let me have a look" said Laurence, who was sometimes called Lance by his friends.

So Laurence, who was quite good at machines and things had a look. "It should go"he said. "All the lights are on and it's not jammed up or anything". "Perhaps I can take this cover off and have a look inside"

Part Seven. Caught in the Act

"Oh no you wont!" said Grannie Pound in a very loud voice. "I told you both to leavemy stairlift alone, now move away from it"

Grannie Pound had just woken up from her nap and wasn't very pleased to see her grandchildren doing naughty things.

She found out that Fiona had poked a piece of wire in the lock and they were all surprised when Grannie Pound tried to put the key in the lock and got stuck.

"You see what happens when you interfere with other people's things!" said GranniePound. "Now I'll have to get Stan the man with the van to come and fix it or I won't be able to get up to bed tonight.

"We're very sorry" said Fiona and Laurence. "We didn't mean to break anything, we just wanted to have a ride.

Grannie Pound knew they were only playing around and didn't really mean any harm. She was just going to say "it's OK children" when she saw it.

Right in the middle of her lovely soft seat, right in the middle, where everyone could see it was a great big stain of GREASE!

"Who did that to my lovely seat?" she said, almost shouting.

"Did what?" asked Fiona and Laurence together.

Then they saw it, and their eyes nearly popped out of their heads with surprise.

"Stand STILL" said Grannie Pound. "Don't either of you move until I find out what happened here".

The children stood very still. They knew they were in enough trouble already and didn't want to upset Grannie any more. She might not give them any chocolate biscuits or lunch or tea or anything at all! She might not even let them visit her again.

So they stood very still.

"So, it was you Fiona!" said Grannie Pound at last, after having a very long and careful look around.

"You, little Miss Fortune who always look so neat and tidy, You are the one with a great blob of grease on the back of your dress. "you are the one who sat on my lovely Ever Ready stairlift seat and made it all greasy".

Fiona was very shocked and Laurence was sure he saw a tear-drop start to run down from her eye.

"It couldn't have been me" She said to Grannie Pound. "I don't use grease and I always keep my clothes very clean".

"Not today" said Grannie. Laurence knew Grannie Pound was right because Fiona turned round a little bit to hide her tear from Grannie Pound, and he saw a great big blob of grease on her dress.

Laurence was just going to laugh when he realised the grease was the same colour as the grease he had got on his shirt.

So he kept quite. Then he said "shall I try to find out where the grease came from, Grannie?"

"NO" she answered sternly, "just stay exactly where you are, both of you. I'll go and look".

Part Eight. Grannie the Detective

Grannie Pound asked where the children had been and started to look around the house. There was no grease on the stairs, no grease anywhere else in the hallway, or on anywhere else on Ever Ready the stairlift. There was no grease in the front room where grannie Pound had her nap.

There was no grease in the kitchen or near the front door or the back door.

Then she went into the garden. Grannie Pound walked slowly along the path, looking carefully at the grass and flowers as she went.

The she spotted it!!!!

Right on the bench where Laurence and Fiona had been sitting before their game started, a giant blob of grease.

What Fiona Fortune didn't know was that before she went into the garden Laurence had put some of the things from his pocket on the bench. Just as he was doing it, he saw a squirrel run across the grass.

Laurence watched the squirrel go behind a tree then jump over the fence into the garden next door. The fence wasn't very high but it was just a bit too high for him to see over.

So Laurence, whom some people call Lance for short, stood up on the bench to look over the fence.

Yes, you've guessed it! One of the things he put on the bench was his tube of bike grease and when he stood up he trod on the tube and some of the grease squirted out onto the bench.

Because the grease was quite dark and the bench was quite dark, and because Laurence had been looking towards the sun when he was watching the squirrel, he didn't notice that the grease had squirted out.

When he got down off the bench he picked up the things and put them back in his pocket.

So when Fiona, whom some people called Miss Fortune, sat down on the bench to talk to Laurence, she didn't notice the grease. That's how it got on her dress!

When Fiona went indoors and sat on Ever Ready's very comfortable seat some of the grease must have gone onto it.

Grannie Pound didn't know exactly what had happened but after a careful look around she guessed most of it. She was quite a clever Grannie!

When she went back indoors she said "why did you stand on the seat, Laurence?"

"To see Cyril the squirrel" said Laurence.

"Why did you call it Cyril?" asked Fiona Fortune who had wiped her eyes and felt a little bit cheerier when Grannie Pound went into the garden..

"I call all squirrels Cyril because it rhymes" said Laurence.

"Even if they are girl squirrels?" asked Fiona

"I just said all squirrels" said Laurence, wondering why girls have to be told everything twice.

"That's enough!" said Grannie Pound. "Laurence I want you to go outside, empty your pockets, make sure the cap is on your tube of grease properly, put all your things in this plastic bag and give them to me until you go home". Grannie handed Laurence a very large, very strong, boyproof plastic bag.

Laurence knew Grannie Pound was still angry so he didn't argue.

Part Nine. A Change of Clothes and a Cup of Tea

Whilst Laurence was outside Grannie Pound helped Fiona to take her dress off and cleaned the grease off as well as she could. She gave Fiona some spare trousers and a tee shirt to wear.

Grannies usually keep a few spare clothes around in case children visit them, because grannies know things go wrong sometimes, and Eileen Pound was a girl who didn't have to be told everything twice.

Ever Ready was a very quiet stairlift and whilst all this was going on he listened very carefully.

After Grannie had sorted out Fiona's clothes she went to the kitchen to make a nice cup of tea. Usually she had a cup of tea soon after her nap, but because of the horrible grease problem she had to wait and was quite thirsty by the time she actually made it.

With Grannie Pound in the kitchen, Laurence in the garden and Fiona in the bedroom getting changed, Ever Ready sent a daytime stairlift message to Sterlington to tell him what had happened.

"Have you got one of those soft pastel pink seat covers?" asked Sterlington.

"Yes" answered Ever Ready, the smooth, normally clean stairlift. "Grannie Pound was furious about the grease on it and I don't know what she will do next". But Ever Ready soon found out!

Grannie Pound did some of her best thinking when she had a nice cup of tea in her hand. She finished the tea and said "that was absolutely delicious!"

Having a rest and a delicious cup of tea had helped her to work out what to do next.

Part Ten. Stan the Man with the Van

Grannie Pound went to Ever Ready and looked at the label stuck to his cover. Right there, in clear big black print was the telephone number of Stan the man with the van.

Quite near to Ever Ready was a telephone, so Grannie Pound phoned Stan the man with the van and told him about her jammed key and the horrible grease stain on hervery nice seat. Well, it used to be very nice until Laurence and Fiona managed to getsome horrible grease onto it.

"Don't worry" said Stan the man with the van, "I'm sure we can sort it out".

Luckily he wasn't far away and managed to call at Grannie Pound's house before the children went home.

Stan the man with the van changed the lock and gave Grannie Pound some new keys. Then he got some tools from his nice blue and orange tool box and took the seat right off.

"How can I sit on Ever Ready now?" asked Grannie Pound, who was watching from the corner of the hall.

"Don't worry" said Stan the man with the van, "I'll put a new seat cover on and fix it back again".

In about ten minutes he had finished it. Every Ready had a clean new seat which was even nicer and softer than the last one.

Grannie Pound sat on it and was ever so pleased. She tried her new key and Ever Ready, knowing she was the proper owner, worked very smoothly and took her for alovely ride up the stairs and back down again. She was so pleased she even made Stan the man with the van a very nice cup of tea, and gave him some most deliciouschocolate biscuits.

Fiona, whom some people used to call Miss Fortune, did, eventually, have a ride on Ever Ready the smooth, clean stairlift with the soft pink seat.

It was on her birthday and she had a ride with Grannie Pound's permission whist her dad was there to make sure nothing went wrong.

Ever Ready, and Sterlington, and all the other stairlifts around the town certainly had something to talk about after all the goings on at Grannie Pound's house!

Laurence, whom some people called Lance for short, never did stop being scruffy. But that's just the way some people are!

The End of Sterlington's Ever Ready Friend

Sterlington's Needy Neighbour

One day Sterlington went for a ride up to the landing. Across the gardens he could see a lady who was having trouble getting up the stairs and was holding on to the handrail very hard.

"What she needs is a stairlift", thought Sterlington to himself.

He noticed a little while later that the lady was sitting on the edge of a bed, looked a bit uncomfortable, and seemed to be trying to find a number to phone somebody.

"I wonder if she needs help" thought Sterlington.

So, he sent a special red stairlift signal to a mobile phone owned by lady whose phone number he knew from another story. Her name? Veronica.

"Ting-a-ting-ding-a-tringy-tring-tring" went the tone on the lady's phone.

"Helloooo!" she said, "Veronica here". But nobody spoke. "Hello, helloooo" she saidagain. But nobody spoke. "Silly me!" she thought "it must be a text message".

So she looked at the screen on her phone and saw

"lady at 12 Lime Grv in trbl, plz hlp, SS".

"Goodness me", the lady said, "It's Sterlington and somebody's in trouble, what should I do?"

The lady had been practising snooker when the phone rang and had to think for a moment about how to help the poor lady at 12 Lime Grove.

She said to herself "I know, I'll ask my daughter Julianne to run around with a message and ask if everything's alright". So she went to the landing and called "Juli, Juli darling, will you do something for mummy". But there was no answer, justa horrible screeching sound. Then she realised.

It was Julianne practising on her violin.

She couldn't get Julianne to hear because of the noise, so she decided to go and ask her husband Dennis to help. She went to kitchen and there he was busily reading a book, waiting for some toast to pop up for his breakfast.

"Dennis, darling" said Veronica, "I've got a little job for you".

"Not now, Ronnie" said Dennis, "I'm just getting to the end of this page". He called her Ronnie because it was short for Veronica and if he called her Vera, which is alsoshort for Veronica, some people thought he was talking about a lady on the television.

"Put the book down, please" said Veronica. "This is important, I think someone is in trouble and needs help!"

"Who?" asked Dennis.

"The lady at 12 Lime Grove", answered Veronica.

"Why do you think that?" asked Dennis.

"I just got a text message from a friend" said Veronica. "Please, will you go round and ask if everything is alright".

"OK" said Dennis and went into the hall to get his coat. "I'll take Jake with me", he said. Jake was a big black dog called a Great Dane. Jake loved going for walks with Dennis.

The only trouble was that sometimes Jake ran a bit too fast and made Dennis's legs ache trying to keep up with him.

If Jake liked someone he used to stand up and put his great big paws on their shoulders, and lick their face. He was so big that when he stood up like that he was usually taller than the grown ups. Oh yes, and Jake ate lots of dog biscuits too!

It took Dennis and Jake just a few minutes to get to 12 Lime Grove. Dennis rang on the doorbell and Jake jumped up and licked his face.

After a few rings there was still no answer so Dennis went back to the pavement andlooked up at the windows. He couldn't see anybody and thought perhaps everyone had gone out.

He was just going to take Jake back home when he saw something at the bedroom window. The lady Sterlington had seen opened the window and held her finger up toask Dennis to wait a minute.

She got a piece of paper and wrote a note, then dropped it out of the window. As thepaper fluttered down the wind caught it and the paper got blown along the road.

There were no cars around so Dennis undid Jake's lead and said "fetch it Jake!". Jake was so happy to be asked to run and get the piece of paper that Dennis was sure he saw him smile (do dogs smile?).

In a few seconds Jake came back with the paper and gave it to Dennis. "Thanks pal", said Dennis, and Jake jumped up and licked his face.

The note said "I'm not very well, my phone won't work. Can you help?"

Dennis looked up at the lady and said "can you open the front door?" The lady turned her head from side to side to say no.

"OK!" said Dennis, "wait a minute and I'll help you".

Luckily Dennis always carried a pen with him for doing crosswords and things. He got the piece of paper, scribbled over the note the lady had written, then on the other side he wrote "Ronnie, get Stan the man with the van to 12 Lime Grove now, Dennis".

He put the paper in Jake's mouth and said "Home, Veronica, now, good boy".

"Powwwww!" Off went Jake with giant leaps from his big long legs and very soon he was giving the note to Veronica (whom Dennis called Ronnie).

"Thanks Jake" said Veronica, and Jake stood up and licked her face.

Veronica got her phone and called Stan the man with the van, who had a very nice red and grey coloured mobile phone.

Stan got there quite quickly in his van and soon worked out what was wrong.

He got a ladder from the top of his van, and, with the lady's permission, he climbed up and through the window so he could go down and open the front door.

While Stan the man with the van did that, Dennis phoned for the lady's doctor.

Jake stayed with Veronica, and Julianne. But Julianne didn't know anything about what the others were doing and carried on playing her violin.

Secretly, Dennis was quite pleased to be out of the house because violins can be really screechy sometimes.

Dennis and Stan the man with the van had a chat with the lady. The doctor came andsaid it was best if everyone had a cup of tea because it was a bit chilly that day.

They found out that the electricity in the house wasn't working. She had got very cold and hadn't eaten much. She wanted to get into bed to keep warm but it was hard for her to get up the stairs. It was a good job Sterlington saw her!

Stan the man with the van was very clever at mending things. His main job was stairlifts but he did other things as well. He soon found out why the electricity didn't work and fixed it. Then he found that the lady's phone was unplugged so he fixed that too!

While they were having a cup of tea the lady said other things had gone wrong and she wasn't having very good luck lately. Dennis and Stan the man with the van learned that her washing machine had brokendown and she had a lot of wet washing inside it that she couldn't get it out to dry it because the door was stuck.

Dennis said to Stan the man with the van "could you have a look and see if you can fix it please, Stan, and I'll pay for your time".

"OK" said Stan the man with the van, and went off to find the washing machine.

"If you're OK for a while I'll see if I can help him with anything" said Dennis to the lady. "I think I'll have a nap" she said. "You carry on, and thank you very much".

Dennis went to the kitchen and saw Stan the man with the van standing by the washing machine.

"I'll soon fix this", he said.

To Dennis's surprise Stan the man with the van took a great big hammer from his toolbox.

"That's much too big, you'll break the machine!" said Dennis in horror.

"I was only joking" said Stan the man with the van. "I think I know what's wrong", Heput the hammer away, took out a nice slim red handled screwdriver instead, and it was juuuust right.

As Stan the man with the van thought, it was the controller in the washing machine that was broken. He also found that the heater wasn't working so the water couldn't get hot enough to wash the clothes properly.

Very soon afterwards he had fixed the washing machine and rescued the wet washing from inside. But there was a lot of dust and muck on the floor.

"This is a job for Hungar the vacuum cleaner", said Stan the man with the van to Dennis. "I'll get him" said Dennis.

Dennis had seen Hungar before when Stan the man with the van had used him at Sterlington's house when Dennis was visiting there.

So, off Dennis went to Stan the man with the van's nice tidy van and got Hungar.

Very quickly they cleared up all the dust and muck and emptied Hungar's dust bag into a nice waste bin that the lady had at her house.

To save doing all the Lady's washing again Dennis agreed to take the wet things round to his house and dry them in Veronica's posh new green and red tumble dryer. A little while later they had just finished taking the dry clothes out of the tumble dryer when Julianne came downstairs.

"I'm fed up with playing my violin. I want to do something different for a change", she said.

"We've got just the thing for you" said Veronica and Dennis together, and pointed toward the ironing board.

Later on they all went round to 12 Lime Grove to take the nicely ironed things back.

The lady's doctor had told her she needed some help with the stairs because her legs weren't very strong.

So the next day Dennis and Veronica went to see their friends at Sterlington's houseand asked his owners where they got him from.

Then they asked the people at the council if they could help the lady at 12 Lime Grove to pay for a stairlift so she could get up the stairs safely.

The council people said it would be OK.

So the lady, with some help from the council people, some help from her doctor, andsome help from Dennis and Veronica, found a nice stairlift, and Stan the man with the van fitted it for her a few days later.

Now she can get up and down the stairs without a struggle and is much happier.

When it was all done Dennis and Veronica and Julianne and Jake all went round to Sterlington's house for a visit.

Jake went to see Sterlington. "I'm very pleased" said Sterlington, "because now there's another new stairlift near here at 12 Lime Grove, and I can send it secret stairlift messages when everyone else is asleep".

Then he said to Jake "hop on and I'll give you a ride up and down the stairs".

Jake gave one of his doggy smiles, looked at Sterlington, then stood up and licked his face.

The End of Sterlington's Needy Neighbour

The Crocodile's Dentist

Part One, The Beginning This is a story about Les Rice, FRCCD, DADS, PSADS, the cleverest and bravest dentist in the world. He was even braver than Rhino Rawlings, Hippo Harris, Buffalo Bill and James Bond.

Leslie was his real name and he did his training first of all at Kings College Hospital Dental School in South London.

He knew all about people's teeth and did a very good job of fixing them, or pulling them out, making crowns, caps, dentures, and all sorts of other things that dentists know about. He was good at Latin, too. His twin brother, Donald, was a vet and they used to talk for hours about people's teeth and animal's teeth to see how much difference there was. Les used to read lots of books about Africa and India and Australia and other foreign places when he was a schoolboy. He really wanted to go to visit them. So that's what he did.

Les had saved lots of money because he didn't go out to expensive places very often and he lived near the hospital, so he didn't need a car or bus fares. He could drive, though!

He had thought a lot about the natives in the countries he heard about at school andwondered what they did when they had a toothache. Come to that, what did animals do? Donald had told him some of the answers, but Les thought he'd have a look for himself anyway.

Part Two, Africa

Les went to Africa first. Africa is a great big piece of land called a continent and used to be called the "dark continent". There are lots of countries in Africa and all sorts of animals - far too many to write down in this story.The ship that took Les to Africa was called "Marwell" It was carrying some great big cages with zoo names on the sides. The cages were being sent so animals could be taken back to England for the zoos there. Les tried to guess which type of animal would go in each cage. He wrote his guesses down on a pad, then one evening he had dinner with the ship's captain andasked him about it. Unfortunately he didn't get them all right first time, but on the next day he found thatsome of the cages were upside down or the wrong way round so they looked as if they were for different animals - no wonder he got them wrong! Before the end of the trip, though, Les had them all worked out and knew exactly which type of animal was going where.

Les got off the ship at a big seaport called Mombasa. All of his equipment was put on lorries and he set off into the mysterious jungly bits. He had lots of natives to give him a hand. They were all very helpful and knew the jungle like the back of their foot. When the roads finished the natives unloaded the equipment and carried it into the wild.

Les found a smashing place near a river and decided to set up his camp there. When the boxes were unloaded he showed the natives how to put up the tents. Thenhe said they'd have to think of a name for the camp.

They lit a fire and kept it going all night by putting tree branches and leaves on it. Les could see all sorts of different coloured animal eyes looking at him from the jungle around the camp. "I bet some of them would like me for dinner", he thought. It was very strange trying to sleep in the jungle for the first time. Les had been camping with the scouts lots of times, and he had been to France as well, but this was different - lots of peculiar noises from the jungle and lots of splashing, slithering sounds from the river. But he did fall asleep in the end, and woke up full of curiosity about what would happen that day. Part Three, That Day

He brushed his teeth with lye water, made from tree bark, and thought it tasted alright but was not as good as his favourite toothpaste, "Glint". There was no hot water, no toilet, no airing cupboard or anything, but that didn't matter to an old boy scout, did it? Les and four of the natives walked along the river for ten and a half miles that day. They saw all sorts of animals, some snakes, beautiful coloured birds, and his first wild !!!!!! crocodile. It was a great big long one, with eyes bulging out of its head as if they were going to pop, and a tail that could cut a man in half with one swing. "Gosh!", thought Les, "I wonder how Donald would get on with that in his surgery". (Come to think of it, I wonder how Les would get on with it in his dental surgery!)

The crocodile was quite still at first, that's why Les and the natives didn't see it until they got close. It could have been an old log laying in the river for all they knew, but when it moved it certainly moved quickly, and really gave them quite a start.

The natives said if they kept away from the edge of the river they would be safe, but if they went into the river they were likely to get eaten.

When they got back to the camp Les decided to call the camp "Tooting Bec", after one of his favourite pieces of common land in London, England. The natives liked it because Tooting and Bec were words they could pronounce easily. They even invented a dance to go with it and chanted the name as they danced round the fire in the evening; "Toootin' bec, jabba jabba, toootin' bec, jabba jabba", and so on. Les thought the rhythm was quite exciting and he was glad he had given them something to sing about.

During the next few days Les and his native team went along the river a long way.

They found a place with enough rocks to cross over and they walked along the other side as well. Les thought it would be nice if they could build a bridge near the camp to get over the river more easily. But that was difficult and they didn't have anything long enough.

Part Four, What Happened on ThursdayOn the first Thursday they found a crocodile that looked a bit different to the others.It was the same colour and the same length, but it didn't look very well. Its eyes were funny and it wriggled about as if it were in pain. Les threw it some meat but the crocodile ignored it and started swinging its tail about very angrily. "I wish crocodiles could talk" said Les. "Then they could tell us what was wrong".

The natives told Les that there wasn't much crocodile food at that part of the river and that this crocodile was a male.

Les thought quite hard and said "There's only one thing I think is wrong with this crocodile - he's got TOOTHACHE". What happens next?

Les thought that if the crocodile had lost his appetite for food he wouldn't try to eat him, but he might swing his tail and knock him down into the river, then other crocodiles might eat him. So the tail was the thing to watch. He got a stick and drew a picture in the dust near the river bank. It showed what he wanted to do and helped the natives to understand what to look for. They went of with their big jungle knives and came back later with a long, thin, tree trunk and lots of creeper plants which looked like like green string. Les cut some notches in the tree trunk with his scout knife and the natives plaited the creepers to make a long piece of rope. What they ended up with was like a giant rope loop on the end of a pole.

From the river bank they floated the pole out past the crocodile, twisted it until the loop passed over his tail, then pulled the rope so his tail was tied against the pole. That kept him still while they did the next bit. They had some more tree trunks and while the plaiters were making the rope, some other natives made a tree trunk raft. They floated the raft out into the river, then tied one tree trunk along each side of the crocodile's tail and body to keep him still whileLes had a look at his teeth. When the crocodile was properly tied up, they lifted him onto the raft and floated him to the river bank. They tied the raft to some wooden stakes knocked into the ground and that made a nice working platform for Les. He had to get the crocodile to open his mouth next but wasn't sure how to do it. So he asked the natives for ideas.

One of them, who couldn't speak much English, made some signs showing that the crocodile's mouth should be pulled open.

Then Les remembered what Donald had told him once.

Donald said that crocodiles and alligators, which are something like crocodiles, have very strong muscles to close their jaws, but the muscles which open them are quite weak. He said that a man could hold a crocodile's jaws together with just one finger and thumb, simply because the opening muscles were so weak.

Les wasn't worried about the opening - he was worried about the closing!

Anyway, he was a brave dentist, and he had an important job to do on this poor old crocodile with toothache. So he pulled its jaws open, which he found was quite easy, then he got his torch and shone it all around inside the crocodile's mouth.Les soon saw the problem. It was a great big bad tooth right at the back on the crocodile's right side.

"That will have to come out", he said.

"Go back to Tooting Bec and get my special green box", he told one of the natives. Soon the loyal native returned with the box of equipment. He and all the other natives were absolutely amazed at the things Les was doing and stood around under a kind of spell as he worked away at his next tasks.

Les got a little tiny metal hammer, put his head right inside the crocodile's mouth, shone the torch on the bad tooth and hit it with a 'clonk'.

The crocodile screamed and nearly deafened poor Les, who still had his head in its mouth. But the crocodile didn't close his jaws! Les had already worked out that people and animals find it awfully hard to scream with their mouth shut, and as longas the crocodile was uncomfortable, it was unlikely to bite Les's head off. The poor croc also knew that it hurt when he closed his mouth and bit on the bad tooth, so that was another good reason for keeping his jaws open. Dentists have to tap bad teeth to make sure they've got the right one. It certainly wouldn't do to pull out a good one! Well, that was the right tooth and all he had to do now was pull it out. "I'd better get a strong native to help", thought Les, "I don't know just how tough this might be". But the natives wouldn't get close enough to the crocodile's mouth to help and Les realised that all tooth pulling would be down to him alone.

So he made a clever helping device. It was a wooden frame which went inside the crocodiles mouth, to keep his jaws open and there was a special lever with pliers fixed on the end, to help him pull out the tooth.

He put the frame in place, then crawled through the middle of it, clamped the pliers on the tooth, and pushed the end of the lever down. "Screeelllccchhhhhh" went the tooth as it came out. "Hoooray" went all the natives. "Gosh, I'm glad that's over", said Les. "OUCH" said the crocodile, in crocodile language of course!Les put a big wad of cotton wool over the gum where he had taken the tooth out, so the bleeding would stop, then he removed the frame and let the crocodile close his mouth. "No more sweets for you!" he said, as a joke.

After a little while, when the crocodile was feeling better, the natives untied the tree trunks and let him swim away down the river.

A few days later they saw him again and this time he looked quite normal and was busy eating again. "That's good", said Les. "I wonder if I am the first dentist from London to pull out a crocodile's tooth to make him better!"

Les wrote down everything he had done, and all the things the natives had done so that he could send his notes to the dental school in London. Then all the other dentists could learn more about his adventures and the important dental work he was doing in Tooting Bec, The Jungle, Africa.

Part Five, Time For Some More Clever Stuff

A few weeks after the first crocodile, Les was shown an older one by one of his natives who called himself Mr M Gower. Mr Gower had an old bowler hat which he found near the Mombasa docks and someone had written the name on the front. Lesjust called him Gower.

This crocodile was certainly quite old and looked a bit ill, but a different kind of colour to the first one. Les talked to the natives again and they found that you couldtell how old a crocodile was by using a special counting method. They reckoned that this one was a granny and she probably hadn't been eating too well because her teeth were worn out.

Les thought that if her teeth were worn out, she couldn't bit his head off and if she was weak through not eating, she couldn't really smack him very hard with her tail. So they paddled the raft out to her and gently pushed her to the shore.Les opened her mouth and just stuck his head straight inside, without using the frame. It was then that the helicopter flew over and the newspaper photographer took his picture. Les couldn't hear the helicopter because his head was in the crocodile's mouth and the natives didn't hear it because they were all too spellbound by what Les was doing.

Les got some plaster and took a moulding of the old lady crocodile's teeth (or what was left of them) and then he let her go. Before she swam back into the river, though, the natives floated some special soup onto the surface of the water so she could have a nice bit of lunch. Les worked very hard that day, all evening, and right through the night. He had a sleep for a couple of hours the next morning, but was anxious to see how his new invention would work out. He had been busy making a lovely set of crocodile's False Teeth. They looked super,all gleaming and sharp, just the right length, and hollowed out at the back so they could be stuck in place. All he had to do now was find the 'old lady' and see if they would fit.

It took quite a long time to locate the old crocodile, because she had crawled up onto a small island down the river and fallen asleep under some leaves.

They had to throw a lasso over her head and pull her into the river because there were other crocodiles about which had very good teeth and an even better appetite!

After a while they got the old crocodile to the river bank and Les opened up her great big jaws. He gave her worn out old teeth a good clean up with his special battery powered brush, and then tried the false teeth. They needed just a little bit of trimming, and then they fitted as snugly as anything. Les put lots of lovely dentists' glue on the back and stuck the new teeth in place. He had to be very careful of the next bit, though, because the crocodile had to close her jaws slowly and keep them shut while the glue dried.

He put a pile of logs between her jaws, then Les took the logs out very slowly, one at a time, while he pushed her snout down and looked carefully at the new teeth closing together.

As the last log came out he said "perfect", then he held her top jaw down with one finger while he tied her jaws together with sticking plaster.

"Two hours for you", he said, "then we'll have another look and see how they've stuck".

Two hours later Les had a look and decided that the old lady crocodile could be allowed back into the river. But just before he let her go he fitted a ring through her nose, so that he could recognise her again.

One of the natives followed her as she swam along the river, and at the proper testing time he threw her a nice juicy steak. 'Glop' it went, and the native was sure he saw the crocodile wink at him.

Part Six, George Groves In London the photograph taken by the man in the helicopter arrived at the newspaper office, and the next day it was printed in the newspapers. A great big coloured picture showing a white man with his head in a crocodile's mouth, and lotsof natives standing around with spears in their hand. Some people thought the natives had captured Les and made him put his head in the crocodile's mouth. Others thought someone was making a new Tarzan film and the crocodile was a dummy. Nobody guessed what was really happening, and the newspaper didn't tell them. The photographer had heard that an English dentist had gone to the jungle and he got the helicopter pilot to fly him around in the hope that he could see him.

He saw him alright, but he didn't really know what was going on. So the newspaper printed the picture and asked readers to write in and say what they thought was happening as a competition.

They promised to print the true answer the following week. That meant that a reporter would have to go to the jungle and find out. They sent George Groves because he was very good at sorting things out, and could handle dangerous situations without worrying.

George flew to Africa in an aeroplane, then got the helicopter pilot to drop him by rope ladder near the camp.George was absolutely amazed when he walked up to the tents and saw a great big sign saying "Tooting Bec". He thought he was having a strange dream for a minute and pinched himself really hard to make sure. (In fact he pinched himself so hard hehad a bruise for two weeks afterwards). There were only two natives at the camp when George arrived, but fortunately Les had taught them some good English words and they were able to explain to him where Les was.They let George borrow a raft, and he paddled up the river until he saw the dentist with his head stuck in another crocodile's mouth. "Ahoy there" he called. "Are you Leslie Rice the dentist from London?"

"Good heavens" thought Les. "Did I really hear someone speaking normal English?". He took his head out and looked across the river. "Who are you?". George introduced himself and they had a quick chat. But Les made him wait until he had finished his dental work before they could talk properly. George was absolutely stupefied when he heard about all the things Les had done for the crocodiles.

"Is it true about crocodile tears?" George asked. "They say that crocodiles cry tearsto make other creatures feel sorry for them, and once they are close enough the crocodiles glop them all up". "Quite true", Les assured him. "But what many people don't know is that crocodiles also cry when they've got raging toothache, and when that happens they have no intention of glopping anything".

So Les and George talked for hours and Les agreed that his story could be printed in the papers.

The next week the newspaper people printed the answer to the competition and alsoannounced that they had a winner. The right answer was sent in by a little girl called Matilda Todd who lived in North London. Matilda was called "Tilly" by her friends, and usually she wasn't very good at winning puzzles or anything. But this time she had been helped a little bit by her uncle Donald, who loved her very much and thought it was time she won a lovely prize.

The prize was a beautiful great big toy crocodile made from lovely soft material and packed in a super big box. Tilly went to the newspaper office to collect her prize and they took lots of pictures of her. One of them was sent to Les at Tooting Bec, and he was very, very pleased. Les stayed in the African jungle areas for a few years and found that he could put his head in any crocodile's mouth without using the frame, and none of them ever tried to bite his head off. He found ways to fix all sorts of tooth problems and got calls from all over the world to help people who had crocodiles and other creatures in trouble.

Donald was very proud of all the good work his brother was doing and they decided to write a book together so that other vets and animal dentists could share their experiences.

If you learn geography at school and list just how many countries in the world have crocodiles and alligators and zoos, you will see how busy Les had been. He is still the best crocodiles' dentist in the world and probably always will be!

The End of The Crocodile's Dentist

The Morecambandwheezer in Africa

Part 1

The first time anybody saw it was on a summer day many years ago.

A black tribesman called Mbande went to the stream to wash the dust off his legs. That was because he had to put some special dye on them for an evening ceremonyin his village.

He looked at the "thing", jumped back, made angry shouting noises, shook his spear and jumped up and down. But it stayed exactly as it was.

The thing was shiny and black. It was about four feet high, tapered a bit, and had rounded "shoulders".

While Mbande watched it, the thing started to make a peculiar sound. It was a sort of"boomwhistleflutterboioioingpowwwww" type of noise which didn't sound like anything else on earth.

Of course, Mbande didn't know that at the time because he had only ever been to the plains and the swamps and most of them were no more than ten miles away.

Anyway, after about five minutes, he ran to the village to get some more tribesmen.

Part 2

Out they came, the magnificent painted warriors of the local tribe. All had spears, some had axes and everybody had a shield made from tree branches and grass.

They looked, they shouted, they did dances, they threw rocks and stones, they spat at it and even swore. But the morecambandwheezer stayed put and every few minutes it started it same sound again, with the same time between each sound, at the same pitch and the same volume.

What on earth was it?

We have called it a Morecambandwheezer (for a very good reason) but at the time, nobody from the village knew what it was, or what it was called. How could they?

The tribesmen tried to kill it, but failed. They lit fires round it, stabbed at it, poured evil spirit juice and mud all over it, tried to scratch it, tried to move it, tried to drown it and all sorts of other things.

But it didn't budge an inch, not even a millimetre, not even a micron. But it did still make the same sound.

Some of the women took their babies out to it because they thought it might give them power and protect them from illness and wild animals-- perhaps it did, who knows?

Part 3

The first bit happened in 1938

If the people who were around then had seen Dr Who's Dalek enemies they may have thought the Morecambandwheezer looked a bit like one of those, but the daleks hadn't been invented then.

So where on earth did it come from?

The tribesmen knew some traders and they asked them to see if they could identify this strange "thing."

The traders were rough, tough, but hard-working pioneers of the land. They had seen some wonderful sights, some horrible sights and they had seen people die. But they had never seen anything like this before.

So they asked along the great Limpopo River. They asked along the great MackenzieRiver, They asked along the great Victoria Falls, They even asked along the mighty Nile. But nobody had the slightest idea what theywere rabbiting on about.

Eventually, the story of the peculiar "thing" reached the ears of some English archaeologists who were working on a dig in north east Africa. They couldn't resist a good story or an unusual discovery, so they travelled down to the stream in the south west just as soon as they could make it.

They looked at it, measured it, took its temperature, photographed it, sketched it, washed it, looked at it upside down and sideways, tried to imagine it in a different colour and all sorts of other things. But they didn't know what it was, or where it came from.

Part 4

The Second World War started soon after the archaeologists' visit. The war was horrible and millions of people were killed. Some people thought the Morecambandwheezer might have been a secret weapon, or a bomb or something like that.

But it wasn't! After the war, when most of the countries in the world were on fairly friendly terms again, they asked each other the question - "Did you put the "thing" in Africa?"

But nobody had!

Some countries were so sure that their old enemies knew something about it that they almost started another war.

But they didn't!

All through the war, all through the questions and arguments, all through the picturetaking, the measuring and everything else, the Morecambandwheezer stayed exactlywhere it was, stayed the same size and the same temperature, within a few degrees on the thermometer.

It kept making the same sound, at the same pitch and the same volume.

Clever scientists from various parts of the world recorded the sound and analysed itin big, expensive, laboratories. They fed the information to giant computers and tried all sorts of ways to find out what it meant.

But they couldn't!

Part 5

If you go to south-west Africa you can see it.

It is still about 4 feet tall, and the scientists have the exact height from the ground. (They tried to dig it up once, but they couldn't)

It still makes the same sound, and everything else is still the same as it was in 1938.

Nobody knows what it is, or where it came from.

If we find out we'll write a book about it!

If you have any ideas about what it might be or where it came from please let us know.

Thanks!

The End of The Morecambandwheezer in Africa

Lopsided Larry

In the mountains of Tibet there once lived a shepherd called Lah-Ree.

His name was usually spelt in funny-looking Tibetan writing but it was pronounced something like lah-ree and if an English person said it quickly it sounded like Larry.

So, to keep things simple let's call him Larry.

He lived on the side of a mountain and each morning he used to leave his hut and walk towards the west to tend to his animals. Larry did look after sheep, but he also had some yaks and other mountain animals as well.

Larry walked west so the sun didn't shine in his eyes. In the evening when he went home again the sun was still behind him, but he used to walk on the other side of the mountain then. By the time he turned the bend to the hut the sun had gone down behind the mountain.

Larry liked seeing his shadow way out in front of him when the sun was behind him and he often made signs with his arms and legs to amuse himself - rather like mountainside shadow pictures!

Because Larry always walked around the mountain one way, his legs had grown to different lengths. When he was on a flat surface, like the floor of his hut, he leaned over to one side; that's why he was called Lopsided Larry.

When Larry tried walking in a straight line he went round in circles, and when everyone else was walking normally he bounced up and down.

Once he went to a town where they had a pavement and he could walk normally withone foot in the road and one foot on the pavement.

At the fair one year, Larry was given a small stilt by one of the midget clowns. He thought that was great. He could actually walk normally just like other people.

The strange thing was, his knees were both at the same level, it was just the lower parts of his legs that were different lengths. Even his feet were the same size.

A friend of Larry's once suggested that he should walk round the mountain the other way for a while so his legs evened out again - but when Larry tried it he fell over. The other thing was that the sun shone in his eyes and he didn't like that one bit.

But he was a very happy soul. Some people said he was as happy as Larry.

Every day he had some cheese made from the milk he got from his animals. He had bread and lovely fresh vegetables that grew in a special plot on the mountainside.

It was an excellent place for growing things, with just the right temperature, just the right amount of oxygen, just the right amount of sunshine, and just the right amountof rain. The soil was superb. The grass on the mountainside was lovely and green and fresh and the animals loved it.

Larry played a pipe, something like a recorder, which one of the villagers gave him. When he was younger he had made himself a pipe out of wood, with a blade of grass used like a reed to make a vibrating sound. The villager had seen it when Larry was at the village market and he was very impressed with the nice tunes that Larry played on it.

So he gave Larry a nice manufactured pipe and showed him how to place his fingers over the holes properly. Larry had a good ear for music and soon picked up the idea of playing music to a proper plan.

He often played to the animals and they liked it. They always knew when Larry was coming because they could see his shadow before they saw him, and sometimes they heard his pipe as well.

On Wednesdays Larry used to sing. He was very good at measuring time and knew it was important to do certain things at the right time. He decided that if he sang on Wednesdays, went to the market on the first Thursday in every second month, timedhis walks to the animals correctly and so on, then he would always get everything done on time and know where he was.

There were wolves on the mountains. They were rather grey and hairy, with long white fangs and hungry eyes. Larry carried a long stick which he could swing like a warrior does, and woe betide any wolf who tried to eat his sheep.

An Englishman saw Larry once whilst he was on a mountaineering expedition in Tibet. When the man got home and told his family about Larry, the man's son said perhaps Larry should get a sheepdog and call it Lopsided Lassie!

The animals ran about on the mountainside in all directions and so their legs were the same length. Larry was the only lopsided person there; because he always insisted on walking in one direction.

The Englishman had suggested cutting a path in the side of the mountain, but Larry convinced him that when you are looking after animals you have to walk all over theplace and couldn't keep to one path. So Larry carried onas he was.

If you ever go to Tibet you may hear stories about Larry.

They even have pictures of him on postcards.

The End of Lopsided Larry

Laura's Lovely Ladies' Laboratory

Part 1. Who is Laura?

In the story about the crocodiles we found out that the famous dentist Les Rice was trained in a school for dentists in London.

Sometimes, when Les wasn't looking after crocodiles' teeth in other countries, he would go back to London and talk to young people who were learning to be dentistsand tell them about the things he had done with teeth. The young people who were learning were called dental students.

One day Les was asked if he would be kind enough to talk to some students at a school near a place called Southsea. The school was quite close to the beach and there was a great big tall strange-looking tower not far away.

Les liked the school because it was in a new building and everything was very cleanand tidy. After he had talked about teeth and dentists things for a while he asked if anybody had any questions and that was was when he found out who Laura was.

She put her hand up to ask a question and Les noticed that she was very, very pretty smiled when she spoke, and spoke in a lovely clear voice. Afterwards Les andthe students went to the coffee bar and talked some more before he caught the trainback to London.

Les and Laura only ever met on that day and never saw each other again. But they did read about each other in the newspapers and now and then they were mentioned in the radio and television news programmes. It wasn't because they did the same types of things, it was because the things they did were unusual.

In different countries Les carried on helping crocodiles who had tooth problems andalso started helping other kinds of creatures.

Laura finished studying at the school near Southsea then worked for a dentists business in the middle of England.

People who met Laura and looked at her carefully knew that she was incredibly pretty and had great big eyes. The whites of her eyes were very clear with no marks or blemishes and her skin was the same.

Some girls and women have spotty faces and wrinkles and moles and pimples, and other things they don't like when they look at themselves in a mirror. They try all kinds of things to make their skin look nice and are always pleased to hear about new ideas to keep them pretty.

At first Laura didn't notice that she had such a nice face. To herself she was just Laura!

Part 2. What on Earth is Nitrous Oxide?

Her boyfriend was a musician and wanted to be a rock and roll pop star. Laura knewhe would be famous one day because he was very keen and kept trying.

He worked away and in the end he made some records and did become very well known. His band was called Laughing Gas and they recorded some songs with ordinary sounding names and others with very strange sounding names.

One of the records was an old song called I Love Candy which had already been done by a chap called Brian Poole who sang with a group called The Tremeloes. ButLaughing Gas changed the music a bit and made it very exciting to listen to and great to sing along to. It was very popular in dance halls and at parties.

They also did new songs called Bossy Flossie, The Gravity of my Cavity, Mud Wrestling, Drill my Pill, Root Canal Blues, Farmer C, Greasy Lips, BarcodeBoogie, Hydrogen Ion Concentration Camp, Doctor Who and the Darlings, Ginger Vitus, Blue Tooth and lots of others.

There was some good news and some more good news. The first bit of good news was that a long time ago a singer called Ricky Valance made a record of a song which had a very sad ending, but the song became very popular, especially with girls.

The other good news was that fifty years after the song was first played on the radioLaughing Gas made a new recording of it to remind people of what romantic songs used to be like.

The song was called Tell Laura I Love Her and on the day it was released Laura's boyfriend sent her a great big bouquet of red roses. She didn't know Laughing Gas had recorded the song so that was the first surprise and the roses were the second surprise. (In another story we'll tell you about the third surprise she got that day. See if you can imagine what it was!).

The song was popular all round the world and the Rock and Roll music industry people presented the members of Laughing Gas with their very own plaque.

But the fans wanted another record so Laughing Gas wrote a special new song called How Could I Ignore A Laura Like You. It was a sensational monster hit and became known as the Nora-Laura song!

A few days after it was released Laura was looking through all the songs Laughing gas had sung and said As a person who looks after people's teeth I must say that I Love Candy may not be a good idea.

Why? asked her boyfriend.

Well, started Laura, you know that in some countries like America and Canada sweets are called candy, and you know that too many sweets can make people's teeth go bad, so saying 'I love candy' could mean someone eats too many sweets and may get toothache.

But in the song we did, Candy was the name of a girl. I expect her mum and dad caller her that because they thought she was sweet enough to eat, said her boyfriend.

I know that, said Laura, But it does make you wonder if words in songs remind people of other things which are not good for them. Perhaps song writers should only write words which remind people of things which are good for them.

Good idea! said her boyfriend. For now, just think of the title of Ricky's song, my beautiful Flawless Floss and he kissed her on the nose.

He called her Flawless Floss as a nickname because of her lovely clear skin and because she showed people how to use something called dental floss to clean between their teeth. It was a joke just between the two of them.

Whilst they were talking a clever thought flashed through Laura's mind and we'll tell you about that later.

By the way readers and listeners, Nitrous Oxide is something used by doctors and dentists. Another name for it is Laughing Gas.

Part 3. Gungy Gnashers

Even though Laura spent lots of time showing people how to keep their teeth clean, sometimes she felt a little bit guilty because there was something she didn't tell them.

What it was, the thing she didn't talk about much, the thing she just couldn't help herself over, the thing most people would be surprised about, was her secret passion for sticky cakes. Especially treacle tart! Some girls like sweets, most girls and their mums and grannies like chocolate, but nobody liked sweets as much as Flawless Floss liked sticky cakes.

There is an old saying a little of what you fancy does you good, and Laura, whose skin was as soft as a baby's ear lobe, thought that as long as she didn't eat too much and as long as she cleaned her teeth properly afterwards it would be alright toglop some sweet sticky tart now and then.

She was pleased that shops opened on Sundays, and that some of them opened until late in the evenings, so she could go and look at trays of cakes after work. The most fun was moving her great big eyes along each row, licking her soft warm lips and thinking which cake would be the best one to sink her gleaming white teeth into.

Laura had very nice teeth. They were even, the same shape and length on both sides as you looked away from the centre, no gaps between them, no chips or flecks, shiny and strong, and a very nice pure white colour. They weren't too long and they didn't stick out. They were just the right length and when she smiled her lips showed her teeth perfectly. It was nothing to do with her going to a dental school. She was simply lucky!

One Friday evening one of the other girls from the school near Southsea spotted Laura looking in a cake shop window. She waited whilst Laura looked along all the trays and rows of cakes, then went back to the top and started again. Then she seemed to be saying eeny meeny miny mo ... to herself and trying to choose which one to buy.

Then Laura flicked her finger at a big square shaped cake, which was covered in something too sticky to mention in a nice story like this, and the other girl heard hersay YOU!

The girl who was watching was sure she saw Laura's mouth water as she went into the shop, and when she came out of the shop a few minutes later with something in a bag, she was sure her mouth was watering even more.

Laura walked to a long seat in a nearby shopping mall, sat down, opened the bag and spread it on her lap, then picked up the cake and closed her eyes in ecstasy as she bit into the soft pastry and the taste of the sweet sticky covering flooded her senses. Absolutely delicious! she said, slightly out loud. It sounded a bit muffled though, because her lips were stuck together, just a little bit, and the sticky stuff was all over her teeth so she could only open her jaws a small amount.

The other girl very kindly waited until Laura had put the last bit of cake into her mouth before she walked up to her. The other girl had a secret passion of her own and knew it would be horrible if someone disturbed her before she finished, so she waited.

Then she walked up to Laura, looked down at her and said in a soft friendly voice Hello gungy gnashers! She paused as Laura looked up, gulped, went a bit red,