The Golden Book of Bright Ideas, Surprising Stories and Imagination Read online

  Topaz seemed to remember something before she said, ‘Doctor, is it possible to track down and find this Dawn?’

  ‘Yes. Ash, please will you put your hand here?’ The Doctor replied indicating a slimy panel in the central console.

  After some whirring, they arrived at their new destination, an unknown magical planet in the constellation Sheepcowsquirrelmoobaa. There were unicorns, mermaids and lots, lots more.

  And of course, there was Pikachu, happy to see them.

  They met a friendly mermaid named Rainbow Diamond and she showed them around the planet from the smallest streams to the tallest mountains.

  Topaz was getting tired, so she, The Doctor, TroggleHumperBot, Ash and the recently found Pikachu headed back to the T.A.R.D.I.S. Immediately, Topaz fell asleep. Whilst she was dreaming, she felt a nuzzling on her cheeks. As she opened her eyes, Topaz realised Pikachu was tickling her with his tail as he and Ash were snoring away.

  Pikachu awoke with a start as a vworping sound could be heard outside…

  Grobble Squirt

  By

  Jack

  It was a dark and stormy night and there was a vampire called Grobble Squirt…and he was a bad guy.

  He was known for attacking Billy Bob Land every night to eat two armies of Barbarians.

  Grobble Squirt lived in Grobble Squirt Land. It looked scary with blood everywhere, and at night, werewolves, zombies and vampires came out.

  Grobble Squirt was half vampire and half human which meant he could go out in the daylight. Helping him every night were Captain Werewolf and Captain Zombie and together they were unstoppable.

  One night Grobble Squirt was in the Barbarian Arena and he was down to the last two Barbarians. Grobble Squirt ate one of them. The other nearly got away but Captain Werewolf stabbed him with his sword.

  That night, Grobble Squirt had a dream about being the King of Zenon. But when he woke in the morning, he realised he was only the Lord of the World.

  After all that excitement, Grobble Squirt, Captain Werewolf and Captain Zombie still ruled the world. But after ten days, Grobble Squirt left to go and eat Zennonians from the planet Zenon and take over their planet.

  To be continued…

  The Story of Zzaj

  By

  Jasmine

  It is 2034.

  In the lab is Zozimus.

  She has almost finished her project.

  That particular project is a secret.

  Shall I tell you what it’s about? Do you promise to keep it a secret?

  No, I don’t trust you.

  Zozimus was getting hungry by now, so she went to her lunch vending machine (made by her) and got some Monster Munchie crisps (her favourite) and some beetroot soup.

  Zozimus went outside, sat down and started eating her lunch.

  Suddenly, her garden was shadowed by a ship. Then two green people with orange afros were in front of her. One was holding a syringe with purple liquid in it and stabbed it into her…

  Zozimus woke in a small cell-like room and looked around. There were two doors. She tried one and it was locked. She tried the other door, it was a bathroom. In there was a toilet, a sink, a shower and a tall mirror.

  She looked at herself in the mirror; she was horrified!

  Zozimus now had a long, lime green tail with ugly, cactus green spots on.

  She went back into the bedroom and stuck her tongue out at the door – a laser came shooting out of her mouth and blew a hole in it. She climbed through, into the corridor, outside her cell room.

  After about half an hour of exploring, Zozimus finally found what she was looking for - the escape door. It was a door leading into space. She knew that she could breathe in space (because she’d accidentally walked into the training room which didn’t have any oxygen in it) so she opened the door and started to swim into the air towards the moon and after about an hour she finally got there.

  On reaching the moon, she hid in a crater. Suddenly she noticed an apple – but not an ordinary apple – a walking apple! Zozimus went up to it and asked it to help her get back to Earth. The apple took her to a rocket and they climbed in.

  Strapped safely into the rocket, they introduced themselves to one another. The apple was called Zzaj.

  Zozimus and Zzaj safely landed back on Earth in Zozimus’ back garden. She was just about to thank Zzaj when he suddenly disappeared.

  Feeling quite deflated, Zozimus went back into the house to find her front door wide open and an empty space on her shelf where a special potion once sat.

  She sighed, closed the door and sat down to watch some TV. She gasped at the news – no ordinary news about politics – news that there was a giant apple destroying Samton.

  Zozimus got straight back to work on the secret project I told you about at the start. I’ll tell you about it now – the secret project was a time machine. Yes, a time machine. Anyway, she finished off the final parts and she put it on the floor. She set it to go to when she and Zzaj got off the rocket, pressed the button and travelled back in time…

  Zozimus and Zzaj safely landed on Earth in Zozimus’ back garden. Then Zozimus, keeping an eye on Zzaj, thanked him, took him to a spare bedroom and told him to stay there for the night.

  Suddenly, the room started swirling around and Zozimus was transported back to where the time machine was. She went upstairs to find the bedroom door wide open and the lock melted. She panicked! She ran downstairs to see if the news had noticed it yet – they had!

  Zozimus rushed to her lab station and started a potion. She was waiting for it to brew, so she contacted the police, the news and the local glass blower. As soon as everybody had arrived and was ready, they set off with her potion.

  When they got there – the place of the giant apple attack she’d seen before– she found the glass blower and put all the shrinking potion into a giant glass syringe and they waited for the giant apple to come.

  Zzaj arrived…

  Zozimus finally got the syringe into Zzaj shrinking him back to his normal size…he could do no more mischief.

  But…

  In the distance, World Disaster News newspaper noticed something…

  Greeny Speedy

  By

  John

  Once there was a rabbit in a burrow.

  That rabbit saved all the lives of the other rabbits from an evil fox that had wanted to make rabbit stew for himself and all his friends so they could have a good time.

  That rabbit was the speediest rabbit of them all. His paws were like steel shovels that never broke allowing him to dig at the greatest speeds…he was called Hobby.

  One day Hobby bumped into a fox called Foxy. 

  ‘Ah, look at you bunny,’ said Foxy, ‘fancy coming round to mine for some lunch?’

  ‘No thanks,’ replied Hobby.  Hobby looked at Foxy and smiled, he said, ‘Do you want to come to my house instead?’

  ‘That would be lovely!’ said Foxy.

  The two then walked towards Hobby's village.

  ‘Mmm look at you,’ said Foxy licking his lips, ’I will have you in a pan before you know it!’

  Hobby started to feel uneasy and realised in time what Foxy was up to with his wicked plan for some lunch.

  Hobby suddenly dug underneath Foxy and tangled his tail. Then he pulled, tangling it even more until it became a knot.

  Foxy couldn’t move, so he cried out, ‘Please let me go! I promise I will not eat any rabbits! I promise, please just let me go, pleeeaaassse!’

  ‘Only if you definitely promise not to harm any more rabbits,’ said Hobby.

  ‘Yes, yes, just please let me go,’ pleaded Foxy.

  So Hobby let him go.

  Foxy ran away and was never to be seen again.

  From that day forward, Hobby was the hero of the burrows.

  Miricle

  By

  Rosie

  Let’s start from the very beginning…

  Far away, beyond many miles of lands
cape, there lived a girl called Aisha.

  Aisha lived in a house named Bopmuggered House. At first, Aisha thought it was a funny house and she would never leave, until…

  One day, on a weekend, Aisha was sitting in her room on her own.

  KNOCK, KNOCK…the door slowly opened…

  ‘Hi, Love,’ said Mum quite nervously.

  ‘Mum, is something wrong?’ said Aisha.

  ‘Well…the thing is…we have to move house,’ she replied sadly.

  ‘Why do we have to move house?’ Aisha asked.

  ‘Because you, young lady, need some education,’ she replied moodily.

  ‘But…but…’

  ‘NO BUTS!’ said Mum as she shut the door.

  A few months later…

  ‘Aisha! AISHA! AAAIISSHHAA!’ screamed Mum. ‘GET READY NOW!’

  ‘I AM READY AND I’M IN THE CAR!’ Aisha smugly shouted back before thinking to herself, ‘I’m going to school…a new school…with no friends…’ The smugness faded away.

  As she walked down the path towards her new school, she thought to herself, ‘Wow!’

  During school, all Aisha did every lesson was sit on her chair and think about her old house.

  After school, she jumped into a taxi that drove her to her new home. Earlier on that day, Dad had given her a piece of paper that had the address of the new house on it, so she took it out of her bag and read it to the taxi driver.

  ‘Thanks a lot,’ said Aisha as the driver unleashed the brake and, swoosh, it went down the road at ninety miles an hour.

  As Aisha spun around, she was met face to face by her mother…

  ‘What?’ she shouted at Aisha’s face. ‘Why did you take a taxi? Why didn’t you walk?’ she screamed.

  ‘I’m very sorry, Mum, but,’ argued Aisha, ‘it’s too far to walk from school.’

  ‘Oh, well…’ said her mum, ‘I’m going inside.’

  ‘What was all that about?’ thought Aisha.

  A few hours later…

  ‘I’m going outside, ok? Bye.’ Aisha ran outside.

  The garden looked like a huge forest (just like the house, it was ancient). Aisha suddenly wanted to turn back but the forest was inviting her in.

  ‘I have to go and tell Mum and Dad, but maybe I could investigate, just a little bit,’ she reasoned. She could not help but enter the enchanting forest ahead of her. ‘Wow!’

  Suddenly, Aisha was glaring at a vortex in front of her that had appeared. She couldn’t stop herself…she stepped into it and…found herself on an island. Then she heard a voice that became louder and louder. The girl stood like a statue as a fairy fluttered in front of her.

  ‘Hi, my name is Flutter,’ said the fairy as if she was trying to shout over the sound of when a waterfall is near.

  ‘Oh, my name is-’

  ‘Aisha.’ Flutter already knew her name.

  ‘Can we go somewhere else, because it’s too loud here?’

  They both turned and walked into the forest.

  ‘I know your name because I can see the future and I know you will help us stop Sarina,’ said Flutter as she walked past a tree.

  ‘Wait! Who is Sarina?’ asked Aisha.

  ‘Oh, Sarina is very mean because she trying to take over this island, Miricle,’ replied Flutter.

  Suddenly, as Aisha stood on a log, a trap appeared. Luckily, it was only Aisha who was caught. Flutter hid behind a bush as Sarina appeared.

  ‘Ha, ha, ha! I’ve caught you!’ screamed Sarina. ‘Now, you stay there whilst I get my servant to torture you.’ She wandered away.

  Flutter drew towards Aisha…within a flash, she rescued her.

  ‘Let’s follow Sarina,’ said Flutter.

  ‘Then we can challenge her!’ added Aisha.

  Sarina walked to a cave and Aisha and Flutter secretly followed close by.

  ‘Sarina! Listen! Why are you trying to take over this island?’ asked Aisha.

  ‘Because it’s fun! Oh, ok, it’s because when I was like you, I came to this world and I wanted to go back home. But the vortex had gone. So I decided I would take over the island and make it my own place to make me feel better. But now, I guess I was wrong.’ Sarina looked sad.

  ‘I’ve got a brilliant idea, I will go home with Flutter and you, so we can live somewhere else.’

  ‘That sounds great,’ said Sarina and Flutter.

  They set off back towards the vortex.

  Sarina, Flutter and Aisha travelled back from where they had come.

  ‘It’s not there!’

  The vortex had gone.

  Flutter felt so upset, she ran back into the woods. ‘Aisha! Sarina! Come quick!’

  Surely enough, Flutter had seen out of the corner of her eye, the vortex. So, surely enough, they went through into the garden.

  ‘Sarina, Flutter, this is my home. Quick, my parents are coming. Mum, Dad, er…I met some friends.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ said her parents.

  ‘Here are my friends, Flutter and Sarina.’

  ‘Hi,’ said Aisha’s parents.

  After a few weeks, Aisha’s mum and dad agreed to look after all of them.

  One year later…

  ‘Come on, let’s play…’

  ‘Hey, there’s a vortex!’

  ‘Come on then, let’s discover somewhere new,’ said Aisha.

  All three went in…

  ‘Look, it’s a new world.’

  ‘You two…something is in here as well…’

  ‘AARRHHHHH!’

  Finding the Rarest Stone in the World

  By

  Tanish

  Will sighed to himself.

  Just yesterday the last penny was spent.

  He picked up the newspaper and flicked through the jobs column. He kept flicking through, but then he saw something that caught his eye. He stabbed down with his finger. It was an ad asking for adventurous people to help find this stone in the Amazon jungle.

  Will called the phone number and he was so eager that he got the job. The expedition was next Tuesday, his flight was on Monday.

  A few days later, he was on the flight when he heard the pilot say, ‘We are now landing.’

  At the airport, he noticed that there were almost fifty people dressed in hiking gear. Will began to follow them. Most of them were going to helicopters, some were going to boats. Will chose a helicopter. A few minutes later, they were at the campsite.

  ‘Hello!’ A booming voice greeted them. ‘Welcome to base camp. I’m Captain Shoebridge. Just call me Joe. This is where you’ll be sleeping.’ He indicated an empty, bright red tent.

  Will climbed in and was enjoying the luxury of a tent all to himself, when Captain Shoebridge poked his head round the tent door and said, ‘Meet us in HQ in fifteen minutes as we will be discussing where the diamond could be.’

  Fifteen minutes later, Will appeared at the HQ and the discussion had heated up. Captain Shoebridge was in the thick of the discussion until he finally noticed Will standing there, unmoving.

  ‘Will. Come join us.’ He beckoned him closer. ‘So which part of the forest do you think we should search first for the jewel?’

  Will thought about it and just said unsurely, ‘...Peru?’

  The group tiredly agreed and marched onwards. Will marched on with them; they turned right, he turned left, they turned left, he turned right. He searched around for his team-mates, but when he didn’t find them, he realised he was lost. He continued forward thinking his team-mates wouldn’t be that far. He trudged wearily, every step tiring him out even more when he heard a faint rustle of bushes. He thought it must be the group.

  ‘Hello. I’m over here!’ Will said.

  ‘Who are you?’ The voice greeted back.

  Taken aback Will said, ‘My name is Will who are you?’

  The person emerged, paper bags covering his face; Will, terrified of this creature, took a step back.

  ‘My name is Paperbag Boy. Don’t worry I’m human.�
�

  Will asked, ‘Why do you call yourself Paperbag Boy?’

  ‘I look hideous. So I use these bags to cover myself.’

  ‘Oh! How did you get here?’ Will asked.

  ‘I wanted to finally take my bags off, so I decided to find a place far away from civilisation.’

  They kept walking.

  It had been three days since Will had got separated from the pack and two days since he’d found Paperbag Boy.

  ‘Hey, are we in South America already? We’ve been walking for ages,’ Will said.

  Paperbag Boy laughed thinking he was telling a joke. ‘No, we’re still in the Amazon jungle.’

  Suddenly, Paperbag Boy heard a hiss.

  Will saw the snake.

  Paperbag Boy warned, ‘Don’t go near it!’

  ‘Why? It’s just a harmless kitty.’ Will went over to try and stroke it.

  ‘Noooo!’ Paperbag Boy lunged for the snake.

  The snake just eyed them both up. They stared back, frozen to the spot.

  After a minute that felt like a decade, the snake slithered off. Paperbag Boy took a deep breath. Will was confused. ‘It was a very naughty kitty, wasn’t it?’

  Paperbag Boy laughed despite feeling a bit cross with Will about his ignorance.

  They kept on walking till they found some old ruins.

  ‘Hey, what’s this?’ Paperbag Boy asked.

  ‘Finally, we found a hotel!’ said Will

  Paperbag Boy laughed again at Wills silliness of finding a hotel in the middle of a dense forest.

  Will ran towards the ‘hotel’ and stepped on a trap door sending them both below the surface.

  It was dark down there except for a shimmering light at a distance. Paperbag boy thought that might be the way to go out. They followed the light and it became brighter and brighter as they approached it.