THE NIGHT IT RAINED ICE CREAM.

The weather was baking hot in Toestampton, a little place where everyone stamps about in big green welly boots. The bus had just pulled in from Chutney, it had been driven by Mr. Pickle who was thirsty. Mrs. Pickle made him tea which he tipped straight down the sink. “This tea’s fizzy”! He shouted. She tried hers and to her disgust found it was. She tried some water from the tap only to find it was lemonade instead. She tried to jump onto the water board – A great big piece of hardboard which has a man sitting on it with a beaker, scooping beakerfuls out of the Thames and pouring it into the pipes where it runs always down to the spouts on the taps. He’d taken his lemonade with him to drink but just as he was about to pour it from his flask where he had put some to keep it cold, he sneezed and dropped it all into the river. Now when he collected beakers of “water” it was lemonade which had become mixed up and gone into the supply.

That night another weird thing happened. When it rained instead of water coming down from the clouds, ice cream came instead. There was ice cream all over the cars, ice cream over the ground, in the trees, in the hedges and ice cream in Mr. Trundle’s cornet which he’d carelessly left against the back fence in his garden. Mr. Trundle who owns a carpet shop called Mr. Trundle’s carpet bundles, plays the cornet in the Toestanpton and Chutney Brass band. When he tried to play it in the morning he found the bell was packed solid with frozen ice cream. He sucked and blew, sucked and blew and banged the cornet against the fence. “Don’t do that”, scolded Mrs. Trundle. You’ll dent it. “What we must do is send for the Labradors.” When the dogs, George, Wheat and Esme heard about the ice cream they rushed to help. Already Esme had eaten a lawnfull of ice cream and George was busy trying to lick out a milk bottle which had been put out for the milk man. Wheat was the first to come up with a good idea and Esme and George both wished they’d thought of it first. Wheat ran to Mr. Trundle, wagging her feathery tail (she was a big golden Retriever) and barking. Mr. Trundle didn’t understand Woofle, a kind of dogs’ language so was wondering what she wanted. He gave her a biscuit at first but then she ran to the cornet and stuck her tongue into the bell. At first it only went a little way in but then as her tongue warmed the ice cream she found she could get it further and further in until it went all the way down to the deepest and narrowest part of the bell. I bet you can guess what happened – Yes, her tongue got stuck. She yelped, snorted, woofed, waggled her body, banged the cornet on a tree and whined. Finally, George, Esme, Mr. Trundle and Mrs. Trundle all gave a big pull rather like you do in a fabulous game of tug-of-war and eventually her tongue popped out and all the Ice cream was gone. Mr. Trundle gave a great big blow on his cornet but because he was so thrilled to have it working again he forgot to wash it. Everyone was showered with dog’s spittle and Mrs. Trundle snatched it off him and washed it out. Then, of course, the inside was all sticky from lemonade which you may remember is coming out of the taps instead of water. “My turn, my turn”! Shouted George as he licked out the cornet again but the lemonade wasn’t half as much fun as the ice cream would have been.

Next day the man on his water board bailed out all the lemonade from the river. Some kestrels flew down, together with an enormous Wagpie – A cross between a Labrador and a bird, and drank all the water or rather lemonade until the Thames was empty. Then everyone in Toestampton and Chutney were told to put out their buckets and mugs, and anything they could find in order to catch the rain water and take it back to the Thames. Everyone hoped it would rain water and not ice cream again. Nobody thought that the Thames would fill up on its own when it rained again. Mr. Trundle put out his pork pie hat which got soggy and the pastry crumbled and the meat and jelly bits were soaked. Eventually Wheat ate the soggy mess, feeling it was her just reward for rescuing his cornet.

It didn’t rain ice cream that night but nobody will forget the day Mr. Trundle’s musical cornet became an ice cream cornet and Wheat will not forget the taste of Mr. Trundle’s pork pie hat. For a while he wore a steak and kidney pie hat and loved it when the weather got hot and the gravy trickled into his long, long beard. Just like an adder he flicked out his tongue and licked it all in. The Labradors wished they could jump high enough to have a lick too but gravity kept pulling them down to the ground again. His wife said that kissing him was like having another meal but thought that some day she ought to get him a new pork pie hat as bad meat can poison you and make you poorly. Some time I’ll tell you how he got a new pork pie hat but not now.

(the end).