Bertie and the Magic Seal

Dedicated to Abba and On

This is a story about a moochy, growly, bad-tempered old fish called Colin the carp

Colin lived in a pond at the bottom of the garden belonging to a royal palace. I would like to say it was an ornamental pond but in fact it was all covered in weed and slime

because the palace gardener did not enjoy cleaning it up

just look at the state of this pond Colin grumbled and look at the gardener sitting under a tree

transfixed by his phone people these days don't know how to put in a day's work a young tadball whose name

was tim asked him dear old uncle Colin why do you complain about the slime so much i'm not your uncle

uncle and i don't like slime because it's slimy.

Grouched back Colin.

But it's delicious, squealed Tim and all the waterfowl, which is a posh word for ducks, geese and swans

honked and quacked and tweeted to say how much they appreciated the green slime because extremely slimy slime is even more tasty to eat than plain old radioactive slime

that comes in a big tin as he strolled around his garden.

I know, I'll go and inspect that old pond. It's been years since I took a look at it.

He wandered off in the direction of the garden water feature, but he couldn't find it for the life of him.

You see, the pond was covered in such thick slime that it looked exactly like grass.

The poor old king walked straight into it.

Both his feet touched the bottom of the pond and the water came up to his knees.

Ugh! Hickled out. It's so slippery, slimy.

And he fell face-first into the pond. When he emerged, he looked just like a green slime monster.

Even the palace guards did not recognize him and refused to let him back into the palace.

But I'm the king and I need to get changed, shouted his majesty as he stood shivering by the back door.

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