Flufferwump the story part 4: Cloud Factory
This day went as any other, although something in Michael was changing. He could feel himself feeling more confident after saving flufferwump. He could feel himself walking a bit taller. There was not the usual slump to his shoulders, and he was walking with a stride rather than shuffling. The other boys noticed this too as some of them were pointing at him and whispering. The day went without incident, but little did Michael know what was going to happen that evening
School was quiet, although he did get hit with a couple of spit balls. After school and homework, everyone went upstairs to the dormitories to get ready for another fabulous spread of horrible gruel. Michael got a bit over confident and didn’t check for any traps on the way in. He tripped on a piece of string tied around a couple of screws that had been placed on either side of the door. He fell flat on his face and skidded to a halt. As soon as he stopped moving he could feel the other boys picking him up and hanging him from the coat rack by the elastic in his underpants. The ultamite atomic wedgie! Then the boys left him hanging there whilst they went down for dinner, giggling to themselves exclaiming “That should take him down a peg or two, get it,,,,,peg!”
Niow the elastic in his undies was not very good as the pants were very old and shortly after the boys left it snapped and he fell to the floor. As the workshop was closed for cleaning, to remove the left over glue and sawdust, Michael decided to go to bed and ignore everyone else for the rest of his life. To cheer himself up he took another fingerful of honey and a nibble of the strange marshmallow rock. It was super sweet and crunchy, but quickly went to a chewy texture, like someone had crossed honeycomb with a marshmallow.
Michael awoke in the same field. All the green smog had vanished and the day smelled…warm. He looked at the sky and there was not a cloud to be seen. The sun beat down and was starting to turn the grass a browny colour. Michael started to sweat a little as he found the red road and headed off towards Fulfferwump’s house. The way was a little arduous as the heat was starting to melt the boiled sweet texture of the road, causing it to become super sticky, and it took a lot of effort for every footstep.
When he got to Flufferwump’s house he could see him sat on a swing in his pirch crying and wiping tears from his hands.
“What’s wrong Flufferwump?”
“Ahhh Michael, it is terrible. All the clouds have gone!”
“I noticed there weren’t any, is it not just a nice day?”
“No Micahel, you don’t understand there have been no clouds for 3 weeks now. That means that there is no cover from the sun so it is unbearably hot. There is now fizzy pop rain which we use to drink, and the plants need to grow! If we don’t get any clouds soon then all the plants will die and we will have to leave the land!”
“OK, so what can we do?”
“Maybe you can save us again. We need to go to the Candy Floss Cloud making factory. It is down the river. It is a little dangerous though as the Gummi Bears live quite close.”
“What do you mean Cloud Factory? You can’t make clouds!”
“But we do Michael, and we need to go and see what has happened to the factory”
With that Flufferwump stood up with his sadness now replaced with determination. They both joined arms and started trudging along the red road. After what seemed an age they came to a large factory with lots of big chimneys
“See Michael there is the factory, but it normally has large plumes of candy floss clouds coming out of each Chimney.”
They walked around the factory to the massive front doors. There was a sign across them which said
WARNING! BEWARE THE BEAR.
Flufferwump and Micahel looked at each other, “We need to get inside and have a look” said Micahel. Flufferwump nodded and mimed picking the lock on the door. Sure enough the lock clicked open and the door creaked open a crack, just big enough for the 2 to climb inside. The first thing they noticed was a lingering stench of horrible fart inside the factory. “Grrrr Wumperfluff upto his tricks again” growled Flufferwump. Then Micahel tapped Flufferwump on the shoulder and pointed to the otherside of the room. There was a massive amount of machinery that was whirling and whooping and schwelching. Out of the top of the machine came little puffs of candyfloss that started to float towards the chimneys. These were then abruptly stopped as they were chomped by a large glistening Yellow Gummi Bear. This thing was as tall and big as a house and it was eating the clouds. As it ate Micahel could see it growing.
“What are we going to do?” asked Flufferwump
“Well I have an idea, but what is the candyfloss clouds made out of?”
“It is a closely guarded secret, but I know they use sugar distilled from the hioney river as well as some other ingredients.”
“OK, Flufferwump I need you to distract the Gummi Bear”
“OK Michael here I go, watch this”. With that Flufferwump started to wave and flap his arms about. It was at this point that his eyes lit up and started to shine, creating a light show. The Bear’s attention withdrew from uts munching and it let out a huge roar as it stumbled to his feet. It started to advance towards Flufferwump.
Michael ran around the side of the room behind the bear and to the massive machinery. He could see lots of knobs and switches and found one that said “SUAGR”. He turned it up to maximum. “OK Flufferwump you can stop now, run and hide.”
With that Flufferwump closed his hands and hid. The gummi bear lost interest immediately and went back to its slot for eating clouds. The MAchinary made more of a girgling noise and shook, until out popped a very pink and dense cloud, which the bear ate immediately. The machine kept producing these clouds and the bear gobbled them up, but each time the bear was chewing more slowly. Eventually the bear stopped chewing, let out a muffled roar and ran out of the factory door.
“Wow Micahel what did you do?”
“I turned up the sugar content. That made the Candyfloss more sticky. It has stick its jaws together. It won’t be able to eat anything for a while.”
Micahel turned the knob back to its original position and the machinery started to produce normal coloured clouds that floated out of the chimneys.
“Yay Micjale you have done it again, lets go”
As they left the factory they saw lots of small iced gems hopping around leaving the bushes. One emerald coloured one approached Micahel and Flufferwump.
“Thank you, you have saved the factory from that evil Gummi Bear. It ran off towards its home. Now we need to get back to work. But please take this as a thankyou.”
Then there was noise behind them. A loud farting noise followed by the most awful smell.
“Humperfluff get out here now!” shouted Flufferwump
“Why do you always foil my evil schemes Flufferwump? I hate you”
With that Flufferwump reached behind his back and brought out a brightly wrapped gift.
“This is for you Wumperfluff, Happy Birthday. Remember your welcome to come and have some cake with us”
Michael stared at Flufferwump with shcok “But….But….But…”
“Michael Kindness costs nothing, but can change everything”
Humperfluff snatched the present, spun around and ran as fast as he could.
With that the chief iced gem pulled out a small grappling gun and fired it up into the sky. It caught a cloud and then retracted bringing it back down to the ground. The iced gem pulled out a stick and wrapped the cloud around it and handed it to Michael. “Thanky…..” he stared then he woke up back in his own bed.
