Bertie that didn't burp

Gold cherry

By well-wisher

Fri, 24 Jan 2014
  • 5551 reads
23 comments
 

Do you know what happens if you don’t burp?

Well, I’ll tell you.

It happened, once, to my Uncle Bertie you see, when he was only a little boy.

His Aunt Winifred, my great Aunt, who he lived with, didn’t approve of people burping and she would often tell him whenever she heard him  burp,

“Bertrand”, she would say in a very stern voice, holding her nose, “One should never burp. It is a very disgusting habit that you must stop at once. It makes a noise like a whoopee cushion and a smell like rotten cabbages”.

And so; one day my uncle decided that he would try never to burp again; not for a whole day, at least.

Whenever he felt like burping, he thought, he would just hold it in like Aunt Winifred had said.

Unfortunately, and as any good scientist will tell you, whenever you hold burps in then they have no way of getting out and so they just build up and build up and build up until, like a balloon filling up with hot air, the human body begins to expand.

And that’s just what happened to Uncle Bertie.

Every time he held in a burp, his stomach got a little bigger until, by the end of breakfast it was the size of a football; by lunchtime it had become the size of a large beachball and, by dinner time, it was atleast the size of a weather balloon.

But, even so, Uncle Bertie held in his burps with all his might; even when his inflated stomach burst through his clothes and even when, because human burps are lighter than air, he started to float up towards the ceiling.

“You must let poor Bertie burp, Winifred”, his uncle Alfred observed, looking up at him floating over head, “Otherwise he might explode and then there will be bits of Bertie everywhere”.

“Stuff and nonsense”, said his Aunt Winnifred, opening up a window and pushing the floating Bertie out of it, “He just needs some fresh air, that’s all. Fresh air and plenty of exercise is what a growing boy needs”.

But without the ceiling to hold him down, Bertie now just started to float upwards towards the sky; his stomach getting even larger until he was the size of a hot-air balloon.

Passing birds exchanged puzzled glances as they saw Bertie floating by, then Bertie found himself surrounded by clouds and couldn’t see anything; cloud fluff getting up his nose and even in his ears but he could feel his bottom starting to become very hot.

 

And then, suddenly, looking up, Bertie saw the reason why.

 

He was floating towards the sun, you see.

“Don’t come any closer”, the Sun called out to him in a worried voice, “Or you’ll burn up in my solar rays”.

 

But Bertie just couldn’t stop himself floating higher and higher.

 

“There’s only one thing to do”, he thought, “I’ve just got to burp”.

 

And so, taking a big breath in, Bertie let out the most enormous burp anyone had ever seen or heard.

 

It rumbled like thunder across the sky and, as it did, just like a balloon that’s been untied, Bertie went whizzing about.

 

He whizzed across the Atlantic faster than a super-sonic plane to the amazement of people in ocean liners and he whizzed across the desert faster than a rocket over sand dunes and pyramids ; in fact he whizzed so far around the world that he ended up in the far off land of Burpistan where he was adopted by the Sultan of that great nation.

 

“You are welcome to burp here, Bertie”, the Sultan told him with a loud burp, “For in our country, it is not seen as a rude thing to burp but as a sign of great respect”.

 

And that is how Uncle Bertie came to be the ruler of Burpistan and why, whenever you feel one building up inside you, it is always better to take a big, long, loud burp.

Certificate PG
Story
Fantasy
Children's

Comments

Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on

Brilliant story! Are you sending any of these off to publishers?

 

Submitted by hudsonmoon on

Wonderfl stuff here, well-wisher. Take Insert's advice and send it somewhere. Great stuff.

Rich

 

Submitted by well-wisher on

Thank you, hudson. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Oh look, a link. I wonder where it leads.

JoHn

Submitted by VeraClark on

Another cracker.Hope you submit them somewhere, an absolute treat for children.

 

Submitted by well-wisher on

Thank you, Vera.

Oh look, a link. I wonder where it leads.

JoHn

Submitted by well-wisher on

Thank you, insert. I'm glad you liked it but it's not a story that I would want to get published.

Oh look, a link. I wonder where it leads.

JoHn

Submitted by scratch on

Why ever not well-wisher?  I, like the rest think it to be excellent!

 

Submitted by jolono on

Brilliant WW. loved this.

 

Submitted by Kizzy on

Aesop eat your heart out

Kizzy

Submitted by AceV on

I agree with everyone here, get it published. I liked it, especially Bupistan :)

Submitted by prettyrose on

smileyHi Well-wisher, Brilliant and made me smile. Your work is always a pleasure 2 read. well done.

 

 

take care

smiley Keep Smiling

Keep Writing xxx

Submitted by prettyrose on

yes ps lol love the picture  xxx

smiley Keep Smiling

Keep Writing xxx

Submitted by well-wisher on

Thank you for the golden cherries. I don't think I deserve them but I'm very grateful nonetheless.

Oh look, a link. I wonder where it leads.

JoHn

Submitted by well-wisher on

I don't really think much of my story scratch. It wasn't written for children or for me but written, cynically, to appeal to those parents and grown-ups who I know think that children like these kinds of stories. It has nothing of me in it. I don't believe in it.

Oh look, a link. I wonder where it leads.

JoHn

Submitted by well-wisher on

Thank you, jolono.

Oh look, a link. I wonder where it leads.

JoHn

Submitted by well-wisher on

Thanks,Kizzy.

Oh look, a link. I wonder where it leads.

JoHn

Submitted by well-wisher on

Thank you, Acev. I'm glad you liked it.

Oh look, a link. I wonder where it leads.

JoHn

Submitted by well-wisher on

Thank you, Pretty Rose.

Oh look, a link. I wonder where it leads.

JoHn

Submitted by scratch on

And yet you wrote it and signed it as a children's story?

Nothing of you in it, so you say... I'd like to read more.

Maybe the best stories happen accidentally.

 

 

 

Submitted by blighters rock on

Well I never. I just tried to stop smoking (again) but after only 48 hours I found I couldn't concentrate on reading past a few lines so I went out, got my tobacco and returned to this delicious little story. When he started floating into the sky, I wondered where he'd land (he'd have to land, I hoped) so coming to rest in Burpistan, where presumably the sand cushioned the fall, was a deft touch.

I read how this wasn't meant for children but I can't help thinking that it would make a cracking, slightly risque picture book in the style of 'Walter the Farting Dog', a politically incorrect tale that managed to bypass all snootiness within the bookselling world for all its zany, adult-friendly, laugh out loud qualities.

What a breath of fresh air, even with all the nicotine and chemicals that pump around my body. I'd say you've hit the jackpot with this one.

 

 

Submitted by well-wisher on

Hi, Scratch.

I didn't mean it was an accidental story. I meant it was a soulless story. I tried to write the kind of story that Michael Rosen would approve of; a dumb one that appealed to the lowest common denominator; the kind of story that I hated when I was a child and which makes me cringe now.

Oh look, a link. I wonder where it leads.

JoHn

Submitted by well-wisher on

Hi, Blighters.

Farting is not an Un-PC thing to put in childrens books nowadays but, as I said to Scratch; it appeals to a stereotypical view that a lot of adults have of children; that they like toilet humour and books that aren't difficult. It's the kind of story that my Primary Teacher would have foisted upon me and which I hated when I was a child.

Oh look, a link. I wonder where it leads.

JoHn

Submitted by blighters rock on

Hi Well-wisher,

Farting, and burping, aren't so un-PC as they were but schools are loaded to the hilt with very PC teachers who feel it their duty to protect their children from the more unseemly aspects of (what they believe to be a good) childhood. Personally, I loved toilet humour dressed as slapstick when I was a nipper and there was quite a lot of it back then in the middle ages (the Chuckle Brothers, Dangermouse, Rent a Ghost etc). All they've got now is CGI and adverts, tie-ins, etc.

I purposely included the dad stepping in doo dirt at the start of my new picture book to get a cheap laugh and endear listeners/readers towards his hapless nature because kids love to laugh. It is cheap, admittedly, and may be compared to a comedian swearing for added effect, which does grate with me, but I like to think that Im writing not only for me but for the audience. A little toilet humour can ease the sceptical mind into 'getting' a message that more deeply embedded in a story. It's a compromise.

In Walter the Farting Dog, the humour is so blatantly OTT that the reader lets go of any PC thoughts and embraces the idiotic. It's a release and that's why adults like it so much. It says, 'forget what's right or wrong and just be stupid for a while'. We lose that freedom so regularly that it threatens to wear us down to the point of normalised insanity, and that's when we lose the ability to laugh even when it's tailor-made for us to enjoy.

With Bertie, though, there's much more to this story than might meet the eye (for me, at least). His aunt and uncle are so clueless as to what's good for him, and it seems the aunt is going all-out to see hiim doomed right from the start. He's in the wrong hands, for sure, even with the hapless uncle (who's easily led and dismissed by the overbearing aunt). She unwittingly frees him from her clutches, causing him to find a better place to be and giving him the ultimate adventure in the process (probably wishing him dead as he drifts off into the air). This gives children a real attachment to Bertie and allows them to fly with him as he blows up to the size of a hot-air balloon. How many kids get warned by the sun not to go too far on their adventure. I can literally see children howling with laughter and it would be a shame if you didn't give this story to the audience it's crying out for. That he lands in Burpistan is probably a step too far for west-loving warmongerers but that's the real beauty of this story. It gives the less PC teachers (who are fewer and fewer in numbers as time goes whistling by) real ammunition to defy the rigid rules of 'what's right for children'. They can justify its reading to their children by saying that they're teaching them about the different customs and cultures of the world. It's that hard to get risque writing to the ears of children these days and this story is a gift not only for the children but for all the hardworking, disenfranchised, constantly thwarted teachers who just want the best for their pupils. 

I hope this goes a little way to explaining why I think this story's a winner. It's a very rare thing for a writer to mix so many messages of goodness and humour into a story, and perhaps what you have achieved hasn't sunk in yet. Don't worry; it happens only to the very best writers.The toilet humour in this story is merely a vehicle to run riot over worn out westernised preconceptions. The best thing is that it gets away with it too.