The Flumpjack

Once upon a time there was a little girl, called Tiffaly, who really didn’t like cleaning up her room at all. Whenever her mother asked her to clean it, the little girl would just start to sulk and grumble.

One day however, a large, hairy, five legged creature called a Flumpjack was travelling through the air past her house when, sniffling with its two long trunk like noses it smelled all the rubbish in the girls room and, because Flumpjacks love nothing better than eating rubbish; licking its lips, the flumpjack leapt off of a dark cloud and in through her open window, then, trampolining off of her springy bed before, somersaulting high in the air he landed beside where the little girl was sitting on the floor, playing with her dolly, Susan.

“Who are you?”, asked the girl, very startled, hugging her dolly more tightly.

“Flumpjack is my name, little girl”, said the creature, raising its hat and then doing the same with its large hairy head, “And I eat rubbish”.

“Rubbish?”, asked Tiffaly, scratching her head, “You mean like junk food?”.

“Oh no”, said the Flumpjack, “I mean like actual junk. I eat the empty boxes and rappers and old things that people throw away. That is why we flumpjacks normally make our homes near to rubbish dumps but, as I was passing, I couldn’t help noticing that your room is simply filled wall to wall with rubbish; rubbish that you, no doubt, must find an awful nuisance and would rather get rid of but which, to me is a delicious treat”.

“Oh I don’t mind it so much”, said the little girl, “But it makes my mum awful angry. She’s always nagging at me to clean up my room”.

“Well then”, said the Flumpjack, with a large grin, “I have a proposition; that is, an idea that would solve both our problems. I will eat all the rubbish in your room and that will save you the bother of having to clean it. What do you say to that?”.

“Okay”, said the little girl, happy about the thought of never having to clean up again, “Help yourself”.

Then the little girl saw the flumpjack start to eat; opening its enormous, hairy mouth as wide as a hole in the ground  and then with all five of its large hairy feet the creature began shovelling the rubbish in Tiffally’s room into its mouth; grinding it up with sharp pointy teeth and swallowing it with a very noisy gulp.

It ate up everything lying on Tiffallys floor; old chocolate bar wrappers and sweet wrappers and empty crisp bags; old t-shirts and trainers and smelly odd socks with holes in them; banana peels and apple cores; old half crushed aluminium drinks cans and cardboard cartons and little plastic bottles; old comics and magazines; everything except the bedroom carpet. In fact it even sucked up all the dust and crumbs off the carpet with its two trunk like noses just like a vacuum cleaner.

And as it was cleaning up, Tiffally noticed the flumpjack growing in size, its grey hairy body expanding just like a balloon so that, by the time it had finished eating up half of all the rubbish on Tiffalys floor it had grown even bigger than her bed and sprouted three more large hairy feet besides, and by the time it had finished eating up all of the rubbish on her floor it was almost as big as her entire room.

“Oh wow”, said the little girl, happily, looking around and seeing how clean her room was, “Mums going to be so pleased when she sees this”.

But the Flumpjack did not look happy.

“More”, it said, with a loud growl like a hundred rumbling stomachs and a mad, hungry look in its three large, round, red eyes, “I want more food”.

“But you’ve eaten everything there is”, said Tiffaly, starting to feel frightened of the now gigantic creature, “There isn’t any more rubbish”.

But the Flumpjack wouldn’t listen; he was still hungry. Eating all the rubbish on Tiffalys floor had only made his appetite grow bigger and now, to Tiffaly’s dismay, the Flumpjack started to eat the other things in her room.

With a loud munching, crunching sound the creature ate up her chest of drawers and all the clothes in it; then he ate up her wardrobe and all the dresses and tops inside as well as the wire coathangers they hung upon; then he ate up her bed pushing it length ways down his deep gullet and swallowing up her continental quilt and pillows too just as if they were white marshmallows.

He ate up all her toys and dolls as well and her computer and her writing desk and her chair and all the pens and papers and folders on it; he even pulled up the bedroom carpet and, rolling it up until it looked like a long Mexican tortilla, he started to eat it up too.

“Oh no”, cried Tiffaly, in horror, as she saw her bedroom being devoured, “Stop! Please! You’re eating everything”.

But then, when the Flumpjack had finished eating all that was in Tiffaly’s room including the lightbulb hanging from the ceiling, the creature, who had now grown even more gigantic than before; so big infact that it was almost too big to fit inside Tiffaly’s room, it turned its large, round, greedy red eyes towards the little girl and licked all the hundreds of tiny teeth in its ginormous mouth with a gigantically long, slobbering pink tongue.

“Only one thing left”, it said reaching out towards Tiffally with all its large furry feet that, originally just five, had multiplied to 13.

Backing, terrified, into a corner of her room the little girl screamed.

“Oh help, mum, help, please”, she cried as the creature seized hold of her and began dragging her towards its open mouth.

Just then, however, Tifallys mother, who had heard her daughter screaming, came rushing up stairs, still holding her mop and bucket that she had been using to mop the kitchen floor and, seeing the monster about to eat her daughter she jabbed it with the end of her mop.

“Put my daughter down, you…you monster”, said her mum angrily.

But then, turning round to face Tiffaly’s mother, the Flumpjack only bellowed with evil laughter.

“Goody”, he growled, reaching out and grabbing hold of Tiffalys mother, “More food”.

Just then, however, Tiffalys mother flung the contents of her bucket that was full of not just water but soapy floor cleaning detergent and, the moment that the Flumpjack swallowed the cleaning fluid it started to become very sick.

Then, a look of fear filling its large red eyes the monster started to shake as if it was very cold and then, one by one all 13 of its arms started to shrivel up and fall off, crumbling into dust; then its hair and teeth started to fall out and its body began shrinking.

“Poisoned!”, it shrieked as it shrank and shrank; its hairy body growing smaller and smaller until, eventually it was as tiny as a mouse and its voice, at first deep, was reduced to a very high pitched squeak.

Then, after the Flumpjack had shrunk to the size of a tiny speck of dust, it vanished out of sight completely.

“Oh thank goodness its gone”, said Tiffaly’s mother, hugging her daughter close to her, “But whatever was that awful monster doing in our house?”.

Tiffaly blushed with embarrassment.

“It’s my fault”, said the little girl, “I wanted it to eat all the rubbish in my room but then it ate everything else as well and it would have eaten me too if you hadn’t saved me”.

“Oh well”, said Tiffaly’s mum, “I hope you’ve learned something. That there’s no such thing as a quick and easy answer. Everything takes hard work”.

“I know that now”, said Tiffaly, “And, from now on, I’m always going to keep my room clean, I promise”.

“Do you really mean that?”, asked her mother, sceptically.

“Oh yes”, said Tiffaly, “Because I don’t want that horrible Flumpjack coming back”.