Alex finds two new friends

Two days later Mummy took Alex and the new baby into the park. Mummy pushed the baby inside a pram while Alex walked because he was a big boy now.

It had rained during the night, so Mummy put down a waterproof sheet on the ground before spreading the big rug for herself and the baby to play on.

“I’m off to find some more horrible green hairy monsters,” said Alex as he ran off into the bushes. Sure enough he found Hercules waiting for him holding one of the branches on a bush.

“Now you have to chase me,” said Hercules as he let go of the wet branch as Alex got nearer. The rain water on the branch sprayed all over Alex’s face as Hercules ran off with a giggle.

Alex ran after Hercules as quickly as he could, but somehow the little man always just seemed to be hiding round the next corner. Poor Alex got wetter and wetter.

Alex stopped for a moment to have a good think. He’d try and creep up on his friend and not just run around all the time. He moved slowly round the next bush and then stopped for a moment to see if he could hear anything.

Sure enough he could hear two people whispering. “Get ready,” one of them said very quietly. “Any second now!” said the other.

Instead of running round the bush, Alex carefully looked through it as best as he could. To his great surprise there were two little men looking exactly like Hercules standing at two separate bushes so that which ever way he ran he would be sprayed with water from one or the other.

He crept over to the next bush and once again listened as quietly as a mouse. He could see them both wondering where on earth he’d got to when Hercules walked round one of the bushes and stopped when he saw the other two.

“I can’t find Alex anywhere,” he said.

“Perhaps he’s got tired of playing and gone back to see his mummy,” said one of them, “I think we ought to go and have a look.”

Now that Alex knew where they all were and where they were going, he went as quietly and as fast as he could and managed to get in front of the little men before they walked past him. He held back two branches, one from each bush and sprayed them all with water as they crept past him.

Believe me they were all very surprised when he jumped out of the bushes just behind them. “That was jolly good fun,” said Alex, “but where did you all come from?”

“Meet my brothers,” said Hercules mopping the water off his face. “They asked to meet you because they don’t have any names either.”

“Well that’s easy,” said Alex proudly, “you can have the next two names in the song. One of you will be Hector and the other one Lysander.”

Fortunately one of them said “Bags I be called Hector,” just as the other one said he wanted to be called Lysander.

So that was all settled without any more fuss. Now there were four of them each named after the heroes in the song. Alex promised to meet them all in the park bushes whenever Mummy took him there to play and the three little men shook hands with him and said how much they were looking forward to having more adventures together.