Mr Mushroom

The daffodils were blooming; the birds were singing happily in the trees and two little girls called Gina and Ava were playing in their back garden, making mud pies, when, out of a clear blue sky, came the giant, flying Mushroom ship of Mr Mushroom.

It turned luminous lime green; dayglo orange; sunshine yellow; tartan; polka dot; bright pink and purple before finally turning white and red like a toadstool and landing with a loud WHOOSH! in the middle of the garden.

The two girls were amazed, not to mention a little scared, and hid behind the trunk of an apple tree as the doors in the white stalk of the mushroom ship slid open and a long red gangplank came gliding out with a loud electrical whirr; expecting, at any moment, for some enormous, mushroom shaped space monster to come stomping down it, growling and snarling with large claws to grab hold of them.

Fortunately, though, and much to their relief, what the two little girls saw come through the door and walk down the gangplank was not a monster at all but a man dressed in a white space suit with a large, flat red cap on his head, covered in white spots, just like the cap of a toadstool.

“Greetings and Salutations, little Earth people”, he said, raising and doffing his large, floppy cap, “My name is Mr Mushroom; Intergalactic Space Wizard and I am searching for a runaway rocking chair”.

Gina and her sister, seeing that the otherworldly stranger appeared friendly and not frightening like a space monster, came out from their hiding place behind the tree.

“Rocking chair?”, asked Gina, confused but curious, “How can a rocking chair run away?”.

“Aah, well, you see”, explained the man, “It’s not a real rocking chair. It only looks like a rocking chair in its present form. It’s a Morabundian Snorkleskink, actually; a very rare, very cunning but also very dangerous space creature that changes into a copy of anything it eats and its last meal was a rocking chair, you see”.

He took out a clicking, bleeping and rotating, mushroom shaped device and waved it around in front of him as if scanning for something.

“Yes, yes”, he continued, “It is as I suspected. According to my mushroomatic scanoscope which is set to pick up the snorkleskinks frequencies, it arrived on your planet about one o’clock this afternoon and has been hiding in your garden ever since, perhaps disguised as a rocking chair or something else”.

He jabbed suspiciously at a nearby garden gnome with his scanning device before turning back towards the two girls.

“Have either of you seen anything like that around your garden; a rocking chair making sudden unexpected movements or something else suspicious”, he asked, now scanning a bird bath and the twittering sparrow that was splashing about in it.

“No”, said Gina, trying to be helpful, “We haven’t seen any rocking chairs or any other kind of furniture running about, have we Ava?”.

Her little sister shook her head from side to side.

Just then, however, from behind them, Gina and her sister heard a loud cackling and, turning round in surprise, saw the apple tree which they had earlier been hiding behind suddenly come to life; a large growling and snarling mouth and two glaring, glowing red eyes appearing in the bark of its trunk.

“Blast you, Mr Mushroom, you interfering nincompoop”, said the apple tree shaped creature, “I’ll teach you to interfere in my affairs”.

And then, grabbing down two of the ripe red apples from its branches, it hurled them at Mr Mushroom and, as they hurtled towards his face, they exploded in flashes of green fire and puffs of purple smoke.

Fortunately, Mr Mushroom, whipping off his large, floppy red and white cap, shielded himself from the exploding apples just in time and, reaching out, holding a mushroom shaped magic wand and saying his secret magical word, “Mushroomatic”, zapped the tree like alien creature with a jagged bolt of bright green energy.

But then, suddenly, screaming in surprise and terror, the two little girls felt the gnarled, branch like limbs and long, twig like fingers of the snorkleskink grab hold of them both round their waists and, before Mr Mushroom could do anything, the space monster was running as fast as its tree root legs could carry it out of the garden gate and down the street, taking the two frightened little girls with it.

“Oh no, oh no”, cried Mr Mushroom, transforming his mushroom shaped magic wand into a rocket powered, mushroom shaped flying broomstick  and leaping onto it, “I’ve got to save those poor children from that monster before they get hurt”.

Then, giving the magical command, “Mushroomatic!”, Mr Mushroom zoomed off on his broom, as fast as a firework, and down the street after the rampaging snorkleskink who he saw was heading into a nearby children’s playpark.

“Unhand those two children, you monster!”, he said as he chased the fleeing snorkleskink round a round about, down a slide and over a see-saw.

“Har-har”, laughed the tree faced creature, swinging one of the swings so that it nearly knocked Mr Mushrooms red and white cap off, “What are you going to do to make me, you mushroom suited moron?”.

“Well”, said Mr Mushroom, reaching into the pocket of his space suit and fishing out a half melted chocolate bar that he had been saving, “If you can turn into whatever you eat then…eat this!”.

And, saying this, he hurled the chocolate bar so that it went right into the monsters bark covered, grimly guffawing mouth and down its gruesome gullet  and then, suddenly, in a flash of light, the snorkleskink transformed, from head to toe, into a bar of milk chocolate.

And so hot was the bright summer sun that the alien creature, just like chocolate does on a hot day, started to melt.

“Help! Help!”, he said as he turned into a sweet, gooey puddle of brown chocolate, letting go of both Gina and Ava as the arms he was holding them in softened and melted too.

“Wow!”, said Gina, turning and looking at what had become of the Snorkleskink before gasping with amazement.

“Yes, that Snorkleskink certainly came to a sticky end”, said Mr Mushroom giggling.

But then Gina and Ava both hopped onto Mr Mushrooms jet propelled broomstick and, zooming down the street faster than a flaming rocket, the strange, mushroom suited space wizard took them both back home before, getting back into his mushroom shaped rocket, he said goodbye.

“I have to go now, children”, he said, smiling and waving, “Because I’m needed urgently in some other corner of the galaxy but if you’re ever in trouble again you only have to say the word “Mushroomatic!” and I’ll be with you in a flash”.

Then the gangplank of his space rocket slid back inside and its sliding doors closed and Gina and Ava saw the mushroom shaped space-ship soar upwards so quickly that, within a wink, it was no more than a red and white speck in the sky above and, within a blink, had disappeared altogether.

But just then…

“Calling Mr Mushroom!”, said a voice coming through the intercom of the space wizards cockpit control panel as his spaceship whizzed across the stars, “Come in, please, Mr Mushroom! We need your help”.