Jack's Slippery Slope by A. Richardson ©1987

Jack woke up with a terrible headache,(With his head being made of a bulb you can imagine how painful that would be), so he held one side of his head against his arm as he wandered along the footpath which led to the old quarry. Every so often he would moan,"Oh my poor head. If only I hadn't eaten all those cherries I found in Hatty Hedgehogs' kitchen. I'm sure they've caused all this pain. It must be her fault. I expect she didn't wash them , that's what must be causing this terrible headache.Hmph," He snorted, you'd think she'd have had the decency to make sure they were fresh and clean before she left them on her kitchen table".

Just as he was about to give another groan he tripped on a branch which someone had left lying on the footpath. Squelch, he landed in a mucky pile of old newspapers heavily soaked with mud and grease. Jack's face was pressed right into the greasiest part of the mucky pile causing him to splutter and sneeze. After six mighty sneezes he managed to pick himself up from the ground, but unfortunately the fall did nothing to improve his already very nasty temper. He was now in an exceedingly foul mood. As you may remember Jack enjoyed playing mean pranks on everyone else, often causing a lot of upset . Now that he was in a worse mood than normal it did not bode well for the people of Welling Town especially those who lived close to the footpath where Jack was slithering along. He broke a branch off the tree next to where he stood so that he could use it to steady himself as he continued his journey, but every so often he simply couldn't resist using it to whack the heads off the blubells swaying merrily on the edge of the path.At regular intervals you could hear little squeals of pain as a blubell was knocked sideways by Jack's vicious blows. At each squeal Jack laughed. Indeed he enjoyed being cruel so much that he increased the speed of his attacks so that eventually not one bluebell escaped being bashed acroos the head.

Now, unbeknown to Jack, he was being watched by someone high in the treetops. Father Fred the Bishop Raven was quite disgusted with what he had seen Jack doing. "I must warn the town that Jack is on the rampage again", he cawed, as he flew of in the direction of Welling Town. It did not take many minutes for him to tell everyone to be careful because Jack was on his way, and in a worse mood than usual. Most people ran indoors and closed their shutters, locking all doors and windows. Meanwhile Jack had found a baby fox to torment.

Father Fred was about to land close to Jack when he realised that Jack was holding something in his hands, and shaking it fiercely. Father Fred's eyes widened with horror when he saw that it was a baby fox , and that Jack was shaking it so hard that the poor little creatures' eyes were nearly popping out in terror. "Stop that at once", Fred shouted,"Drop that cub immediately", he yelled even louder. "No problemo", sniggered Jack as he dropped the cub leaving it to land very hard on the ground below. Now mother fox had heard her childs' whimpers. She ran across the fields to rescue it, but when she arrived it was lying quite still on the ground. "If you've killed my baby", she screamed at Jack, I'll tear you from limb to limb". She snarled and bared her teeth really ferociously right close to Jack's nose. It took an awful lot to scare Jack, but this time even he thought he'd gone to far. He backed up , then took another step back, saying as he did so, "It was mistake, honest. It'll survive. Kids always do", and he grinned at her. Just then the cub began to move and its mother rushed over to stroke its head, giving it a huge cuddle . "There you are you see," said jack, "All's well that ends well".

He knew that if he didn't move now they would soon be after him to punish him, so he turned quickly , and ran back up the footpath until he came to the bridge which led to baker's shop. Taking a deep breath Jack inhaled the aroma of newly baked bread and cakes. It was too much for him. He couldn't resist a good cake no matter what the chances were of being caught. Creeping on tiptoe Jack sidled up to the bakery window where he carefully put his head over the windowledge and peered in. Noone seemed to be about . Ever the opportunist Jack moved fast. His arms reached in to grab everything he could manage to hold, then clutching his ill gotten gains, he ran like fury into the woods. "Whew ", he declared,"That was a close call. If Billy the Bread had seen me I'd really have been in trouble. His temper is nearly as bad as mine". Well, the sun was shining and Jack was tired from his running, so he sat down in the shade of the trees to eat as much as possible, greedy fellow that he was. In fact he ate so much that, with a full tummy, he fell fast asleep.

Billy the Bread was furious when he realised that his hard work had been stolen by someone. He was raging and shouting when Father Fred came flying in to ask if Billy had seen Jack the Pack."Oh" said Billy, " So that's who stole my cakes is it, well I'll fix him just you wait and see". Off set Billy and Father Fred to follow Jack's trail through the woods.
Soon they came upon the sleeping Jack whose snores were so strong that the tree under which he slept was shaking with each snore. " Help me get this so and so back to my bakery will you Fred, " Billy asked. Father fred took one of Jack's legs while Billy pulled the other and they dragged Jack back to the bakery . You would have expected Jack to wake up , but he had eaten so much that he slept soundly the whole time.

When they arrived at the bakery they laid Jack on the huge bread making table in the centre of the room. Still snoring Jack was oblivious to these new surroundings so he didn't hear the sound of the dough being mixed in the tub next to where his right arm hung over the edge of the table. Billy kneeded the dough carefully before he proceeded to plaster it all over Jack's body, covering every inch of Jack from head to toe. With Father freds' help they rolled jack over and covered his other side with dough. Jack now resembled a very large loaf indeed. Shouting at the top of his lungs Billy yelled, "Okay Fred lets's get this chap into the ovens", which of course woke Jack up. Well, Jack couldn't move, but he could hear what had been said, so he was ever so scared. After all it would not be very much fun to be a baked bread upside down flower , now would it? Jack really thought his goose was cooked! From the small hole which they had left for him to breathe Jack began to beg for mercy, promising for all that he was worth never to do a bad thing again. Billy and Fred did finally relent and set Jack free, but they told him to clean himself up, which left Jack washing gooey dough off himself for over an hour. The more he washed the more he became a sticky mess. You might think that this would have taught Jack a lesson, but no sooner was he cleaned up, than he ran off down the forest path, shrieking gleefully as he went those famous words from his " Naughty Song". The whole of Welling Town heard him shouting as he left, " Ha, ha, ha, hee, hee, hee, I'm as bad as bad can be. Ha, ha, ha, hee, hee, hee, bread and cakes were free for tea." There were more verses being sung as he disappeared into the forest , but the words were lost amid the twitters of nervous birds calling their young to come away while Jack passed.

The End. Hope you enjoyed this tale...Love Waggy