Winga lived with his mother, dad, three brothers and two sisters in the smartest part of Tally Tip just above the area where skips were kept for people to dispose of their rubbish. It was quieter here than down in the main body of the tip, which resounded with the noise of lorries being emptied throughout the day, as well as the incessant squealing of the sea gulls. All of his relations had lived in Tally Tip for at least the last three generations. It was a good place to live too, because there was always plenty of food to be found as well as plenty of furniture and other items with which to make your home comfortable and beautiful. So, Winga and his family have always been very happy living in Tally Tip. There's only one difference between Winga and his three brothers and two sisters . This difference meant that Winga often had schemes in mind for some reason or other. he tended to be a rather enterprising Sea Gull. He often thought of something new to do even when they were playing games, and that's what this story is really all about.

It was a Friday evening round and about 6 o'clock when the family were sitting down having their dinner and Winga had just reached for a second potato when a thought came to him. He turned to his mum saying, "You know that stuff we found yesterday, well I think it would be a good idea if we started recycling some of the things we find in the tip. Now, if we did that, we could sell nicely done up furniture, or whatever is suitable, to all the other birds and animals. You know, we could make a fortune". It was exactly at this moment that a loud knock on the door reverberated throughout their house. Dad rose and opened the door to be confronted by four burly rats, the biggest of whom gruffly bellowed, "We're here to get your goods. Come on now just let us in, we 're not going away until this here debt is paid for". Mum fainted at the very thought of bailiffs at her door, while her children rushed to her aid, and Winga went to stand beside his father. It was Winga who spoke first, " Do we have time to sort this out", he enquired. "No, we want payment now or we empty your house for you", said the nasty smelly ratty bailiff. Well Winga wasn't known for being enterprising for nothing, and he instantly had an idea. "Right", he said, now how about I give you goods to the value of the money you are supposed to collect. Will that clear the debt?","Mmmph, I s'pose so " the ratty bailiff decided , but depends on what you have to offer". "Give me a minute to collect the best we have for you , called Winga as he rushed off dragging his brothers behind him".

Not many minutes and a lot of impatient foot tapping later Winga arrived pushing a cart laden with furniture, whilst his brothers came behind him, their arms full of dishes and glasses. When the bailiffs saw the amount of things they were being offered they were absolutely astounded. In fact their leader wasn't at all sure they could carry all this stuff back to the depot. Still, he was never one to refuse a free gift, he decided. Between them all they inspected the goods. Some items were thrown aside as being not good enouh qualitty for those ratty bailiffs, but most of it was deemed suitable. Once it was all loaded onto the bailiffs cart, Winga made the leader hand over a paper signed and saying that his Dad's debt was now completely cleared. During the entire time his poor dad had just stood there quite dumbfounded.

As soon as the bailiffs had gone Winga turned to his Dad and said,"There you are Dad, I told you my idea was a good one. We can collect loads of stuff from the tip, do it up, and sell it to all the other animals". "Oh yes, " his mother butted in, "And what do you think all these animals are going to pay us with clever clogs"? "The way I see it" replied Winga, " That's no problem at all. They can either pay us with money they find since none of us ever have much money anyway and there's often money dropped inside old furniture, or on the streets in town, and if they don't have money, then they can do jobs that would be useful to us, or let us have something we need which they have and we don't. Simple as that," said Winga. Now it was dad's turn to offer an opinion. He'd come out of his own state of shock to give a lot of thought to what his son was saying. After all Winga had saved them from the bailiffs. Maybe the kid did have a point.

Ladder High

I'm remodelling Waggy Tales Site right now, so this tale will continue as soon as I can manage ......