The Story of the Blue Planet (5 page)

“You don’t get a belly full of butterflies in the rain,” muttered Brimir.

The kids waded through the mud and slush on the beach to Jolly-Goodday’s where he lay under the flower-patterned parachute, using it as an umbrella.

“It’s really intolerable when you’re innocently flying along and the clouds suddenly cover the sun. It’s highly dangerous. You could simply crash to the ground and be smashed to pieces,” said Hulda. She was quite furious.

“Yeah, that’s right. We can’t have rain getting out of control and taking everyone by surprise! Rain is boring!”

“Down with rain! Down with rain!”

Jolly-Goodday thought long and deeply.

“I think I can fix this, dear kids, and it shouldn’t cost much.”

The children brightened up.

“How?”

“Look at the clouds in the sky.”

They all looked down at their feet.

“Look at the clouds, kids, don’t be silly.”

“But they’re so unexciting, we can’t be bothered to stare at them anymore,” said Brimir. “We want to fly, that’s exciting!”

“But what do the clouds look like?”

The children gawped listlessly up into the sky.

“Why don’t you tell us instead? We don’t want to look at clouds. We want to fly higher than the clouds.”

“Shall I tell you what I think?” asked Jolly-Goodday. “I think the clouds look like little woolly lambs that have come here to pee on you,” he said as he burst out laughing.

“Ugh, what disgusting lambs,” said the children. “Just as well they don’t poop on us too.”

“But how does one get rid of these pesky lambs?” asked Jolly-Goodday.

“You scare them away,” said Hulda grinning.

“And what are lambs scared of?”

“They’re scared of the big bad wolf!” shouted Brimir.

“That’s right!”

Jolly-Goodday took a large fat cigar from his back pocket and lighted it. He sucked and blew, sucked and blew, coughed and blew, and a horrid cloud of smoke came from his ears. His nose smoked like a factory chimney. His mouth was like an exhaust pipe. The smoke rose up in the sky and gathered in a black and ominous cloud. The cloud grew bigger and bigger and became uglier and uglier. When the cigar was burned to ashes Jolly-Goodday looked proudly up into the sky.

“Well, how do you like it?”

“The ugly black cloud?” asked the children.

“How do you like the wolf!”

The children looked thunderstruck up into the sky and saw that the black cloud was just like a big, fierce wolf. Jolly-Goodday waved his arms and cried:

From the sky came the most terrifying growl they had ever heard. It was like a thousand thunderstorms, and from the wolf’s eyes and mouth shot streaks of lightning. The wolf raced across the heavens and swallowed a few lamb-clouds in one big bite.

The clouds fled in all directions and hid themselves behind the horizon so that the sky was once again clear and blue.

After that not a single cloud was seen in the sky apart from the black one, which ran like a wolf round the horizon making sure that no cloud ever came over it.

“Hooray,” shouted the children. “If Jolly-Goodday hadn’t saved us we would have been bored to death in the rain.”

“Is the wolf dangerous?” asked Hulda.

“Not unless you fly bleating like a lamb through the sky in a white woollen sweater.”

“Could it swallow the sun?”

Jolly-Goodday made no answer.

“How … how much does the wolf cost?” asked Brimir.

“Oh, nothing at all really,” said Jolly-Goodday, “maybe just a little more youth.”

“You need more youth?”

“I need just a teeny-weeny drop more, hardly enough worth mentioning. Within 10% of usable youth.”

“We don’t really understand this % stuff.”

“How do you collect youth?” asked Arnar the thinker.

“Are we really interested in listening to some boring vacuum-cleaner-techno-baloney?” asked Jolly-Goodday. “You don’t need to understand. Can’t you see that the sun’s shining and the sky is clear and blue?”

“Hooray,” shouted the children and they flew off into the air.

They went higher and higher until they became little black dots in the clear blue sky. The whole island echoed with the shouts of children’s laughter, which drowned even the noise of the screeching terns and wailing gulls. Sometimes a wondrous cry could be heard when they saw something new and amazing. Sometimes sighs of happiness could be heard when the children tasted delicious fruits that grew on the tallest trees, which they had never been able to reach before Jolly-Goodday had taught them to fly.

The scent of flowers filled the air. But soon a strange smell began to be borne on the wind. Wherever the children went they could smell the disgusting stink.

The Strangest Stink

“What is that stink, kids?” cried Jolly-Goodday from where he sat on the beach. He was lathered in suntan lotion and slurping a cold drink to keep himself cool.

“What stink?” asked the children innocently.

“It’s not like the smell from a volcano, more like a mixture of rotten eggs and smelly feet,” said Jolly-Goodday and grimaced. “Has someone just farted?”

The children looked all around.

“Oh, now I remember,” said Magni, “it’s farting season for the hippos.”

“And the zebras air their toes at exactly this time of year,” added Brimir.

“Are you trying to fool me, kids? It’s impossible to breathe here.”

Jolly-Goodday sprayed himself with an after-shave, which was so strong that flies dropped dead all around him.

There was a long silence.

“Actually we are fooling you,” said Elva as she floated like a bee around a cherry tree in full bloom. “It’s so boring to wash ourselves in the waterfall.”

“The butterfly powder could be washed off,” said the children, “so we’ve stopped having baths.”

“Aren’t you suffocated by the stink?” asked Jolly-Goodday, holding his nose.

“If we fly fast enough the wind blows the stink away,” said Elva as she whizzed past.

“My dear kiddies, it’s the easiest thing in the world to fix this stink.”

“Do you know a way to do that as well?”

“I know the answer to everything,” said Jolly-Goodday. “Follow me to the waterfall.”

The children glided in the direction of Fairmost Falls, hovering over Jolly-Goodday like seagulls as he walked along the path to the waterfall, which fell with a tremendous roar into a canyon. The children were overwhelmed when they felt the power of the waterfall. The roar was so loud it was difficult to hear anyone speak. A huge rainbow formed as the sun shone through the waterfall’s misty spray.

“Just look at how depressing this is, kids,” shouted Jolly-Goodday, looking down into the immensely deep canyon.

“What?” shouted the children surprised.

“A whole waterfall going to waste, of no use to anyone.”

“But it’s beautiful,” exclaimed Elva.

“It’s a childish waste of time to stare at waterfalls. Now watch carefully.”

Jolly-Goodday rolled up his sleeves and took out a hammer. He beat the rainbow in the canyon from all directions and battered it into the shape of a little ball. He stirred into it all the waterfall’s misty spray and its loud roar, and created a brown gooey mess, which he then thrust into an aerosol can. Rainbowless, roarless, and mistless, the waterfall trickled feebly into the canyon like a runny nose.

“What have you done?” whispered the children, listening to the silence.

“I made a magic stuff out of the roar, the spray, and the rainbow, so you’ll never need to wash yourselves again,” said Jolly-Goodday, and he shook the aerosol can before spraying the stuff over the children.

“Magic stuff?”

“This is Teflon
^®
wonder stuff, which makes you so slippery that dirt and mud can never stick to you.”

“So we’ll never stink again?”

“Not while you’re coated with Teflon
^®
wonder stuff.”

“Will we ever need to bathe in the waterfall mist?”

“Try lying in the mud,” said Jolly-Goodday.

The kids rolled around in the mud but the dirt fell off them immediately. The children took the most disgusting filth they could find, full of dog-poop, rotten bananas, dead flies, and tiger pee, and threw it at each other. It made no difference. The filth ran off them. Their hands, nails, and bottoms were spotlessly clean. They were so spick-and-span that there wasn’t even a whiff of smelly toes about them anymore.

“Thanks to the great Teflon
^®
wonder stuff, you are so slippery that you can’t even hold hands or hug each other,” said Jolly-Goodday with a big smile. His teeth were as white and straight as a row of sugar cubes.

The children tried to hold hands but couldn’t get a grip, they were more slippery than salmon, slimier than eels. They tried to hug each other, but no matter how hard they squeezed each other, no one could hold onto anyone. The kids burst out laughing, however, because they could still fly: the butterfly powder was under the magic stuff of course!

“Wow, you’re not only the funniest man in the world but also by far the cleverest,” said Brimir.

“How much does the Teflon
^®
wonder stuff cost?”