I was trying to write a book of stories for grown-up kids. I’ve got this far, so I’ll share it with you. This comes in three lengthy posts.

EVERYTHING WONKY

A story of a wonky house and the wonky family that lived there.

Once upon a time there was a wonky boy who lived in a big wonky house with his wierd and wonky family. The wonky boy was called Jim, which is actually a very straight ,and solid name for a wonky boy.

Wonky kids normally  have wonky W names like William or Wendy or Wendover or …

Yes, I will admit that I have never met anyone called Wendover

Jim lived with his wonky family in their wonky house at the top of a very steep hill that was so big and so steep, that it took the postman all day to cycle to the top to deliver the morning post , which was actually the evening post by the time it finally got delivered.

The house wasn’t wonky because it was built on a hill. There are many thousands of houses all across the world that are built on hills or mountains and most of them are seeminlgy solid affairs, but when your house is bulit by a wonky builder wearing upside down spectacles and using back to front plans, it will be quite wonky, however, when the builder is also so forgetful and scatter-brained,that he forgets what he is building and gets all his plans mixed up with other plans, the house wiil be very wonky.

It was a large, imposing red brick house, standing on its own ,as far away from other houses as possible and as high on the hill as it was possible to build a house. It had three or four floors of differeing sizes and each slanting in a different direction. There were towers, spires, domes and turrets that the builder had added because he kept getting all his plans mixed up. Strangest of all (as if all this wasn’t strange enough), at the very top of the highest poinf of the house, Jim’s dad had insisted on building a lighthouse to ward off low-flying space ships.

Jim’s dad wanted a house on top of a hill because he felt safer that way.

«We’ll never be be flooded, not living on top of a hill» Jim’s dad would repeat regularly and reassuringly every time it rained.

«This high up, we can see people coming for miles around, so if it’s someone we don’t want to see, we have plenty of time to hide.» Jim’s dad would often add.

But, no one ever came to the wonky house to see the wonky family

Big Jim and Little Jim (and Not So Little Jim)

Jim’s dad was also called Jim, which was very confusing until one day when Jim’s dad decided he would be known as Big Jim and his son as Little Jim. However Jim had an older brother also called Jim. It was decided that Jim’s older brother would be called Not so little Jim.

Daisy and Wendy

Little Jim, and Not so Little Jim had a spotty teenage sister called Wendy (which I agree is not so wonky as I first thought – it’s actually quite a safe, sensible and charming name) – Their mother though, had a very wonky name, Wilhelmina. She didn’t like her name and preferred people to call her Daisy, that being her favourite flower.

Apart from her name, there were also quite a few other things that Wilhemina (Daisy) didn’t like. She didn’t like living at the top of a hill, she didn’t like living in a wonky house and she didn’t like the way Big Jim would spend all day in the shed at the bottom of the garden inventing useless inventions that never worked.

Yes, Big Jim was the original mad inventor, and unlike other mad inventors that invent mad inventions that might work, none of Big Jim’s inventions ever worked, though they were all very useful.

Why Little Jim was wonky and the consquences of wonkiness

Little Jim was born on a Tuesday around tea time with one leg shorter than the other. No one at the hospital had  ever seen such a leggy phenomenon, and such was the consternation that those members of staff charged with recording little Jim’s birth, totally forgot, and when they finally had to write the birth certificate, no one could remember exactly when little Jim had been born, except that it was Tuesday around tea time.

To Be Continued