It was late evening, and my family and I were watching TV together. Mum had let my baby brother Cheese watch Bob’s Big Plan for the 100th time that week - a few years back, Dumper’s Disposable Nappies had made Cheese their mascot, and now that Mr Dumper had decided to make environmentally friendly nappies, he had Tomato as the new face of his nappies, and he married Crystal Gaze - the woman with her yappy dogs, which are so loud they could send a baby up and shrieking in two seconds flat.
Cheese’s favourite film had been nothing but Bob’s Big Plan. I’ve lost count of the times Dad has ever said before I went to school in recent times:
“It’s going to be a big new adventure! Can we build it? Yes we can!”
Although, my favourite scene has to be Bob’s nightmare. It was too scary for both Cheese and Tomato, so Mum had to take them out of the room, because the first time Cheese saw it he couldn’t stop bawling the moment he saw the sunflowers tilt their heads, and the innocent sheep, goats and rabbits run for their lives as neon sunflowers and giant towering skyscrapers advanced over Bob’s decaying childhood sanctuary.
Thankfully, I’m glad I got to see this, though I wasn’t afraid of anything - except being left behind. But on this particular day…
Well, it’s a month, actually. It was Cheese’s birthday at the end of the month, the anniversary of when he and Tomato were born in the back of a pizza delivery van. Little did we know that we were about to receive the most unexpected surprise of our lives.
We were midway into Bob making his model of his vision of Sunflower Valley in front of his faithful crew of machines, when suddenly the screen fizzled and turned blue, with the sound of an ear-piercing test card pattern that almost made our ears bleed.
“Oh no, war is coming! To the bunker, you lot!” cried Dad. He sprinted for the shelter, but Mum nabbed him by the collar of his neck.
“Ron, it isn’t a war signal. Look, there’s writing on the screen.”
And sure enough, there was! In ‘80s-style VHS writing, pixels and all, there was text on the screen. It said:
“Kitchen, now.”
We stared at each other in confusion. What was going on?
“I guess it’s a cryptic treasure hunt. If they’re aimed at us, then it isn’t a war after all,” gasped Mum, scratching her head in confusion.
“Then to the kitchen, everyone,” said Dad. “One, two, one, two, off we go!”
We reached the kitchen, and to our horror, there was a huge box with a chocolate egg inside it, even though Easter was only two months ago. There was no logo of some famous chocolate company which once sponsored Coronation Street and such, just these words, in goofy white marshmallow bubble writing:
“Break open.”
“Suppose the Easter Bunny came early,” gasped Dad, his jaw falling open in awe.
“Egg!” shouted Cheese, reaching out to grab the mysterious chocolate egg. Mum gently grabbed his tiny hands.
“No, Cheese, don’t touch the egg. What if it might be a bomb?”
“Bum!” shouted Tomato, and Mum just groaned.
Carefully Mum took out the mysterious chocolate egg, laid it on the table, and took out a mallet, but Dad snatched it from her baby-roughened hand.
“I’ll do it!” roared Dad. His raised the mallet over his head and began to roar loudly.
“EGG SMASH!” As if he had all the strength of The Incredible Hulk himself, he smashed open the egg with all his strength.
Nice one - inside the egg there were loads of marshmallows, Smarties and M&M’s, and…eh? A sticky note? Kindly, I gave some of the sweets to Cheese and Tomato, while Mum carefully read the crude blue ink writing on the note.
“Front door now,” it read. I was too busy enjoying my sweets to hear Mum tell Dad,
“You think this is all a big trick?”
“The Giant Babies are obviously taking a break from their duties now. They’re retired. There’s new giant babies in the Natural Nappy Freedom Front.”
From outside, the sound of Rubbish, our goat, bleating loudly could be heard.
“Nicholas, go and see to Rubbish, will you?” She turned to Dad, Cheese and Tomato.
“Come on everyone, let’s investigate what strange happenings are at the front door.”
So I had got to work on milking Rubbish, and I was quite glad to be away from all this shocking toybox of twists and turns, when all of a sudden, a deafening scream from Mum sounded from inside the house.
“NICHOLAS!” she cried. “Come and look at this at once!”
I was shocked at what I saw when I galloped in. Near the front door was a whole truckload of packs of Rainbow Dumper’s, stacked in a rainbow coloured mountain.
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