Hello again from Rose Miller. Here are chapters 1-4 of my second story, HORRIBLE HOMEWORK

Hello again fellow Steemians,

Chapters 1 and 2 of 'Horrible Homework' are already on my blog, but just in case you've missed them I've re-listed them again. I hope you enjoyed my first story, 'Breakfast Time' and look forward to presenting you with my next story called 'Katy Goes Ice Skating' very shortly. Enjoy!

CHAPTER 1
Alex ran home from school with his white shirt escaping from his trousers and tie at half-mast. He dragged his heavy school bag along the ground as he ran. Today his English teacher had given every pupil an extra book in class to read as homework for the following day, but he wasn’t hurrying home to do his homework. He was hurrying home to change into his football gear so that he could play football in the park with his friends.

He arrived home, saw his mother in the kitchen, and tried to creep upstairs without being seen. It didn’t work because when he was half-way up the stairs she called out, ‘Alex, is that you?’ Oh no, he thought. She’s heard me! ‘Yes, Mum, it’s me,’ he shouted back as he raced up the stairs to his room in order to change. ‘Alex,’ she shouted again, ‘do you have any homework to do tonight?’

‘No, Mum, so I’m going out to play football.’

‘Very well,’ she replied, ‘but make sure you’re home by seven o’clock because dinner will be ready by then.’

‘I will,’ he shouted back. He wondered why food was so important to his mother as it was of no importance to him at all! He changed into his football gear, put on his boots, picked up his ball and rushed down the stairs and out of the front door shouting ‘I’m off now! See you later!’

After a great game of football, a muddy Alex ran home and had just gone through the front door when his mother saw the state of him. She shouted, ‘Alex, don’t you dare come in here with those dirty boots on. Take them off outside and I’ll clean them later.’

‘Sorry Mum, I forgot!’ he replied. He went back outside and took them off before going back inside.

‘And don’t forget to take a shower!’ she shouted again as he ran up the stairs.

‘Yes, Mum!’ he shouted back as he went into his bedroom and shut the door. After taking a hot shower and dumping his dirty clothes in the corner of the bathroom, he changed into his clean tracksuit and flopped down on his bed to read a book before dinner. He suddenly remembered he still had his homework to do, so he dragged himself off the bed and went over to his school bag.

His mother called from downstairs, ‘Have you had your shower yet?’

‘Yes, Mum,’ he shouted back.

‘Are you coming down then?’

‘No, Mum,’ I’m just going to sort out some books for school tomorrow. Call me when dinner’s ready, please.’

‘Alright!’ she shouted.

He quickly took his schoolbooks out of his bag and put them on the small desk in his room. He pulled up his chair and sat down trying to remember what the boring old homework was about. Oh yes, he remembered now. He hoped it wouldn't be too difficult to read.

CHAPTER 2

His English teacher, Mrs Smith, had given everyone a new book to read called ‘The Green Dragon and the Black Witch,’ and he had to read the whole story tonight because tomorrow the students were expected to read a whole page out aloud to the class. He smiled to himself when he saw the title because it reminded him of his magic green dragon egg cup called ‘Flicker’ which his mother had given to him on his birthday. To Alex’s amazement it turned out that Flicker could come to life and perform magic tricks just by wiggling his tail. Alex hadn’t told any of his family or friends about Flicker because he wanted to keep it a secret for now.

He opened the book and read the story from start to finish. It was a good story about a dragon and a witch who fought each other to see who was the most powerful, and he was pleased to read that the dragon had won. Most of the words were easy to read but there were just a few that he couldn’t, no matter how hard he tried. He couldn’t ask his mother for help as he’d already told her he had no homework, for which he was sorry about now. What should he do?

Suddenly, he had an idea. He sneaked quietly downstairs and, seeing that his mother was not in the kitchen, took Flicker from the kitchen cabinet and sneaked back upstairs again to his bedroom. He set the dragon down on the desk and whispered, ‘Wake up, Flicker, wake up. I need you!’

On hearing Alex's voice, Flicker yawned, opened his big, black eyes wide, stretched out his large wings and wiggled his tail. Ah, that felt good and he felt wide awake again. He was surprised to see Alex looking at him so intently. ‘Good morning, Alex. Is it breakfast time?’

‘No, it isn’t,’ he replied ‘It’s night time and I’ve brought you up to my bedroom because I need your help right away.’

‘To hear is to obey, Master!’ joked Flicker, pretending to be the genie in Aladdin's lamp. ‘Now how can I help you?’

‘Well it’s like this,’ said Alex. ‘I’ve been given a book to read for my homework tonight and there are a few words I can’t read so I want you to read them out to me.’

‘Oh, you do, do you? What do you think I am, your slave?' asked Flicker sternly. He blew out a burst of hot steam from his wide nostrils.

Alex looked at him in shock and his face turned beetroot red. 'I'm sorry, Flicker,' he stammered. ' I didn't mean it to come out like that. What I meant to say was, could you please read them out to me?'

'That's better,' replied Flicker. 'Apology accepted. Just don't forget your P's and Q's in future or I won't lift a claw to help you!'

'I won't, I promise', said Alex.

'Very well then,’ but answer me this, why didn’t you ask your mum to help you instead of me?’

‘I couldn’t,’ replied Alex rather lamely, ‘because I’d already told her that I didn’t have any homework tonight.’

‘My goodness,' cried Flicker, his eyes rolling up in despair. ‘What am I to do with you? Why did you tell her that?’

‘Because I wanted to play football instead!’

‘FOOTBALL? When you knew you had homework to do!’ exclaimed Flicker.

Alex tried to keep calm. ‘I know,' he said, 'and I’m sorry I did it now. It’s just that sometimes I do stupid things without thinking and then feel sorry about it later.'

'And this is one of those occasions!' added Flicker.

Alex pleaded with him. 'Look, Flicker, my mum will be really angry with me if I tell her the truth now, so can you help me out please? There are only a few words I can't read but I need to know them by tomorrow morning.’

Flicker thought about it for a moment, gave a big sigh and said, ‘I should really say no because you didn’t tell your mum the truth. However, I’ll let you off this time as long as you promise me that you won’t do it again because, if you do, I’ll turn you into a book worm!’

‘Ugh, that sounds horrible. What’s a book worm?’

‘You don't know what a book worm is? Well, I'll tell you. it’s a thin, slimy green worm that wears glasses and reads books all day and night and then proceeds to eat naughty little boys like you!’

Alex laughed and said, ‘I don’t think he’d like the taste of me, Flicker. I’d probably make him feel sick!’

‘You’re probably right there!’ replied Flicker smiling. ‘Now let’s get down to business.’

CHAPTER 3

‘Now first of all, I want you to read out the sentences you’re having a problem with, then show me the words that you can’t read. I’m not going to tell you the words but I’ll help you to guess them instead!’

‘Thanks,’ said Alex. He flicked over a few pages until he found the first word. He showed the page to Flicker and read out the sentence:

‘The dragon left the ……… of the cave, spread out his wings and flew up to the top of the mountain.’

‘That’s easy,’ said Flicker. He wiggled his tail and suddenly his mouth started to get wider and wider while his eyes got rounder and rounder, until Alex cried, ‘What’s wrong with your mouth?’

Flicker couldn’t answer him. He could only make a gagging sound. He kept pointing towards his mouth with a shaking arm hoping that Alex would guess the word.

‘SICK! Is the word sick?'

Flicker could only shake his head.

‘TOOTHACHE! Is the word toothache?'

Flicker shook his head again.

‘What else could it be?’ asked Alex

Flicker kept trying to pull his mouth back into shape but it wasn’t working. In fact, it was getting wider and wider.
Alex finally caught on. ‘Oh, I know!’ he cried excitedly. ‘It’s MOUTH, isn’t it?

Flicker tried to confirm this but couldn’t because his mouth was now half as wide as Alex’s desk, and he couldn’t even nod! However, now that Alex had given him the correct word the magic began to wear off and his eyes and mouth slowly returned to their normal size.

‘CORRECT!’ said Flicker rather shakily. He cleared his throat and continued. ‘Now read the whole sentence out aloud so that you’ll remember the word in future, and by the way, after today, please never mention the word ‘mouth’ to me again!’

Alex read the whole sentence TWICE until Flicker was satisfied. ‘Good! Now let’s move on to the second word.’

Alex flicked through the pages again until he found the second word. ‘There are two words that I can’t read on this page,’ he said.

‘The dragon had ………… .…………. after eating the witch.’

‘That’s an easier one to do,’ said Flicker with relief. He wiggled his tail again and his stomach began to grow larger and larger. He pretended to be in great pain and held on to his stomach with his scaly arms. ‘Hurry up Alex before I burst!’ he cried.

‘STOMACH ACHE!’ cried Alex triumphantly.

‘Good!’ said Flicker as his stomach gradually returned to its normal size. 'Now read the sentence again twice and remember it!’

‘I’m beginning to enjoy this game,’ said Alex happily as he read out the sentence.

Flicker just grunted and asked, ‘How many more are there?’

‘Just one more.’

‘Thank goodness for that!’

‘The dragon picked up the dead witch and tore her into …………… with his long, sharp claws.’

Flicker read the sentence and said, ‘This is a little bit harder to do.' He looked around the room for ideas and suddenly spotted something on a shelf that was just what he needed. He wiggled his tail again, and Alex’s jigsaw puzzle flew off the shelf. It sailed down towards his desk and spilled out its contents. Flicker spread the jigsaw all over the desk with his claws and picked up two of them. He looked at Alex, raised his eyebrows and asked, ‘Now what letter did the word start with?'

Alex looked at the book again then back at Flicker's little hands then suddenly got it.

’Well then?’

‘PIECES!’ shouted Alex.

‘Well sizzle my sausages! The boy guessed correctly!’

Alex laughed at Flicker and thought how clever he was to think of using the jigsaw puzzle to help him. Now that he could read every word in the book he knew that everything would go well at school tomorrow. ‘Thanks, Flicker, you’ve been a great help to me tonight. You know, I like learning with you because you make it fun. Can we please play a few more word games tonight before I go to bed?’

‘If you like, as long as you promise to tell your mum the truth in future about your homework’

‘I will, I promise,’ said Alex.

CHAPTER 4

‘Alex, your dinner’s ready!’ shouted his mother from downstairs. Come down right away and eat it while it’s hot!’

Coming, Mum!’ shouted Alex. He patted Flicker on his scaly head and said, ‘Thanks again for helping me out. I won’t be long.’

Flicker began to feel weary and closed his eyes whilst trying to think of some more word games to play with Alex, but in doing so he fell fast asleep!

Alex’s mother, father and sister, Katy, were already seated at the table waiting for him. ‘Have you sorted out your books for tomorrow?’ his mother asked.

‘What? Oh yes thanks. Everything’s fine.’

‘Did you finish your homework?’ asked Katy.

Alex stared at her in shock. His face suddenly turned red as his mother gave him a surprised look.

‘Yes, homework,’ she repeated. ‘Remember you told me this morning that all your class had to read a story out loud to your teacher tomorrow?' His father looked across the table at him now.

‘Oh, that!’ he replied, trying to appear casual. ‘It was nothing really. It was so easy to read it only took me a couple of minutes to get through it.’

‘Good for you,’ said his mother smiling as she began to eat her meal.

Alex concentrated on eating his dinner hoping that no-one else would bring up the subject again tonight. He couldn’t stop thinking about Flicker’s magic powers and all the help he had given him so far. Flicker was right to tell him off for not doing his homework, and he vowed he would never do that again.

He had some many questions to ask Flicker that he could hardly wait for tomorrow to come.

                                                                                           THE END