[Child’s name] and the Silly Birthday
Original concept by Roger Hargreaves Written and illustrated by Adam Hargreaves
One morning, [Child’s name] was woken up by a tapping sound. It was still very early. TAP! TAP! came the noise again. There was someone tapping at the window. [Child’s name] got out of bed to see what was going on.
“Hello [Child’s name], I’m Little Miss Birthday,” said Little Miss Birthday. “And I’m Mr Birthday,” said Mr Birthday. “We have a birthday party to organise today. Would you be able to help us? I’m afraid we’re in a bit of a hurry.” [Child’s name] could not believe what they had said, and agreed to help straight away. They all climbed into Mr Birthday’s car and set off.
“Your first job, [Child’s name], is to bake a cake,” said Little Miss Birthday. But [Child’s name] did not know how to bake a cake. “Don’t worry,” said Mr Birthday. “You have somebody to help you. Look, here we are.” And where they were was at Mr Messy’s house.
“Hello,” said Mr Messy. “Do you like cake?” “Yes,” said [Child’s name]. “Especially birthday cake.” “I love upside down cake ... upside down on the floor cake, that is!” said Mr Messy. “Let’s get baking.” What a mess the kitchen was in even before they began! But it was nothing compared to the mess that was left when they had finished baking the cake. [Child’s name] and Mr Messy were covered in egg and flour and sugar and icing.
And the cake did not look much better either. In fact [Child’s name] thought it was the oddest cake ever. “There,” said Mr Messy, “perfect!” “But the icing and the candles are all in the middle of the cake,” said [Child’s name]. “That’s just silly.” “But that’s the whole idea!” Mr Messy replied.
Little Miss Birthday arrived to collect [Child’s name] and the cake. “Right, now we need to buy the present,” said Little Miss Birthday. They drove to the pet shop. “I was thinking something like that would be perfect,” said Little Miss Birthday, pointing to a huge elephant outside the pet shop. “A pet elephant? What a silly present!” exclaimed [Child’s name]. “But that’s the whole idea!” Little Miss Birthday said.
[Child’s name]’s next job was wrapping the elephant, so they drove it to Mr Tickle’s house. Mr Tickle’s long arms came in very useful (when he’d stopped tickling [Child’s name]), and soon the elephant was wrapped. “There, that looks great,” said Mr Tickle. “It looks silly to me,” said [Child’s name], staring at the elephant wrapped in green paper with a big purple bow. “But that’s the whole idea,” said Mr Tickle. “Right, time to blow up some balloons.”
Mr Tickle took [Child’s name] to Little Miss Scatterbrain’s cottage. “Can you help blow up these balloons?” Little Miss Scatterbrain asked, and [Child’s name] agreed. Between them they blew up hundreds of balloons. “Now we need to get these to the village hall,” said Little Miss Scatterbrain. “But, Miss Scatterbrain, why didn’t we blow them up at the hall?” [Child’s name] said. “That’s so silly!” “But that’s the whole idea! Off we go!” she replied.
So they drove the balloons to the village hall.
“What a busy day,” said Mr Birthday, who met them when they arrived at the hall. “Right, [Child’s name], could you please draw a frog on this sheet of paper for the ‘pin the tail’ game?” he asked. “But frogs don’t have tails,” said [Child’s name]. “That’s just plain silly!” “But that’s the whole idea!” Mr Birthday replied. So [Child’s name] drew a picture of a frog.
Then lots of people began to arrive to help finish off the preparations for the party. Little Miss Neat brought a plate of spaghetti sandwiches. Mr Small brought a giraffe-shaped jelly. And Little Miss Helpful brought broccoli-flavoured ice cream.
Finally, the birthday guest of honour arrived. I’m sure you can guess by now whose party it was? That’s right! Mr Silly’s!
And what a silly party it was. They played a very short game of ‘pin the tail on the frog’ because no one knew where the tail should go! But everyone said how much they liked [Child’s name]’s frog picture.
They played a very long game of musical chairs with one extra chair!
And the party was a huge success. “I wish my best friend, [Friend’s name], was here,” said [Child’s name]. “Then we could enjoy this silly party together!” “Silly?” said Mr Silly.
“What ever is silly about this party?�
MR. MEN™ LITTLE MISS™ © THOIP (a Sanrio company)
Text and images © 2011 THOIP (a Sanrio company) Printed and published under licence from Price Stern Sloan, Inc., Los Angeles. Published in Great Britain by Egmont UK Limited The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN Printed in Great Britain All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner.
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