As we quietly strolled down a cobbled street our footsteps echoed all around us. My mum said it wouldn’t take us long to get there but I felt like we had been walking for ages. I had met my friend at the park and we set off together. While I was walking I noticed the street getting narrower. At first the houses were new with red bricks and shiny front doors. But as we continued further down the street the buildings became taller and strange. The bricks were faded and broken. The wind blew and rattled the windows. We could see cobwebs and broken pipes. As the rain came down it splashed on the cobbles but we didn’t mind because we enjoyed splashing in our wellies.

Suddenly I saw a green flower above a creepy door. Mum told us that’s what we would see. The red paint around the door was starting to fade because of the stormy weather. As we crept towards the door I felt cold and started to shiver. Maybe this wasn’t the door mum told us about?

What was inside? We had to find out. We couldn’t see as the dark shadows filled the doorway. We would have to go in. The dark shadows were all around us. The creepy stairs made a sudden creaking sound! Mysterious smoke wafted down the stairs with a nasty petrol smell. The shadow grew longer and longer. I felt a shock run down my spine and goosebumps on my arms. What could it be? What was it, I thought?

Then all of a sudden, green, hairy, bumpy hands came out of the smoke. Next, two ghostly feet came down the stairs, followed by dirty scales on his back, a wide lumpy head and enormous wet eyes. He stomped down the stairs. “LET’S GET OUT OF HERE!” I screamed and grabbed my friend’s hand.

“Hi, I’m Dave,” said a voice, “Please, wait a minute!”

We stopped!

I couldn’t believe his name was Dave, he sounded quite familiar. Maybe this is would be the beginning of the adventure that mum had told me about.

“I would like to show you something secret in my garden,” he said excitedly. We backed away towards the red, chipped door, just as he said, “Don’t worry you don’t have to be scared!”

Dave began shuffling through the house, heading to what I presumed was the garden, he beckoned for me to follow. We crept, shivering with fear behind him, past ragged, ripped wallpaper with sinister paintings of skeletons and terrifying creatures.

Suddenly, we reached the greasy door to the garden, as I stepped nervously through it I realised the door was made from wolf bones. Dave continued through the overgrown garden, where creepy, spiky branches seemed to grab me like sharp, pointy claws as I passed. Eventually he stopped in front of a dark slimy river that had deep purple smoke rising in puffs from it. The smell was disgusting, it smelt of old rotting fruit and smelly, cheesy shoes.

“I came from this river,” explained Dave “If you step into it you…”

But before Dave could finish his sentence I slipped on the deep, sloppy mud and went tumbling into the river with my arms flailing and landed in the water with a SPLASH!

I heard a roaring sound. There was a water tornado and a whirlpool sucked me down to the bottom of the river. I could see a tall shadow when I touched the river bed. As my eyes got used to the murky water, I realised that it was Dave. Among the things my eyes could see were….old boots, cans and bottles and a supermarket trolley.

Dave had remembered that in the back of the house he had a pipe that was used to suck people up from the river because people often slipped on the mud when they came to visit. I was terrified when the pipe sucked me up. It felt like an enormous monster but it was the pipe. When I finally came out the other end I ran to Dave and cuddled him because I was so happy. Dave was smiling at me, his recycling bag in his hand. I realised then that he wanted me to help him tidy up the river bed. ‘Let’s get started,’ he said, ‘We have a job to do!’

I smiled back and we both jumped back into the river.

by Year 1 pupils from St. Edmund’s , Stanley, Trafalgar Infants and Sheen Mount primary schools

It was a cold, miserable day as I was walking through the forest with my best friend. He was a playful boy and always liked to go on adventures. The path I was walking on was wet and slippery and there were a lot of puddles around me. When I was walking, I could hear the leaves crunching under my feet. I looked around me and the leaves were all kinds of colours. There were orange, yellow and red autumnal leaves. So much rain had fallen that the leaves were slimy and brown.

Whilst walking through the forest, we came across some old, black steps. David ran towards the steps to get a closer look. They looked steep. I became worried that David might want to climb them.

“Come away from the steps!” I shouted.

“I want to know what’s at the top!” David called.

We started to move towards the first step. It was wobbly and dangerous. I didn’t want to walk up them but David kept going. I was getting more and more nervous about going up the steps because they looked steeper nearer the top.

After a while, I decided to follow him and slowly climbed the first two steps. The steps wobbled under my feet and I was scared that they would crumble and break. I could see water falling from a tall tree stump and I wondered if it was slippery at the top.

Before long, we reached the huge tree stump and we heard a loud BANG!

“What’s that?” I screamed!

“I think it was thunder,” David screamed back.

I was really scared but I didn’t want David to know that. I thought about turning round but decided to do something brave and continue to the top.

At the top we found a huge door. That must have been the noise I thought. It was the door slamming. We knocked on the door but there was no reply so we went in. We looked inside and we looked around, there was a table, chairs and food on the table. Suddenly we heard voices, someone was coming!

We hid under the table. As the voices came closer they got louder. The voices sounded calm and gentle. We slowly shuffled closer to peak out from under the table. We were confident enough to come out and we whispered, “Who are you?” in shocked voices.

We saw a little girl and boy walk in through the door. They looked scruffy with muddy clothes. In a quiet voice the boy said,

“We are lost in the forest. We were picking mushrooms for our mother and we heard a booming bang and a loud growl and ran until we found this dirty, gloomy wooden house. We thought someone would be here to help us but no-one was. We waited to see if anyone would come back as there was food waiting on the table. When no-one did we left and had another look around outside. We saw you walking up to the house and decided to follow you. We are so glad to see you! Please can you help us find our home again?”

They both looked so upset we knew we had to help them. David quickly jumped up as if he had remembered something! He said excitedly, “I have a map in my pocket which could show us how to get to your house. Let’s go!”

We looked at the map of the forest and planned our way back to the other children’s house. We started walking through the foggy, dark, spooky forest. Suddenly, behind us we heard trees sound as if they are crashing down and twigs snapping. We started to run as quickly as our legs could go through the forest. I turned to look back and thought I caught a glimpse of something big, furry and orange in the distance.

“RUN!” I shouted.

“RUN WHERE?” David screamed.

I grabbed the hands of the little boy and girl and sprinted as fast as I could towards a house in the distance.

“THIS WAY” I screeched but David was standing still, looking at the furry orange creature. I felt terrified because I thought the creature might be an aggressive tiger, so I carried on running with the boy and the girl until we reached the door of the house. It looked like it might be haunted. We ran inside and slammed the door behind us. Suddenly, we heard a zooming sound and when we looked around us, we realised we had shrunk to the size of tiny ants. In the corner we could see a giant badger, who looked like he had an injured paw. All around us was the sound of witchy cackling.

“What has happened to us?” whispered the little girl.

“What is that noise?” asked the little boy.

“Never mind all of that,” I whimpered as I started to cry, “What about David?”

Just then we heard footsteps in the room above us. The footsteps were getting closer. Someone, or something, was coming down the stairs! We waited anxiously and then to our surprise a little girl appeared dressed in a witch’s cloak and hat, holding a magic wand. She looked at us and said,

“Oh my goodness! You have shrunk a lot!”

“Who are you?” I shouted, “And what have you done to us?”

“My name is Polly,” the little witch replied. “My mum is a big witch but I’m just a beginner. I have been practising using my mummy’s wand and trying out some spells. I tried to shrink my ginger kitten, Marmalade and my pet badger, George. But something went VERY wrong and both of them became HUGE! Then Marmalade ran off out of the door and poor George ran after him but he trapped his paw in the door on the way out.”

“Well you certainly managed to shrink us and we can’t stay like this forever – we need to go home and we need to find our friend David. Please can you undo your spell and make us normal-size again?”

“I don’t think I know how to do that but my Mum might be able to help when she comes back. Oh hang on I can see her now.”

The door opened an in came a big, tall lady, with spiky blue hair, wearing a long purple cloak.

“What in the world is going on here?” she said. “What have you done Polly?”

Then Polly told her all about her spells and what had happened.

“Right young lady. I’ve warned you before about messing around with my magic wand. Now let’s get this all sorted out. Give me my wand.”

Then she said some magic words and waved her wand over us. We could hear that funny zooming sound again and then we were miraculously back to our normal size!

At that moment we heard David’s voice calling us through the window. “Where are you? You’re never going to believe this but the big furry orange monster in the woods is only a giant kitten! I have no idea how he has got this big!”

“We do!” we all called and then we explained the whole story to him.

Then we watched whilst Polly’s mum sprinkled another magic spell over Marmalade and George and returned them to their right size. Then she turned to us and said, “We had better get you all home before your parents start to worry about you.”

She told us to hold hands and close our eyes and with an ‘Abracadabra’ and a swish of her wand we felt ourselves whirling and twirling through the air.

When we opened our eyes again the little boy and girl were nowhere to be seen and David and I were back at the bottom of the steps.

“That was fun,” said David. “Shall we go back up the steps again?”

“NO!” I replied, “We are going home – QUICK! Race you! Last one back is a rotten egg!”

by Year 1 pupils from St. Edmund’s, Stanley, Sheen Mount, Archdeacon Cambridge and East Sheen primary schools

It was almost morning when the sun came up. It was really foggy and peaceful. Pepper was welcoming people in. She had long hair like Rapunzel, Pepper was wearing a red dress with white flowers on it. She was just fourteen and her job was to welcome children into Richmond Park at the gate. Pepper lived near to the Park and liked watching the deer from her tiny bedroom window.

One night there was a big storm with lots of thunder and lightning. The next morning when Pepper went to open the gate it was being guarded by lots of tiny squirrels. They wouldn’t let Pepper open the gate. “Why are you guarding the gate?” asked Pepper. Just then a giant squirrel appeared. He was as big as the biggest tree in Richmond Park. “I was struck by lightning in the storm and now I am a ginormous monster and king of the squirrels. We’re keeping the park to keep all the nuts for ourselves” growled the giant squirrel.

Pepper thought very carefully about what to do next. She decided to play a trick on the naughty squirrels. “I’ve found some nuts for you!” Pepper said nicely to the squirrels. Their ears pricked up and their noses started to wiggle. Pepper said, “I’ve hidden them in an owl’s nest in a hole in a tree in a deep dark wood.” The squirrels were a bit scared but went to the deep dark wood anyway. Pepper ran into the park, and bought all of the children from the village with her.

The squirrels ran into the woods to look for the owl’s nest. On their way they were lost and couldn’t decide on which way to go. The giant squirrel took charge and led the way. Later that evening, “Where are we?” called one of the smaller squirrels. They were still unable to find the tree they were looking for. “WE WILL FIND IT!” replied the giant squirrel angrily. Watching from a distance were Pepper and the children from the village who quietly laughed at the squirrels. “They can’t find the tree” said Pepper. “Good, now we can guard the gate and keep the squirrels out” said Timmy one of the village children.

Suddenly the children heard a disturbing and booming shouting. Straight afterwards they saw a squirrel family looking terrified and frightened and running at top speed towards them. As soon as the squirrels had got their breath back, the children asked them to explain what was going on.

“Nutty, the giant squirrel, is making all of us squirrels search for nuts for him and then he just eats them. My family and I are going to go hungry if we don’t stand up for ourselves,” explained the squirrel sadly. “Nutty got cross with us because we found some nuts and ate them,” continued the squirrel.

Pepper felt furious and mad at the thought of Nutty treating the others like slaves.

“We will help you defeat Nutty!” said Pepper in a calm and confident way. “We need a plan,” she said. So everybody took to thinking up an amazing and epic plan. “First we have to catch Nutty, which is going to be tricky and then somehow we are going to have to return him back to his normal size,” said Pepper.

After some time, Pepper’s best friend Billy smiled.

“I’ve got it!” he said. “We are going to have to make a trap. Everyone go home and get your spades! Squirrels, if you know any badgers or foxes that are good at digging, then fetch them, so that we can get the job done quicker.”

Within minutes the park was full of foxes, rabbits and badgers, ready to help dig a humongous, gigantic, massive hole. All the creatures were gathered together and had begun to move huge amounts of dirt from the park floor. Pepper turned around to Billy to ask him how they could get Nutty back to his usual size but Billy was nowhere to be found. He had already sneaked off whilst everyone was busy. The second part of his plan was very revolting and quite gross and disgusting. Billy went to a long, bumpy road where he had heard that there was a witch who made magical, shrinking potions. He felt petrified as he went through the squeaky door and as he did a witch appeared.

“I was expecting you” said an ugly, green, warty lady. “I suppose you want me to make you a shrinking potion?” she cackled. “I have got the recipe out ready.”

She showed him an old, dirty, scruffy recipe book.

He read the recipe:

Shrink Nuts

• 3 Crocodile’s scales
• 2 drops of eyeball juice
• 4 drops of rattlesnake venom
• 200 piranha’s teeth
• 100g of vampire’s blood-soaked teeth
• 1kg of Cheetah’s intestines
• 1 squashed rat
• 4 rare tree leaves
• 2 table spoons of slug jam

Billy felt disgusted and sick. The witch began to busy herself finding jars and bottles all the while mixing the ingredients into a paste. The smell was pukey and like rotting vegetables. Finally it was done. The witch handed him a single nut.

“Inside this nut is the shrinking potion. As soon as the giant squirrel eats it, he will shrink to his original size.” Billy thanked her!

As soon as he was out of the door he zoomed back to the park, where he found Pepper, the children and animals standing by the completed hole, which had been covered with sticks and leaves so that you couldn’t tell that there was a hole there. Billy explained the next part of his plan to everyone.

“How are we going to get Nutty to come this way?” asked Billy. The little squirrel volunteered to go and get him by telling him that he’d found a nut. Billy then placed the nut on top of the hidden hole.

The squirrel ran off towards the dark woods. Then after some time came the humongous, selfish squirrel. Nutty looked at the nut and sprinted to get it. Finally, Nutty flopped into the trap and ate the nut. As he did he shrank back into his normal size. Everyone felt thrilled that Nutty was back to normal.

Once there lived a Snow King. He looked after the snow. Everyone who lived in his land wished it would never stop snowing. What else could they wish for? The King had an enemy called Rober who tried to melt the snow.

Far away in another land there were two boys called Tommy and Jimmy. They lived all alone with no mum and dad, all they had was sunshine outside in the garden. They wished everyday it would snow. They would play snow ball fights and Hide and Seek. They would build snowmen like in The Snowman. But no snow means no games. What a shame!

One night, Tommy and Jimmy made a special wish. They wished that it would snow! What fun they could have if it snowed.

Rober heard their wish and thought he would play a trick on the Snow King. Rober put some snow in a sack and threw it onto Tommy and Jimmy’s garden.

The next morning, Tommy and Jimmy woke up and were so excited to see snow in their garden. They played all day in the snow making snowmen, having a snowball fight and playing Hide and Seek.

Meanwhile back in the faraway land, the Snow King saw what Rober had done and he was very angry.

The Snow King roared a terrible roar and was as loud as a lion! Then he stamped so hard that his world shook and a massive crack appeared in the icy floor. When he looked through the crack he saw Tommy and Jimmy’s house with all his precious snow in their garden. Quickly, he dived into the crack and in a flash found himself surrounded by the soft snow that Rober had stolen.

Tommy and Jimmy couldn’t believe their sparkly eyes and gasped in terror before running to hide behind a tree.

“Who are you?” they asked with trembling voices.

“I am the Snow King and you are playing with my snow!” roared the Snow King angrily.

Tommy and Johnny explained that they had made a special wish and begged him not to be mean and take all their wonderful snow away. They told him their sad story and had tears running down their little red cheeks.

The Snow King thought for a while and decided that he wasn’t cross with the boys but he was furious and frustrated with Rober, the sneaky, snow-stealing super villain! He explained that he really wanted to capture Rober and put him into an icy jail where he would never cause trouble again. Together, they came up with a plan to catch Rober. The Snow King promised Tommy and Jimmy that if they helped him he would make their dreams come true…

Early one morning, the two boys made a trail of fish leading to a big hole in the snow. The Snow King had told them that Rober loved to eat fish. Rober smelt the pongy fish so he followed the trail. When he got to the deep dark hole in the snow he fell in! He didn’t know that there was a hole. After he fell down the hole, the two boys dropped a trap on him. The sparkly trap was made of ice and metal so he couldn’t get out. Rober was very angry and shouted until his face went red. Tommy and Jimmy laughed at him because he looked very funny. They thought he deserved to be trapped because he had played a mean trick. They called for the Snow King to come out from where he was hiding behind a snowman.

The King thanked them for their amazing plan.

“You have caught Rober and saved my Snow Kingdom. Now I will grant your wishes as promised,” he announced.

The boys didn’t even need to think for a second. They wanted SNOW!

“I have an idea,” said the King. “You can keep half of the snow and we will return the rest to my Kingdom. You have made me so happy. We must have a party to celebrate and every year on this day you can come to visit me in my Snow Palace”.

“But how will we get there?” asked Tommy and Jimmy.

“In your garden there is a magical bench that can lead you there,” explained the King, “all you need to do is sit on the bench and make a wish using these magic words…

Magic bench take me to the land of snow

Abracadabra and off we go!”

“Wow we can’t wait – when can we visit your magical kingdom?”

“Soon,” replied the King, “but first we must return the snow.”

“But how?” asked the boys.

“I will call my snow rocket and sleigh to transport the snow back home.”

The King stamped four times and the crack in the ice reopened. His snow rocket zoomed down to the garden. Quickly the snow rocket sucked up half of the snow leaving plenty for the boys to play with. Just then the Snow King disappeared into the rocket and zoomed off back through the crack to his far away palace. The boys were so excited their dreams had come true and they couldn’t wait to visit the King in his palace.

“I wonder where else the bench could take us?” thought the boys…

 by Year 1 pupils from  Lowther, Stanley, Sheen Mount, East Sheen and Archdeacon Cambridge’s primary schools