DON'T PANIC (kid story)

"My house! My house! My house has been stolen!" cried Igglebert.

Igglebert was a 67-year-old man called Igglebert. He was always having bad dreams and thinking they were real.

He woke up and realised that it was just a dream, so he got up to clean his teeth.

Then he noticed that his house really had been stolen in the middle of the night, so he had nowhere to clean his teeth.

"My teeth! My teeth! My teeth will rot and fall out and I'll have to eat soup for the rest of my life!"

He was always in a panic about something or other.

Now he was standing all alone in an empty field. All the other houses in the street had also been stolen. So had the road, the cars, the signs, the trees and the gardens. There was nothing left.

Suddenly he remembered that he went to a party last night and he'd fallen asleep in a field while walking home. This wasn't his street at all!

What a relief!

So he carried on walking home. When he got home he was pleased to see that his house was still standing and so was everything else in the street.

He went into his house and saw three strangers in the kitchen having a cup of tea. He looked around and saw that all his furniture had been stolen and replaced with new chairs, tables, wallpaper, carpets and pictures. Even the books on the shelf were different.

"My furniture! My furniture! My furniture has been stolen and replaced with all this new stuff!" he cried.

The three people in the kitchen looked puzzled.

"Who are you?" they asked.

"I'm Igglebert, a 67-year-old man called Igglebert. I live here. This is my house. Number 22 Granby Street."

"This is Number 44 Willow Street. You're in the wrong house" they said.

"Oh!" said Igglebert "that explains it. But where is my furniture?"

"It's probably in your house" they said.

"Yes of course" said Igglebert "that's where it would be!"

So off he went to find Granby Street.

When he arrived back home at Number 22 Granby Street he noticed that somebody had changed the sign on the door to Number 27. He also noticed that house Number 27 now had his Number 22 sign on the door.

"How annoying" he thought, so he switched the two signs back again.

Then he went into his house, only to find a strange old lady sweeping the television with a broom.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"I'm Igglebert, a 67-year-old man called Igglebert. I live here. This is my house. Number 22 Granby Street."

"This is Number 27 Granby Street. You're in the wrong house" she said.

"Oh!" said Igglebert "that explains it. But why does it say Number 22 on the door?"

"It doesn't" she said.

"Yes it does" said Igglebert. And he showed her.

"Oh sorry" she said "I must be in the wrong house!", and off she went to find the house with 27 on the door.

Igglebert went back inside, but was still puzzled about how different everything looked. The sofa was pink instead of blue. The picture on the wall was a fluffy cat stretched out in the sun, instead of a group of pigs playing darts. The books on the shelf were all about cookery, needlework and local history, instead of monster trucks, soldiers, pigs and darts.

Then suddenly he remembered that he had swapped the numbers on the doors and this house really did belong to the strange old lady.

So he went over the road to his real house and was delighted to find that the strange old lady had cleaned all the floors, tidied the bedroom and swept the television.

After they had swapped houses and changed the door numbers back, everything had returned to normal.

Igglebert had a mug of warm milk with two slices of toast, and then went to bed.

Two hours later he woke up shouting "My toast! My toast! I forgot to put butter on my toast!"

This wasn't just a bad dream. He really had forgotten to put butter on his toast. But it was too late. The toast had been eaten and washed down with warm milk.

What could he do?

Should he panic?

Should he have some more toast, but this time with butter, even though he wasn't hungry?

I know what I would do. I'd just forget all about it and go back to sleep!