INTERESTING BROCCOLI

The interesting thing about broccoli is that there are four interesting things about broccoli.

Number One. Nobody knows how to spell it. Not even the people who write the Oxford English Dictionary know how many c's and how many l's there are.

Number Two. Nobody really likes it. Not even the Man Who Eats Everything, including garbage, trash, rubbish and street litter.

Number Three. No matter how long you boil it, it's always cold by the time it reaches your plate.

Number Four. It's green.

Okay, the last one wasn't very interesting, but I could only think of three good ones.

Anyway, this story isn't about broccoli. It's about a boy with four heads.

I'm only joking; it is actually about broccoli.

The interesting thing about broccoli is that there are four interesting things about broccoli. Sorry, I've already done that bit ...

Let me start again.

Once upon a time there was a boy with four heads. He grew up to become the Man With Four Heads. He became very keen on all sorts of food, and soon became known as the Man With Four Heads Who Eats Everything. Or Moy for short.

Having four heads meant that he could look north, south, east and west all at the same time. Unfortunately this meant that the sun was always is in his eyes. However, he could always see if a cat was trying to creep up on him from behind or from the side. He wasn't keen on cats playing practical jokes, but he was keen on food.

One day he was eating an egg carton with his north-facing head, a tin can with his south-facing head, an old magazine with his east-facing head and a bacon sandwich with his west-facing head, when he turned round and his north-facing head became his south-facing head, his south-facing head became his north, his west became his east and his east became his west. Then he turned back again.

After his meals, he sat down on a park bench and dozed off. Then Felix and Fluffy crept up behind him and covered him in broccoli pudding. Don't worry if you don't know what broccoli pudding is, because neither do I.

About two hours later, Moy woke up and was surprised to find himself covered in broccoli pudding.

You might remember that the second most interesting thing about broccoli is that nobody likes it, not even the Man Who Eats Everything, including garbage, trash, rubbish and street litter.

So he was not too pleased that he was going to have to eat himself out of the mess.

Luckily, with four mouths he was able to eat all the broccoli pudding in a quarter of the time it would have taken anyone with the usual number of heads.

He then set off to find the two naughty little kittens that were responsible.

He found Felix and Fluffy outside the pet shop. Felix had shreds of broccoli on his paws and Fluffy had pudding mixture on his whiskers.

"Have you seen any cats messing about with broccoli pudding?" he asked.

"No" they said "we're good cats".

The two cats then went into the pet shop and opened all the cages. The shopkeeper was furious as he watched all his animals run out into the street, including six rabbits, half a dozen puppies, five hamsters, another hamster and about six white mice.

Three of the mice were blind and the other three wore contact lenses. They ran and they ran until they escaped the dangerous traffic and the busy streets and reached the safety of the countryside.

They came to an old farmhouse and went into the kitchen. Standing by the cooker was a large woman with a large knife. She was looking around for more ingredients to put into her mouse-tail soup.

Just then Farmer Venison walked into the room and his tummy was rumbling. He had eaten nothing since breakfast and was looking forward to his dinner.

The Farmer's Wife was just about to cut the tails off three of the mice when the Farmer announced that he wanted to be a vegetarian, and he would never eat meat again. So the mice ran off, and the Farmer had broccoli toast instead. Don't worry if you don't know what broccoli toast is, because neither do I.

Farmer Venison was a keen gardener, and whenever he wasn't in his fields looking after plants you'd find him in his garden looking after plants. His favourite plant was the stinging nettle, because he liked to put some in his wife's hat every morning. She had got used to this silly practical joke and always remembered to check her clothes before putting them on.

One morning the Farmer decided to think up a new joke. So he sat at the kitchen table with a pen and paper, thinking hard and scribbling away. Eventually he came up with the brilliant idea of filling his wife's best hat with chocolate milk shake.

His timing couldn't have been worse however, as today was the day that the Queen of Bulgaria was due to visit their farm. So the Farmer's Wife put on her best frock, which was made of fine silk, gold buttons, diamond chains and various bits of plastic. She then checked that her hat was clear of stinging nettles and put it on her head. This caused two pints of chocolate milk shake to fall over her dress. This caused her to scream in horror. This caused the Farmer to laugh. This caused the Farmer's Wife to throw a chair at the Farmer.

Just then, the door bell made a ringing noise.

"The queen! The queen!" screamed the Farmer's Wife "She's here and look at the state of me!"

It wasn't the queen. It was the postman. He had a letter from the queen that said she wouldn't be coming to the farm.

In fact, the queen was still back home in Bulgaria. She was unable to travel as her clothes were ruined when the King of Bulgaria played a practical joke with her crown and a vat of flavoured yoghurt.

So now we are coming to end of the story, and I hope you have learnt an important lesson: Jokes aren't funny. They ruin people's clothes.

MWFHWEE never did find who was responsible for the broccoli pudding incident.

The two cats carried on being naughty until one day they tried breaking into a bank. It turned out to be a prison, not a bank, and they couldn't escape.

The six mice lived happily ever after in a broccoli field.

After six attempts, Farmer Venison eventually succeeded in giving up being a vegetarian. He was unable to give up practical jokes though.

Mrs Venison went shopping for a new dress, some milk shake and a chair. She never did meet the Queen of Bulgaria.