Chapter fourteen The Day the Sun Went Out.
Dave the Cleaner relaxed back on the park bench. He felt so comfortable now. He felt just right. He was not too hot. He was not too cold. The Sun seemed as normal as ever again.
While sheltering from the heat wave under the seat of the park bench, it had been easy to imagine the trees shriveling up and bursting into flames in the super, blazing sun. He was happy to see the trees seemed undamaged though a few leaves were a little wind-burned and a few dead twigs were scattered on the ground.
He decided much of the water in the park pool must have evaporated because the ducks’ webbed feet flip-flapped along on the beaches of newly dried mud. Even at he watched, the water rose in the pool and crept over the beaches to the rushes. He could see the glint of the wings of the dragonflies flitting in the rushes.
He glanced around a little fearfully. “No sign… No sign… Great, no sign of that confounded pipe ladder. Suits me down to the ground,” he observed with great satisfaction. “I don’t know where it’s gone. I don’t care where its gone, just as long as its gone. Even the thought of that pipe ladder reminds me of that horrible warming up and overheating I’ve just experienced. I feel this is perfectly good as it is. In fact this beautiful, warming sunlight is perfect for a siesta. I will stretch myself out on the park bench and have a lovely snooze.”
While preparing to lie down, he noticed a bag of litter at the end of the bench. For a moment he worried people might think it was his and so he thought to throw it away. “Afterwards,” he murmured as he drifted into sleep, “afterwards, I will throw it away later and make the money go round and increase The Economy….zzzz snore”
When he awoke, he had no idea how long he had slept. He decided it cannot have been too long because the Sun was still high in the sky. However he noticed something about it had changed. There was something odd going on. He squinted at it so as to study it better. “If I didn’t know better,” he observed to himself, “I would swear the Sun is much smaller and dimmer than usual. Perhaps there is a change in the air. In fact, I think that is what woke me. It has cooled down… way down, down. I feel a cold nip in the air.”
He stood up and did a little dance in an attempt to warm-up again. Before he knew it, he found himself dancing and humming one of those annoying songs on of that pesky Mahoe Dave the Cleaner.
“Warming Cooling, Warming Cooling
Ain’t no fooling, can’t be no fooling
Without any warming there’s only cooling, cooling, cooling down
Yes, where would I be if my cooling’s not warming
Not here. No there. Not anywhere.”
“Hey there’s that weird old man again, Mum.”
“Yes, look Dad, he dancing to some strange song now.”
Too late Dave the Cleaner heard the voices of the children and realized he had been singing out aloud. So embarrassing!
He heard their mother say, “Brrr, don’t worry about him now. Lets hurry on home and warm-up by the fire.”
“Yes,” he heard their father say as the family hurried out of the park, “this sudden cooling down is really odd, especially after that sudden heating up earlier. Perhaps there’s something in the air today.”
Dave the Cleaner hugged his clothes more tightly around his body. “Brrrr!!” he shivered to himself. “Indeed this chilling down is very odd. Could it be something has gone badly wrong with the sunlight or the air or with me. Whatever, brrrr, I feel I am starting to freeze like an iceblock.”
The five-year old girl scurried past on her scooter. Little puffs of white steam from her breath trailed behind her like fluffy, white goslings chasing their mother goose. She slowed down and called, “ Maybe your friend is now putting out the Sun with that bucket of water? I love Global Warming. Why do so many adults hate the sun and treat sunlight so bad?”
Dave the Cleaner stopped jiggling to warm-up and stood scratching his head. He did not know what to reply. He did know one thing as he watched the girl zoom off on her scooter. He wished he too could go back to his Mum and Dad’s home and warm-up by a heater.
Alas, her words had reminded him of his deal with Mahoe Dave the Cleaner. This meant it was his turn to have breakfast and stay home with Mum and Dad today.
He could think of no way how he could explain to Mum and Dad that there are now two Dave the Cleaners and other one, Mahoe Dave the Cleaner, is just a pipe dream. “Huh, they might like him better than me. Worse, they might not believe I am their real son, David.” he worried. “Even worst, they might decide I am just a weird dream and Mahoe Dave the Cleaner is their true son David!”
The little girl had also reminded him that pesky Mahoe Dave the Cleaner had taken with him some water in his “magic” buckets up the pipe ladder and had promised to throw it on the fiery sun. He could not bear to think of the mischief he might be getting up to now on top of that pipe ladder.
He pinched himself to wake himself up. This only reminded him that this all started when he pretended to dream he turned into a liquid and those nuisance children of Mahoe classroom dreamed up a pipe and skin body to save him. He listened hard for any sound from on high in the sky.
Silence. Silence up there. Silence around him.
No frog croaked, “Ribbet. Rrribbet”.
No duck swam and called “Quack. Quaaack.” Instead all the ducks sat huddled on the bank, each with its head under its wing, silently hopping from one foot to the other.
The sunlight was now too dim to see any glints from dragonfly wings.
The park grass looked stiff with frost.
Now in the silence he began to hear of those annoying songs again:
“When warming is cooling and cooling is warming
I am good, good, good
When I’m not warming the same as I’m cooling
I am gone, gone, gone.”
The voice was so small and distant he wondered if he was hearing it in his head “WWWWWWoe wwoe isss me.” he muttered to himself through his freezing lips and chattering teeth. “I got, got, got ttto keep wawarm somehow.”
He could not make a nest of hay to huddle in because all the grass in the park was too neatly mown. The park cleaner must have tidied away most of the leaves under the trees. The only thing he could see that might keep him warm was, you guessed it, the bag of rubbish.
Perhaps he could hug it but that would only keep a small part of him warm. Then he remember a movie he once saw about a great storm that suddenly covered the world in ice. Poor people without homes survived by scrunching up old pieces of paper and stuffing them inside their clothes to keep warm.
“Oh no! Oh blow! Oh woe is my Clean, Clean Image!” he wailed. “There goes my Clean, Clean Image if anyone sees me. Agh! There is only one thing for it!”
He was already wearing his cleaning gloves in an attempt to keep his fingers warm. Now he dipped his hand into the bag of rubbish, felt around… rustle, rustle, rustle… pulled out any bits of paper, lost socks, iceblock wrappers, biscuit packets…anything he could scrunch, scrunch, scrunch into balls… and he stuffed them down his socks, up his trouser legs and under his jacket until he looked like a rolly polly man.”
Light snow was now falling, piling up on the park bench. He gritted his chattering teeth and lay on the ground. “Bah! Only one thing for it if I am to survive. Heave! Grunt! Puff! Gasp! Ugh, this is worse than being in one of those ridiculous inflatable Sumo Wrestling suits!” Somehow he managed to squeeze his overstuffed self back under the park bench where he had earlier sheltered from the blazing hot sunlight. This time the piles of snow meant there were no chinks in the bench seat for light to get in. All he could feel and hear in the darkness was the sound of his own breath. Everytime he breathed in and out it made the park litter stuffed inside his clothes rustle and crackle.
He tried humming to cheer himself up and fill the silence. This does not help because the tunes always turned into a confounded song of Mahoe Dave the Cleaner.
“Without global warming we all cool down, down, down …”
So he was glad when he detected a new sound.
“Swisssssh. Swissssssssssh”
“Brrrrh! That is the sound of the icy winds whistling through the bare, frozen branches of the trees,” he comforted himself. However soon he began to doubt this was true.
“Swisssssh. Swissssssssssh”
“Aagh! No! That is the sound of endless buckets of waters hissing as they are poured on the Sun,” he moaned, “and this is what it must have been like for Mahoe Dave the Cleaner when the children stuck him in the freezer.”
In his minds eye he saw the snow piling up on the park bench so no one could ever hear his calls for help.
And, for a tiny, brief moment, he wondered how the children of Mahoe classroom might try and save him now.
And, even as he had this thought, a dim ray of light shone through a chink in the park seat onto a piece of litter paper poking out his jacket. It was the scrap of a magazine page and on it he could see the picture of children with signs that read Stop Global Warming Today!
Before he knew it, Dave the Cleaner, found himself shouting.”No! No! That’s wrong, so wrong! Brrrrh! Global Warming is good. We need Global Warming! Its wonderful with Global Cooling. What we don’t want is Global Warming-Up. We don’t want Global Cooling-Down. We just need nice Global Warming and Cooling.”
The words came out before he had a chance to clap his hand over his mouth. He tried to block them but his arms were trapped by his clothes being stuffed full of park litter. However the words seemed to act like a magic spell. No sooner had he uttered them, then he sensed a great change. He began warming up again, sunlight flooded through the cracks in the park seat and he heard the distant sounds of children laughing and calling.
Dave the Cleaner could hardly believe what he is seeing and hearing and feeling. He pinched himself to check it was all real and not a dream.
End Chapter Fourteen.
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Please note: this is a first draft script (Jan 2020) and prototype format of How the Children of the Mahoe Tree Saved Our World. I plan to create illustrations to complement each chapter as soon as possible.
Please enjoy tolerance – my diplopia means I struggle to read what I write.
This story is based on a true event. A class of five-year olds created the central plot. In the process they showed young children, unlike many adults, retain the vital spirit of inquiry and comprehension of the fundamental thermodynamics required to care for Earth’s atmosphere.
Some grand ideas and questions from Chapter One
Idea: Pending 30 April 20
Question: Pending