Impulse buy
By
Chris White
SMASHWORDS EDITION
*****
PUBLISHED BY:
Chris White on Smashwords
Impulse buy
Copyright 2011 by Chris White
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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
*****
Many thanks to Holly Blackwood, the inspiration behind this short story.
This story is intended for children to enjoy. Please feel free to read it to them as often as they enjoy it.
Robbie pricked up his ears.
Mum had come home claiming that she had been spontaneous. She had gone to the shops to buy some breakfast cereal, but had come home with a new pair of shoes. She had announced that these were an impulse buy. But all worked out well, as Dad thought they looked pretty. Neighbour Mr Barclay also thought they looked pretty, but had red cheeks when he said this. Annabelle also thought she looked pretty. Robbie didn’t think she looked pretty, as she was his mum and mums were not supposed to look pretty.
Robbie liked the idea though and decided that he wanted to make an impulse buy. He emptied all the money from his piggy bank and headed for the shops.
On reaching the parade of shops, he decided to close his eyes and when he opened them, he would buy something from that shop.
Firstly he banged into a lamppost and soon after walked into a surly looking traffic warden who could only growl at Robbie.
When Robbie next opened his eyes, he was outside the bank and didn’t think you could buy anything there. So he tried again and this time opened his eyes outside the pet shop.
The shop assistant was very helpful and when Robbie produced his pocket money, he was told that he had enough money to buy a newt.Robbie was delighted. What an impulse buy as he had never ever considered buying a newt before!
He rushed home to show the family and named the newt Nelly on the way home.On showing off his new pet, Dad raised his eyebrows, Mum sighed heavily, Annabelle called Robbie “Stoopid” and Bubbles the cat was grateful to see another animal about the place until Nellie climbed on to Bubbles back one day and refused to come down.
The house was in chaos the next few days as Nellie ran riot around all over the place.
It was found in the bread bin, it was found inside a toilet roll, it was found in Mum’s handbag, it swam in Annabelle’s bath water and seemed to sleep in Dad’s slippers.
Robbie loved his pet until one day Nellie just disappeared and was never seen by Robbie again. Robbie was a little upset for a day, but soon got over it. Every now and then though, he did wonder what had happened to Nellie.
Dad thought it had probably left the house and found a pond to live in.The truth was never known to Robbie, but this is what actually happened.
At school, the day after Nellie went missing, Annabelle’s school class was tasked with designing and colouring a flag for a mythical country.
Annabelle had to ask permission to go to the toilet. She had forgotten to go during break time as she was listening to a particularly cool track on her i-pod with her best friend Faye Rosewood.
When Annabelle left the classroom, Rosie Leach, the naughtiest girl in the class, unzipped Annabelle’s pencil case, as she knew that Annabelle had a new set of felt tip pens.
Rosie shrieked as loudly as she could as a little green animal suddenly appeared from nowhere, jumped on to Rosie’s shoulder, licked her on the cheek, jumped down on to the floor and ran out the door.
“LIZARD!!!” Yelled Rosie and burst into tears.
Newts are quite small and nobody else in the classroom saw anything.Rosie was sent to the head teacher’s room to be told off for yelling out in class. Annabelle thought it typical that Rosie had gone into her pencil case without asking, but never for one moment did she connect Rosie’s claim of seeing a lizard with a missing newt.
Robbie decided that maybe Impulse buys weren’t the best idea and decided to save his pocket money so that he could buy his favourite comic instead.
END