UnBooks:Mr. Bob and Miss Twinkle

In the land of Glove, there is a forest. Mr. Bob lives in the forest in a house shaped like a gigantic camel. He sleeps in the camel’s head. Mr. Bob is really short with pointy little ears and a big wide grin. His favourite colour is green, so he wears green clothes, like the bushes around him.

A typical sock tree.

One day, Mr. Bob was out walking in the Big Sock Forest. The trees had long vines that looked like shoelaces and the leaves were like socks.

Mr. Bob stopped suddenly when he saw another house. “But there aren’t any other houses in the Big Sock Forest,” he thought to himself. Sometimes Mr. Bob visited the local village to collect his groceries from the general store. Sometimes Mr. Bob’s friend, Mr. Kilcoy, came to visit him. But they were the only one’s that ever set foot in the Big Sock Forest.

See, in winter when it became cold in the land of Glove, the socks would fall from the trees. There was a myth that the socks became smelly and they poisoned anyone who went near them but Mr. Bob scoffed at this rumour. “It isn’t at all true,” Mr. Bob would say. “Of course it isn’t,” Mr. Kilcoy would agree. In fact, when the socks fell, they produced an extremely nice fragrance. Mr. Bob loved the fragrance. He kept some wonderful pink, frilly socks in his chest of drawers in the camel’s head.

Mr. Bob was curious. He crept forward towards the house. The house was quite normal. It didn’t look like a camel, or a horse or donkey for that matter. There wasn’t anything remotely crazy or strange about it at all. Then, Mr. Bob saw a shadow at the curtains. It peeked through them and then went away. Mr. Bob wondered if the figure had seen him. Surely it hadn’t. He was hiding behind a bush. A green bush, so he was camouflaged.

He decided that he would approach the house quite normally, as if he was just a passer-by coming to visit. So he stood up and walked along the garden path, through a vegetable patch and to the little front door.

He knocked the little brass knocker. He heard pots crashing inside and then footsteps coming towards the door. It opened.

Miss Twinkle

Miss Twinkle was an old lady. She had grey fluffy hair and she was wearing an apron. She looked surprised to see Mr. Bob, the little elf, standing in front of her. “Hi,” Mr. Bob said nervously. “Well, hello!” Miss Twinkle replied. They stared at each other for a moment. Then Miss Twinkle invited Mr. Bob inside. “I’m making some nice pies,” Miss Twinkle said. “Oh,” Mr. Bob replied, still wondering why she was in this house, in this forest. So he asked her. “Oh! I just thought this would be such a nice place to live with the beautiful scenery and the wonderful sock trees!” Mr. Bob was very surprised. So surprised that the piece of pie he was eating fell out of his mouth. “Pardon me,” he said blushing. “But what about what the people in the village say? What about the smells?”—“Well, I thought that it would be an experience, you know? And it was a lie! The socks smell wonderful! I can’t believe that anyone would think such a beautiful leaf could be so horrible!” Now Mr. Bob was in awe. He had never met someone who loved the socks as much as him. “Come and see, Mr…”—“Bob,” Mr. Bob finished. “Well, Mr. Bob, come and see this!” Miss Twinkle led Mr. Bob up some stairs into an attic where there were boxes and boxes of socks! The smell was overwhelming. Mr. Bob almost fainted. Especially when he saw a pair of pink, frilly socks just like his own. He ran on his tiny little legs over to them. He jumped up and down holding them, “I have some of these! I have them!”

Mr. Bob ran home to get his pair, but it took so long running with his small, stubby legs, that when he got back to Miss Twinkle’s house it was dark and Miss Twinkle was asleep. Mr. Bob was too tired to run back home again so he lay himself down in a little patch of geraniums and fell asleep.

The next morning Mr. Bob woke up when he felt a spray of water on his face. Miss Twinkle was standing right next to him watering her geraniums. Mr. Bob stood up feeling disgruntled and uncomfortable in his soggy clothes. “Oh my! I didn’t see you!” Her expression turned from sympathy to anger. “Why were you lying in my prized geraniums? You filthy little elf man! Go back to your camel home!” Mr. Bob went from feeling disgruntled to feeling rejected and lonely and when Miss Twinkle saw his face, she went from anger back to sympathy. Miss Twinkle gave Mr. Bob a hug and invited him in again.

Family Bob

Mr. Bob went to visit Miss Twinkle every day after that for a month until they decided that they loved each other. Mr. Bob and Miss Twinkle got married at the local chapel with Mr. Kilcoy as the best man and a pile of pink, frilly socks and the bridesmaid. They chose to live in Mr. Bob’s camel house. They made a sock farm and advertised it in the village so that people wouldn’t be scared of the fragrant socks.

Now, Mr. Bob and Mrs. Bob (formerly Twinkle), have lots of money so they have two Siamese camels, joined together to make a big Siamese camel house. They stuffed the camels’ tails with pink, frilly socks so they have their own personal air freshener.

Lots of people came and saw the sock farm and they could even pick their own socks and take them home.

Mr. Bob and Mrs. Bob had two children, so when they died, the two children, Bob Junior and Twinkletoes, carried on the family sock farm business.