大象传媒

By Agnes Elisabeth C

Once there were two people, Grandma-Jo and GRUMPAR. Grumpa was always grumpy because when Grandma-Jo retired she got very bored and gradually replaced absolutely everything with wool: imagine if every time you made a cup of tea you burnt your hand because the teacup was made of wool! Once Grandpa was sitting on the saggy woollen sofa wondering how the new woollen TV would ever work. "How am I ever going to watch the football when there's a hole in the middle of the telly?" He asked.

Grandma-Jo said, "You don't! I just stand in here and tell you all about knitting!"

One day Grandma-Jo had a realisation... She had completely run out of things to knit! Before she knew it, she found herself elbow deep in a new jumper with a cat on it for her Grandson Gruff. "Grumpa," Grandma-Jo said, "I've nearly finished Gruff's jumper but," she held up a finger for a dramatic pause, "I have completely run out of grey wool for the cat's eyes". Grumpa knew what this meant. He put down his soggy teacup, pulled on his woollen shoes and started the journey to the wool shop.

"Darn knitting" he grumbled.

Minutes later he returned with some shimmering grey wool. Grandma-Jo finished the jumper and they both went to their thread bed.

That night the silence was broken by the clackety-clack of hundreds of clicking needles. Every knitted item had suddenly started knitting the glittering grey wool. But that wasn't the only magic... Each pair of needles was creating knitted kitten after knitted kitten. They were floating ghostlike out of the window and tumbling from the doors.

"DARN KNITTING!" said Grumpa as he grumbled his way downstairs behind Grandma-Jo.

When she got to the bottom of the stairs, Grandma-Jo couldn't believe her eyes. She was petrified. Grumpa, however, just grunted. He stomped to the cupboard, flung the door open and swung the knitted vacuum cleaner onto his shoulder like a handbag. Starting in the kitchen, he hoovered up all the knitted kittens before heading into the living room and out of the door. He ran around for hours chasing all the woolly cats in the silver moonlight as they rolled around the street like silver pennies.

Eventually he was finished. Grandma-Jo and Grumpa sat down on the front step. "I'll miss those woolly cats," Grandma-Jo said.

"Darn ca..." Grumpa started, but he then quickly looked towards the hoover. There was a meowing sound coming from it.

Grandma-Jo said, "Darling. Would you please open the hoover?"

Grumpa crept towards the hoover, opened the lid and looked down. Inside there was a purring grey kitten with glinting grey eyes. Carefully he picked it up and gave it to Grandma-Jo.

Cashmere the Cat kept Grandma-Jo very busy. So busy, in fact, that she didn't have time to knit everyday anymore. As they sat down together with Cashmere curled on their laps to watch the football on their new, working telly, Grumpa smiled.