Gus
Grumplings was never happy with anything. He had lots of friends, and parents
who loved him dearly, but all Gus could think about was what he didn't have, or
things he did have which he was unhappy with. If someone gave him a car, it
would be too big or too slow. If he went to the zoo, he'd come back
disappointed because they hadn't let him feed the lions. If he played football
with his friends, he would complain, saying there were too many of them for
just one ball...
What
caught Gus unawares was Chuckles the prankster cloud. One day, Chuckles was
drifting past, and heard all of Gus's complaining. Chuckles wafted over to see.
When the cloud was right above Gus, he started dropping heavy black rain on
him. That was Chuckles' favourite trick to play on grumpy little kids.
Gus
wasn't at all impressed by this new development; it just made him complain even
more. He was even angrier after he realised that the cloud was following him.
Well,
this carried on for almost a week. Gus couldn't get away from the cloud, and he
got more and more infuriated.
Gus
had a little friend, a happy and generous girl called Gladys. Gladys was the
only one who had been willing to hang around with Gus during all those black,
rainy days. All the other children had run off to avoid getting soaked and
ending up completely black.
One
day, when Gus was at the end of his tether, she said to him: "Cheer up!
What you should realise is that you're the only one of us who has his very own
cloud, and even better, its rain is black! We could play some fun games with a
cloud like this, don't you reckon?" As Gladys was his only company these
days, and he didn't want her to leave as the others had, Gus reluctantly
agreed.
Gladys
took him to the swimming pool, and left him there until all the pool water was
black. Then she went and got other kids. They came and played in the pool. The
water being black meant they could play hide and seek! Grudgingly, Gus had to
admit it had been a lot of fun, but what was even more fun was playing Wet the
Cat.
Gus
would find cats and run alongside them. When the cats felt themselves getting
wet they would jump about in the craziest way, and run off at top speed, with
funny looks on their faces. Before long, all the children in town had gathered
around Gus, thinking up new games they could play using the cloud.
For
the first time ever, Gus started to see the positive side of things; even
things which, at first, had seemed so bad. Chuckles, the prankster cloud,
thought that he could now leave; his work had been done. But, before leaving,
he gave Gus two days of multicoloured rain, with which the children invented
the most fun games ever.
When
Chuckles finally left, Gus didn't complain. Now he knew to focus on the good in
life, and the good thing about Chuckles' departure was that no longer was Gus
soaking wet all day. Now he could go and do dry things, and that's exactly what
he did.
