Wot, no ears?

Somewhere over there is the sea. And somewhere in the middle of all that water is an island. But don’t tell anyone, because it’s a very secret place and only I, and now you, know about it.

Today, I’m going to tell you about a tiny town on that island called Wot, and about a little boy who lived there, called George. But first, there is something very unusual you need to know about the people of Wot: They had lost their ears. 

They were blue too and very, very short, but that hardly mattered. And they had webbed feet. That is very useful if you live on an island surrounded by water. Having lost your ears is not useful at all.

Wot was a surprisingly noisy town. Although nobody in Wot could hear anything, the people that lived there loved to talk. You might say they liked the sound of their own voices, but that would be silly, because they couldn’t hear their own voices. 

But still they talked and talked. They talked about the weather of course; grown-ups spend a lot of time talking about the weather. And they talked about all the things that were wrong. Sometimes they were even right about what was wrong. They talked about their neighbours, and their neighbours’ cats. About cabbages and potatoes, and sometimes carrots. They talked about anything really; but nobody heard.

When the people of Wot had something really important to say, they wrote it down. So, there were lots of signs in Wot. They said things like ‘No Running!’ and ‘No Walking!’ and ‘Definitely, no Standing Still!’. Sometimes the signs caused such confusion that people asked each other loudly what they all meant. But that just caused more confusion.

Do you remember the name of the little boy I was going to tell you about? 

Oh, yes, it was George. George was a very special little boy; he was the first person in Wot to find his ears, and this is the story about how, and where, he found them.

***

George lived with his Mum and Dad in a little stone cottage right in the middle of Wot. Each morning he walked to school with his friends. You might be wondering what school in Wot was like. Well, let me tell you. It was boring. I mean, not just a little bit boring; but really, really, really boring. More boring even than washing dishes or folding your clothes. Even the teachers thought it was boring; it’s very difficult to teach children that don’t have any ears. 

George was always pleased when the school bell went, and he could go home. Though nobody could hear the school bell of course, which makes me wonder why they had one. The headmistress would ring the bell and then go along to the classroom, switch off all the lights and wave at the children to let them know it was time to go home.

When he wasn’t at school, George would sometimes run errands for his parents. His father would leave notes on a blackboard in the kitchen that told him what needed to be done. But still George would usually get the errands wrong, because his father’s writing was very untidy, and he was very bad at spelling too. George once spent a whole Saturday afternoon trying to get a reluctant and very wriggly gnome into a paper bag, when what his father had really wanted was for George to fill the bath with water. (I told you his writing was bad.)

One morning, George collected his wheelbarrow from the back of the house and headed to the village shop to get some potatoes. Which was lucky, because his Dad really did want potatoes, even though that’s not what he’d written on the blackboard. 

“Hello Billy”, said Mrs Maggle, the shopkeeper, when George entered.  She didn’t know George’s real name, although she thought she did. The people of Wot generally didn’t know much about each other at all.

“Hello Mrs Provisions”, said George, who’d cleverly, but wrongly, guessed the shopkeeper’s name from the sign outside. “I’d like a big bag of your finest potatoes please.”

“Brown or white?”, asked Mrs Maggle, reaching for the freshly baked bread.

“No”, said Billy. He shook his head vigorously and pointed at the potatoes.

“Potatoes is it?”, asked Mrs Maggle. “You should speak up a bit. How are your mother and father?”

“They’re for roasting”, said George eagerly, “Once we’ve chopped them up.”

“Oh, I am glad”, said Mrs Maggle, bagging the potatoes.

George left Mrs Maggle’s shop. He placed the big bag of potatoes in the wheelbarrow he’d left outside and wheeled it out of town and into the forest. He did that because he thought the other thing his Dad had written on the blackboard was, “And some firewood.” But, as you can probably guess, that was wrong too! His Dad had wanted George to buy a new lightbulb, and would never have dreamt of sending George into the magical forest alone. 

It was surprisingly difficult to find firewood in the forest. But then, as I explained, it was a magical forest. George spent a lot of time looking and by the time he’d filled his wheelbarrow, it was getting quite late. And then it started to rain.

“Oh dear!”, said George, to no-one in particular. “I’m going to get very wet! I think I’d better look for somewhere to shelter until the rain stops.” 

And just then he noticed a big tree. Of course, a big tree in a magical forest isn’t very unusual, so perhaps I should explain why this one was special. This particular tree had a hollow trunk. In fact, it had a hole so large, so enormously huge, that Mrs Maggle’s entire shop would have fitted quite comfortably inside it. Isn’t that amazing?

George thought so. “Wow!”, he said, and pushed his wheelbarrow inside.

Inside the tree was an even bigger surprise. Right in the middle of the big open space was a stone staircase that led down, and down, and down beneath the tree. 

“Goodness!”, said George. He said it quite loudly, because he was a little bit scared. Which is often the silliest thing to do when you’re standing at the entrance to a dragon’s cave.

George looked down the stairs. “Hello?”, he shouted. And then, more loudly still, “Is there anyone there?” Now, if you are wondering why he did that, you wouldn’t be the first. 

Hearing nothing, which will come as no surprise to you or to me, George decided it must be safe. And so, he started walking down the steps. Clunk, clunk, clunk went his footsteps on the stone.

As he walked, he continued to talk: “Well, well, well. This is amazing. Oh, look, this step is very worn. And look at all those scratch marks on the wall. Ooh, and what is this slime.” (He didn’t know the dragon below had a cold.) “Oh, I wonder where Mrs Provision’s cat is? I haven’t seen it for ages. Did I remember to lock the front door when I left home? Oh, look, some more of that horrible slime.”

On and on he went, talking all of the time, until at last, he rounded the final corner … and came face to face with the dragon!

There is one thing you should know about dragons; they do not like to be woken up at the best of times, and especially not when they have a cold. George could tell the dragon was angry because it was snarling, which also meant that George could see it had very big teeth, which were pointy, sharp and very white. (Dragons clean their teeth twice a day, every day, which is why their teeth last for 500 years!)

George turned and ran back up the steps. It was lucky he did, because when the dragon sneezed, the flames only singed George’s bum a bit, and he only got a little bit of snotty slime on his trousers. 

George ran back up the stairs as fast as he could. At the top, he didn’t even stop to collect his wheelbarrow. He just ran straight past it, out of the tree and into the forest. 

“He’s going to eat me!” screamed George at the top of his voice as he ran. “I’m going to be eaten by a dragon, and I’ll never see home again.” (Which was quite silly, because, as everyone knows, dragons only eat girls.)

And then George started to cry. Which was a pity, because he was still running. It’s very difficult to see when your eyes are full of water. And that’s why George tripped over a branch.

***

When George woke up, he was lying in a little wooden bed. But he wasn’t at home. In fact, he had no idea where he was. He looked around. The wooden bed was in a wooden room with wooden walls, a wooden floor and a wooden ceiling. On the opposite wall, a small fire was burning in a grate (which wasn’t made of wood).

In the far corner was a small tree. And sitting in the tree was a large, multicoloured bird. The bird look looked at George curiously. 

“Hello”, said George.

“Hello”, said the bird. 

“I don’t know where I am”, said George. “But this must be a very magical place.”

“Very magical”, repeated the bird. 

“It’s a pity birds can’t talk”, said George. 

The bird leant its head to one side and regarded him. “Such a pity. Such a pity”, it said. 

A touch on George’s shoulder made him jump, almost out of his skin. He turned his head to see that an old lady had entered the room and was standing beside him.

“Didn’t you hear me come in?”, asked the old lady kindly. But of course, George hadn’t.

“Where am I?”, asked George loudly. “I was in a tree, and I went down some steps and bumped into a dragon that tried to eat me.” (Well, a story isn’t really a story without a little exaggeration.)

 The old lady smiled and put a finger to George’s lips. “Everything is ok now”, she said. “I’m Mafwyn. “What’s your name?”

“I fell over a branch and I don’t remember after that”, said George.

“That’s a very long name”, laughed Mafwyn. “Do you mind if I shorten it a bit and just call you, “Ifell?Now”, she smiled, “Would Ifell like something to eat?”

“I left my potatoes in the tree”, said George, looking suddenly concerned.

“That’s ok”, laughed Mafwyn, “I’ve got plenty of potatoes, if that’s what you’d like.” 

And she left the room. When she came back, she was carrying a tray. On the tray was a plate. And on the plate was a huge baked potato, dripping with butter, and beside it, a big pile of juicy baked beans. 

George was still talking. It was as though he’d not heard the old lady leave the room, which of course we both know, he hadn’t. 

Mafwyn put the tray on his lap. “Ooh, thank you”, said George. “But I don’t really like potatoes. I like beans though”, and he tucked into those.

Mafwyn sat on a chair beside the bed, pulled her glasses down her nose and looked at George very closely over the top of them as he ate. “Hm”, she said, more to herself than to George. 

George continued to talk. In between mouthfuls of beans (which he somehow managed to get all over the blanket and all over his hands) he told Mafwyn about his life in Wot. He talked about his wheelbarrow, the blackboard in the kitchen and his mother’s life as a postwoman. It was a very busy job; with lots of angry letters to deliver. (And lots of letters of apology too – though not as many as there should have been.)

George talked for an hour. Most of that time Mafwyn just sat by his bed and listened. Occasionally, she asked George a question, but of course, he ignored those. “Hm”, she said to herself again. 

Eventually, she took George’s empty tray away - it seemed George did like potatoes after all – leaving him alone with the strange bird in the corner.

“This is very strange”, remarked George.

“Most peculiar, most peculiar”, agreed the bird.

After a short while, Mafwyn returned with a notebook and pencil. She opened the notebook at the first page and showed it to George. 

On it, in very neat handwriting, she had written:

My name is Mafwyn. Can you hear me?

George took the notebook and pencil from her and wrote a note back in his own very best handwriting. It said: 

Hello, my name is George. I can’t hear you because I don’t have any ears.

When Mafwyn read the note, she threw her head back and laughed, which seemed to George a very unkind thing to do. Well, it's not nice to laugh at people who don’t have any ears is it? Not nice at all. Yet, still Mafwyn laughed. She laughed so hard that she fell off her chair. Which George thought served her right. 

Mafwyn pulled herself off the floor and back onto the chair. Taking the notepad again, she wrote:

What are these?

George read the note and looked at her. Mafwyn was pointing at the ears on the side of her head. George thought the old lady must be very silly, because everyone in Wot knew what those were. So, he took the notebook again, and wrote carefully: 

Those are Sidewinders.

Mafwyn wrote back: 

And, what are sidewinders for?

George felt very sorry for this funny old lady, who must never have been to school, because, surely everyone knew what sidewinders were for. But he wrote a long and careful note explaining:

Sidewinders are passages that let thoughts into your brain. They have little flaps and ridges to keep the thoughts in and to stop them falling out of your head. But sometimes they still fall out, especially if you sleep on your side. And then you forget things.

When the old lady read the note, she fell off her chair for a second time, and laughed so hard that tears rolled down her face. 

George wasn’t sure if he’d upset her, or if she’d hurt herself. He clambered out of bed to help the old lady back into her chair. But she didn’t seem hurt; in fact, she seemed very happy. 

Eventually, she took back the pencil and notebook. She studied George, tapping the little pencil on her lips, as he returned to talking about life in Wot.  

“Hm”, she said, again. “I think I know what to do.” And she took the pencil from her mouth. 

Turning to a new page in the notebook she drew a picture of a very delicious looking cupcake, with lots of cream and what looked like a cherry on the top. 

She showed it to George. “Ooh, that looks yummy!”, said George, forgetting entirely the meal he’d just eaten.

Mafwyn wrote in the book:

Would you like one? It’s a gobstopper cake.

“Oh yes please!” shouted George. “I love cakes! Especially cakes that look like this.” And he pointed at Mafywn’s drawing excitedly. And then, just to make sure she’d understood, he took the pencil back and wrote in big letters next to the drawing: YES PLEASE.

“Very well, I shall get you one”, said Mafwyn smiling. “And, perhaps”, she added to herself, as she got up from the chair, “A nice glass of Tuning Juice too.” 

Once more she left the room, leaving George to talk to the bird. The bird, however, seemed to be bored. It picked up a tiny bird-sized newspaper, opened it, and turned its back on George. But that didn’t stop George talking.

After another short period, Mafwyn returned. This time she was carrying a cake on a small plate in one hand and a glass of bright green juice in the other. 

If I’m going to tell the truth, and I always should, the cake didn’t look quite as nice as the one in the picture. It was a little bit lopsided and the cream had slumped and dribbled all down the side. Most peculiarly, the cherry on the top was not a cherry at all, but a large blobby sweet, as big as a ping pong ball! But, even the cake didn’t look exactly like the picture Mafwyn had drawn, still it looked delicious. 

But before she handed him the cake, Mafwyn gave George the strange drink. He took it disappointedly and sipped it. It wasn’t very nice. But neither was it very horrible. 

George worried that if he didn’t drink the strange juice, Mafwyn might be upset. And then she might not give him the cake. So, he drank the strange liquid down as quickly as he could, glug, glug, glug, and handed the empty glass back to Mafwyn.

The old lady chuckled with delight and passed him the cake. Now it was George’s turn to be happy. He took the cake eagerly and bit into the soft sponge. “Yummy”, he said.

He took another bite, and another. Chewing noisily, but we won’t dwell on that, he ate the sponge all the way around the strange sweet first. And then he bit off the bottom of the cake, leaving the sweet and most of the cream until the very end. Isn’t that the way all cakes should be eaten?

Only when almost all of the sponge was gone, did he stretch his mouth open really, really wide and pop the huge sweet and cream in all at once. 

Suddenly, he wished he hadn’t done that. The sweet was very hard to chew. Not only that, but it was really, really sticky. Really sticky. Very soon, George’s teeth were stuck entirely together! He couldn’t open his mouth! Which meant of course that, for the first time since this story began, George couldn’t speak!

But George’s head was still full of thinking! ‘What is happening?’, he thought.  ‘Why can’t I open my mouth? What was that sweet? Why is Mafwyn smiling? Why isn’t she helping? …’

And then, just as suddenly, another strange thing happened. Pop! All the thoughts that filled his head with noise... well, they just vanished. 

George had never heard silence before. Very few of us have. 

Mafwyn clapped her hands with pleasure. “Finally!”, she said. George nearly jumped out of his skin! “What was that?” For he had heard something.

Mafwyn took the notebook and the pencil from her pocket and quickly wrote a new note in it, which she showed to George:

Those things on the side of your head are ears. And now that your gob is securely stoppered and your head is tuned, I can show you how to use them. Would you like to learn?

George looked at the old lady carefully. He was very uncertain, but then he remembered that he was in a magical forest. And if magic was going to happen anywhere, it was probably most likely to happen in a magical forest. 

Gosh, he thought, Mafwyn must be a witch. But not, he thought, one of the ugly, wrinkly, dangerous sort. (Which, now I come to think of it, was a strange thing to think because Mafwyn had, after all, just glued his mouth together. And, when I think about it some more, she wasn't very pretty. She was, in fact, very wrinkly and had a long, hooked and warty, nose. But perhaps George was cleverer than he seemed.)

George took the notebook and pencil and wrote:

Yes, I think I would like to learn.

And so, the old lady started to talk. Slowly and carefully, she spoke about her life in the woods, of the magical bird in the corner that was given to her by the last wizard of Hoo and of her loneliness when she had no-one to listen to. 

At first, George couldn’t make sense of the sounds, as he had never heard them before. They were strange notes that skipped high and sank low, that jumped and stopped, ran fast and slow. But guess what? After a little while, he started to hear Mafwyn’s words, and the tunes they played in the air, such was the strength of the old lady’s magic. 

George grinned widely, hardly noticing that the gobstopper had un-stoppered, and his mouth was open again. 

“I can hear you!”, he gasped.

“You always could”, said Mafwyn, smiling. “It’s just that no-one ever showed you how.”

George and Mafwyn talked long into the night after that. In fact, they talked long past George’s bedtime, but we won’t dwell on that. 

And George learned such things! He learned, how Mafwyn had saved the tiny Tamborini people of Wen. And he learnt that the bird in the corner was called Burt. And that it was one of the wisest birds in the whole land. 

“Could have told you that”, muttered the bird, who was still reading its newspaper. (It was a very long newspaper.)

The next morning, as George prepared to leave the little wooden house, Mafwyn shared another lesson with him, and two special gifts. 

First the lesson: “What do you think you need, to be able to listen? she asked George.

George pointed immediately to his ears and smiled. But the old lady shook her head.

“No”, she said. “Even people without ears can listen. They hear through their lips, or through touch.” She looked at him with gentle eyes. “You only need two things to listen”, she said. “Your heart, and a desire to learn.”

George didn’t quite understand, but he thought that perhaps one day he might, or that his parent's might.

And now it was time for the gifts. 

The first gift that Mafwyn gave George was a new wheelbarrow. But this one was not filled with firewood. Oh no. It was filled to the brim with Gobstopper cakes for the people of Wot. 

Which is how Wot became a quieter place full of very clever people who were generally known to each other by their real names. A place where confusion about things like potatoes and lightbulbs hardly ever happened and where George often successfully completed his errands. Unless, of course, he forgot to do them because he was busy playing with his pet spiders, Dangle and Mangle. But no child is completely perfect, not even the blue ones with newly discovered ears.

What do you think Mafwyn’s second gift was?

Why, a map of course! How else do you think George found his way home in a land without mobile phones!