Frank France lived under a broken floor, in a broken house, in the middle of a field.
His morning was spent mostly sleeping until he cared to wake up. Usually he was awakened by his rumbling tummy. It didn’t take long to satisfy his hunger as there was an abundance of fruit trees, raspberry bushes and grass to chew on whenever it took his fancy.
After a breakfast of raspberries, he had a mid-
One particular morning, it wasn’t his tummy that woke him up. It was a frighteningly loud noise that filled the house. There was hammering and banging and other horrible noises that kept him from coming out.
He peeked out and saw men in yellow hats hammering nails into wood, ripping doors off and making a terrible mess.
Frank France decided to run into the garden to escape the noise. Except it was even worse in the garden! A huge yellow thing with an arm and bucket on the end of it was digging up the grass and mud and making a huge horrible mess as well as a huge horrible noise.
All he could do was to sneak back under the floor and hope the noise might stop soon. He waited and waited for what seemed like forever, until the noise eventually stopped completely.
He tucked himself into bed and fell asleep immediately.
The next morning he woke up to the same terrible noise. Hammering and banging by the men in yellow hats and the yellow monster outside making a terrible mess and a terrible noise.
Frank France felt he should complain as loudly as he could. He was angry enough and brave enough to pop his head out from the floor boards. But just next to him, and looking the other way, was the biggest, hairiest angriest dog he had ever seen in his entire life. It had huge, white, sharp teeth in a dribbling mouth. He quickly popped his head in before the dog could notice him.
As the days passed, poor Frank France just didn’t know what to do. He feared he would have to leave the house altogether. This made him very unhappy. He decided, for now, that he would stay with Harry in the daytime and go back home at night, when the noise had gone.
Things got even worse when one day, as he got back, the crack in the floor had gone, so he couldn’t even get into his little home.
“We have to do something about this”, said Harry, to a very unhappy looking Frank France.
“Yes, but what?”
“What if we ask Big Boo to help us?”
Big Boo was a friendly gorilla, whose favourite game was to sneak up on his friends and shout BOOOOOO!!
He would never hurt a fly, and was really very friendly, but he could perhaps solve a problem for Frank France.
The only problem was, Big Boo lived quite far away, and it would take them at least a day to get to him. He lived in the deep, dark wood on the other side of the river, which was a very long walk away.
Big Boo opened the door to welcome them -
That evening, Frank France, Big Boo and Harry sat round a campfire, deep in the forest, and amongst much giggling and chuckling, hatched a plan.
The next morning, after a very big breakfast, Big Boo packed all that he would need, and they set off early.
They got back in time to put their plan into action.
“RIGHT, HERE WE ARE THEN!” Said Big Boo loudly, as he emptied his bag full of dressing-
Big Boo put on a very long white wig, big white pants and some goggles. Harry put on a white cycle helmet, and wrapped a white sheet around himself. He cut holes in the sheet so he could see.
Little Frank France put a large coat on, which he had painted completely black. He also painted his face black, and had pretend big teeth and a pretend extra long tail to make him look like a big, horrible, scary Rat.
They waited -
The next morning, the workmen turned up as normal, and made a terrible noise all day – as normal.
As it got to the end of the day, and they were packing up to leave, Frank France, Harry and Big Boo burst out of the cupboard under the stair and screamed at the tops of there voices…
BOOOOO!!!! AAAAAARH!!!! OOOOOOH!!!...
as they ran around the room, smashing into things and making the biggest noise ever.
The workmen ran out of the house shouting HELLLP!! GHOSTS!! HELLLLLP!!
The dog flew out of the window, yelping at the top of his voice with its tail between its legs.
When the workmen had completely gone, Frank France, Harry and Big Boo fell about laughing as loudly as they had ever done.
“I don’t think they’ll come back in a hurry” said Harry, laughing.
© H Marrocco 2010 “Frank France” Children’s Story Time
The End