A CHRISTMAS EAR-NOZ
WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED
BY
ANDREA FRAZER
Author’s note to parents: If some of the words in this book are unfamiliar to your children, just simplify them, for the story is the same. The Ear-Noz will be having a new ‘Mischief’ Adventure for every special family event in the year.
A Christmas Ear-Noz
by
Andrea Frazer
Copyright 2011 by Andrea Frazer
Smashwords Edition
These stories are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Andrea Frazer.
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This e-book is licensed for your enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
CHAPTER ONE
THE EAR-NOZ LEARNS ALL ABOUT CHRISTMAS
Mischief Planned
It was nearly Christmas, and in the Barraclough household, Daniel and Emma were getting very excited. So was the Ear-Noz - he didn’t know what a Christmas was, let alone what he would be able to do with it, when it arrived. At first, he had wondered if it was an interesting furry thing, like Tiddles the cat, from next door. Then he wondered if Christmas was something yummy he could eat.
He spent long hours in his wardrobe home, trying to imagine what could make everyone in the household so excited. Even Mrs Barraclough was whizzing around cooking and baking and going shopping, sometimes twice a day. And Mr Barraclough kept saying he would have to go up into the loft and get the Christmas ‘things’ down. Whatever could these be?
One day, he couldn’t stand it anymore, and plucked up the courage to ask Emma what this ‘Christmas’ that they were all so busy preparing for, was.
“Oh, you poor old Ear-Noz! Don’t you even know about Christmas? Have you never had a Christmas before?”
“Silly old Ear-Noz!” called Daniel. “Doesn’t know what Christmas is. Doesn’t know what Christmas is,” he began to chant, dancing round the house to his singing.
“Don’t be so mean, Daniel!” called Mrs Barraclough, their mother, from the kitchen, where she was baking mince pies for the freezer. We never had Christmas together, because Grandma and Grandpa Millar might see him, and I didn’t want him or me to get into trouble, so he always spent a few days in the attic playing, until it was all over, didn’t you Ear-Noz, dear?”
“Cnmeufigikdjnskdofjgmenkk!”
“Ydjkfhe!” “Yes!” said the Ear-Noz. “Pygieokbfhdmvjjdn?” Is Christmas good? Is it fun?”
“Yes,yes,yes!” shouted Emma, in her excitement. “It’s the most marvellous, fabulous, fantastic, magical time of the year. You’ll love it!”
“You get to sing Christmas carols and send cards,” called Mrs Barraclough.
“You get to have a Christmas tree in the house, and decorate it with tinsel and baubles and twinkling lights,” said Emma.
“And you get presents!” added Daniel, a typical boy.
“And we have a lovely Christmas dinner, with turkey and roast potatoes and Christmas pudding and custard, and they’re mine pies and sausage rolls,” added Mrs Barraclough, always the cook, entering the living room, wiping her hands on her apron. “You’ll love it, Ear-Noz, and the children can explain it all to you, while I get this place tidied up. Off you go to your room, or your father won’t recognise the house when he gets home from work.
So Emma and Daniel took the Ear-Noz up to their room and started telling him all about the fabulous time that was Christmas.
“First, we practise our Christmas carols, because we all get round the piano on Christmas Day to sing them, and Mum plays the piano.”
“Wwshjenlkskorjgjksjhrolwemkd?” “What’s a Christmas carol?” asked the Ear-Noz, his one big eye screwed up in puzzlement.
“It’s a song all about Christmas ….. Don’t worry, we’ll teach you some. Then we put the decorations up, and then we put the Christmas tree in the living room, and decorate it.”
“Chrilkgldkssglmmyinas?” “You have a tree in the living room?” squeaked the Ear-Noz, looking up to see how high the ceilings were in the house. “Asmdnok!” “A tree?!”
“Yes, Ear-Noz, but it’s a very special tree, and it won’t be too big, I promise you.”
“Then on Christmas Day we get our presents!!!” That was Daniel, always with an eye to the main chance.
“We get presents from Father Christmas, who comes on Christmas Eve and fills the stockings at the bottom of our bed, then, when we get up, the Christmas tree has lots of presents for us to open from all our family and friends. It’s soooo exciting!” Trilled Emma, as thrilled as her brother, but not sounding quite so greedy.
“WhsmdjkcCjaejhrPjk?” “What’s a Christmas present?” asked the Ear-Noz, now getting quite interested, as the children were so excited. Whatever Christmas was, it must be pretty good.
There was so much to explain, that the children sat him down on the bed, and spent a good two hours telling about all the wonderful things that would happen in the next few days. As they spoke, the Ear-Noz’s eye began to twinkle, his spikey hair stood up straighter and straighter, and his ears began to turn pink with excitement.
His Ear-Noz brain was whirling with thoughts, and he couldn’t wait to get involved, and make all the Barracloughs Christmassy things even brighter and better then they had ever been before. He knew he could do it! It would just take some working out.
Mischief - The First
The Ear-Noz discovered a very unexpected talent when they sang him some Christmas carols. He found that, if he squoozed in his nostrils very tight, he could produce a buzzing sound that was just like the sound of a kazoo. If he then concentrated hard enough, he could make this buzzing noise into tunes, and copy the children as they sang.
“Bzz bzzbzz bzz bz bzzbzzbzzbzzbzz,” he buzzed, and Emma clapped her hands with delight.
“Ear-Noz, that’s brilliant! That’s O Little Town of Bethlehem, isn’t it?”
“Wdxsjf!” “Yes.”
“Can you do anymore?” she asked, realising how much attention he must have paid, when they were singing.
“Bzz bzz bzz bzz, bzzbzz bzzbzz, bzzbzzbzzbzz bzzbzz bzz,” he buzzed, and the children looked puzzled for a moment. That wasn’t one of the tune’s they’d been singing.
“Whatever was that?” asked Daniel, realising he knew the tune, but couldn’t place it as a Christmas carol.
“Sdnsmfd!” “Slade!” explained the Ear-Noz. “Smdnfjmenjkdlgkjjd,” “So, here it is, Merry Christmas, everybody’s having fun,” he buzzed in their heads. “Hkdjskdjgkmcnvxvsfnmg.” “Heard it on the radio this morning, he told them.
“But, that’s not a carol! I can’t see us singing that round the piano,” said Daniel, in disapproval.
Poof!
The Ear-Noz had gone.
“I expect you’ve upset him now,” said ~Emma. “He was trying his best, you know. You can’t expect him to know the difference between a Christmas carol and a pop song, just like that, can you? He was jolly clever to pick out the word ‘Christmas’ in the song, and learn it so quickly.”
“Oh, shut up!” said Daniel, turning sulky now. “I didn’t think, did I?”
But there wasn’t time for them to start an argument, because at that moment, there was a hair-raising scream from downstairs, a splashy-bangy sound, and then shrieks of laughter and Ear-Noz’s squeals of amusement mingled together.
“What, in the name of Christopher Columbus, is going on?” cried Daniel, as the two children headed out of the bedroom and down the stairs.
When the Ear-Noz had disappeared from their bedroom, he was feeling a little cross that his efforts had not been appreciated. He liked the song he’d sung them, and what was more, he was going to sing it again - and to someone who would really appreciate it, this time.
Creeping quietly into the kitchen, he saw Mrs Barraclough stirring something in a big brown bowl with a wooden spoon, stopping to add some white powdery stuff now and again, then resuming her stirring. This was the perfect audience for his debut as a Christmas singer, and he filled his nostrils with air, squoozed them up as tight as he could, and buzzed,
“Bzz bzz bzz bzz, bzzbzz bzzbzz bzzbzzbzzbzz bzzbzz bzzz!”
Mrs Barraclough screamed, throwing her big brown bowl up into the air, in her surprise. As the Ear-Noz finished his singing, he watched the bowl, which seemed to hover in the air in slow motion, then turn right over and slowly, oh so very slowly, shed its load of gloopy cake mixture, right on to Mrs Barraclough’s head, the kitchen table and the floor. Some of the dollops even reached the Ear-Noz, and stuck to his noz and ears and hair.
When Emma and Daniel skidded into the kitchen, they could not believe their eyes. There stood their mother and the Ear-Noz, both covered in gloopy cake mixture, and both shaking with laughter.
Golly! She must love the Ear-Noz very much. If they’d done that, they would have been grounded until they were at least a hundred!
Mischief - The Second
Later, when all the mess was cleared up, and Mrs Barraclough and the Ear-Noz had both had a bath (But not together. Ear-Noz’s are very shy creatures when it came to baths, but that’s probably because they chew the loofah and sniff up the bubble bath, so they can blow bubbles down their nozez.), their mum explained to them that she did love the Ear-Noz, but not more than she loved them.
If they had made her jump when she was baking, they would have been grounded, but only for ninety-nine years, not a hundred. The reason she was so lenient with the Ear-Noz, was because he’d never had a Christmas before, and there were a lot of things he didn’t know.