Fork Tale

A Fork Tale

This tale, dear Reader, starts in a little brick bungalow, brimming, for the moment, with the racous sounds of life from the Button family.

"Bill! Bill!" Brenda boomed through the backdoor. "Call the others to get ready for supper."

"Aw Mum! Why is it always me?" Bill appeared from behind the compost heap, dirt smeared across the bridge of his nose and over his blue boots.

"Cos you're the oldest that's why! And less of your babbling young man! Go on! Hop to it!"

"I wish they'd all just fork off." Bill grumbled under his breath as he headed off to round up his wayward siblings. "I wish they'd forking be forked and fork right off!" he whispered, stomping off across the field.

You must understand, dear reader, that even the quietest whisper can be heard by magic ears if the whispers sound like wishes.

Bill searched. Betsy and Burt were not in the bushes, nor in the barn, eventually Bill located his wayward siblings across the babbling brook, covered in even more mud than he was.

"You'd better clean that mud off before your Mother sees you!" Brian Button observed to his three children as they bumbled up the path bickering.

"Yes Pa." Bill, Betsy and Burt sighed in unison.

Betsy turned to her brothers, cheekily. She took two big steps forward and kicked off. "Race you!" she blurted as she streaked ahead.

"Not fair!" Burt blustered, taking off after Betsy.

Bill beamed as he broke into a sprint, beating his siblings to the outside sink.

Maybe they weren't so bad after all, Bill mused.

As Betsy, Burt and Bill set about laying the table, Brian sipped his beer and belched with a benevolent smile, watching his blossoming family.

"There's not enough forks!" Burt exclaimed. "There's only three here!"

"Of course there are, they must have just missed the washing up!" Brenda replied to her youngest. "All of you, get up and search."

First Bill looked, then Betsy, but they could not locate the missing utensils. Even Brian joined the search, but to no avail.

"Well!" Brenda exclaimed, "Bill and Betsy, you will just have to eat with spoons!"

"Aw Mum! Why me!" Bill and Betsy bemoaned in unison.

"Because you're both the oldest! Now stop your babbling. Anyway they have to turn up, they're my Great Aunt's best silver."

"You mean the Wicked Witch of the West?"

"Shhh! Hush Bill! You never know who'll hear you!"

Soon after, the Button family settled down to eat their fill of beefburgers, broccoli and beans in relative peace. The eldest siblings making do with spoons.

"Ouch! Bill!" Betsy wailed as she finished off her Banoffee pie.

"What!? I havn't done nothing!" Bill bemoaned.

"Well actually that means you did do something son!" Brian helpfully added. "You see what you said was..." Brian blathered into incoherent sounds that even I, dear reader, am too bored to write down.

"It hurts!" Betsy wailed clutching her bottom.

"Here, let me see." Brenda took pity and pulled her distraught daughter aside.
"What did you do, Bill?"

"NOTHING!!" Bill boomed slamming down his spoon.

Brenda took Betsy to the bedroom to look at Betsy's behind. On Betsy's left buttock she found a line of four small red dots.