Pip's Great Adventure - a story book in progress

Pip was a small boy. His real name was Philip but his friends called him Pip because it’s a shortened form of that name and because he was little like a pip. Now because he wasn’t a very tall lad he often got picked on and this made him want to become big in other ways so he could really show everyone. Pip was sick of getting pushed around by the bigger kids in school so he decided that he wanted to grow up and really make a name for himself in the world.

Pip spent a lot of time thinking about ways to accomplish this. He fancied becoming a famous explorer perhaps and maybe climbing mountains or investigating jungles unkown. He tended to live in a world of his own and was a dreamer. Dreams are of course where everything begins. Dreams are like seeds because from them all sorts of amazing things can grow. And of course a pip is a seed, the seed of an apple, and his name was Pip. Pip was waiting just like a seed does for the right circumstances to really come to life.

One night our Pip had a very strange dream and this book is all about it. So now let us join him in the magical land he discovered.

Pip was being guided into a large room by an invisible presence that opened the door and ushered him in. He saw blue walls and in front of the topmost of these right by the doorway there were wooden shelf-units that went right across the room but were divided into sections. In each of these there were shelves and on each shelf he could see towers made up of four or five rabbits sitting one on top of the other.

Now these rabbits were mainly big and fluffy and looked like cuddly toys and they were in all sorts of colours. There was a huge Canary yellow one as well as pink and blue and pale green rabbits. There were white ones and grey ones and black ones and natural brown-furred rabbits and all of them were just sat there calmly looking down on the floor or the room.

Pip had never seen anything like this and asked his invisible companion about the strange room. But first he wanted to know who she was because he had the idea that whoever he was with it was a lady.

“I am the Great Mother,” was the reply, “and for now that is all you need to know, but I will tell you that you cannot see me because I am in everything and you know it is impossible to see the whole world at once.”

That made some sort of sense to Pip but what he was seeing didn’t. Besides all the rabbits on two of the shelves were two creatures that stood out as the odd ones out. One of these was a prickly hedgehog, sandwiched between two rabbits. Pip thought that the rabbits were so fat and fluffy that they didn’t get hurt by the little animals’ spines.

On another shelf at the top of the small tower of rabbits was a tiny dark-coloured man. He had a flat-brimmed hat on and his body appeared to be a reel of black or navy cotton if you looked closely. At that point Pip heard the Great Mother’s voice again. “And this is Matt the Hat,” she announced.

The tiny man’s body really was made up of a cotton reel and the thread could be unravelled or wound back up just like on a normal reel. This he could do with the aid of his little arms. It was obvious why he was called “the Hat” but Pip was wondering what the strange little person ate, and what the rabbits and hedgehog had for food as well.

It was then that he noticed several loaves of brown bread on the floor and some broken pieces of bread, just like you might throw down for the hungry birds on a garden lawn. Some of the rabbits were tucking into the bread. It wasn’t the usual sort of food these animals usually lived on and Pip was wondering how it got there and why everything seemed so very strange and not how things should be.

As if she had somehow read his mind, Great Mother then said: “You see, Pip, in this place everything is as it is, and that is all you need to know to understand it.”

Then she added: “I can see you are puzzled by the loaves on the floor, well, haven’t you heard the song Bread of Heaven?” Pip hadn’t but at that point he could suddenly hear what sounded like a full choir singing “Bread of heaven, bread of heaven, feed them till they want no more, want no more.”

The song faded out just as suddenly as it had begun and Pip was left thinking that although that explained what all the rabbits lived on, it did not explain how the food got there. “I see,” he said, “but how does it get here?”

“Why, from Heaven of course,” came the answer. It was then that Matt the Hat jumped down from the shelf he was on and said in a squeaky voice: “Let me show you where it is from.” With that the little man ran to the huge open bay windows at the other end of the room, which was where the light flooded in.

Pip followed him and found that the windows served as doors as he stepped out on to a lawn of a well-tended garden. There were borders full of the most glorious flowers of all the colours of the rainbow, a rose garden and tall trees that cast their shadows.

“This is where it comes from every day,” said Matt the Hat. “It comes down from the sky above and is left as a special gift on the grassy lawns.” Saying this he bade goodbye and the little man went back inside the house.

Pip thought it was a very beautiful garden but was still wondering how the bread actually got there. Once again the Great Mother had clearly been reading his mind and he heard her say: “An angel brings it down. Haven’t you heard about the manna in the Bible that God fed the Israelites with? It is a bit like that. It is a divine gift.”

“Yes,” replied Pip, “I have heard about that story, but I am still confused. I am wondering how it gets into the house where all the rabbits are, or do they have to come out and get it?”

The Great Mother went on to explain that it was the Hedgehog’s job to collect the loaves of bread. He managed to get them up the path and into the room by pushing them along with his little snout. The bread came to no harm this way, and any crumbs that fell off the birds came down and feasted on.

Hedgehogs always go out at night and so it was here. The Hedgehog in question went out as soon as it got dark and spent the hours of darkness seeking out slugs and snails and other hedgehog food but on his way back he always came upon the bread that had been left on the lawn. He knew what his duty was and pushed it along and over the ground until it was back in the room where the rabbits were waiting for it. The Angel who brought it had always gone by the time he found the loaves so no one really knew what she looked like but it was believed that she was radiantly beautiful.

Now Pip, as already mentioned in this story, had always wanted to be an explorer and he realised he was actually exploring now. But it wasn’t how he had seen himself though. This wasn’t the sort of adventure he had dreamed of but an adventure it was all the same. The garden looked wonderful but he wanted to know what else was in the house. After all it was where this strange experience had all began and he was wondering how he was ever going to get home again, and what would his mother and family would be thinking when they found out he had gone?

Pip made his way back into the room but as soon as he stepped inside he saw that everything had changed. The rabbits, Matt the Hat and the Hedgehog were all back on the shelves but now a spiral staircase came down into the centre of the room and the door he had first come into the place by had somehow mysteriously vanished.

“What’s up the stairs?” Pip asked, in the hope someone in the room would tell him. “It is different for everyone that goes up there,” Matt the Hat answered. “You'll have to go there to find out,” he added.

To be continued...

Copyright © 2011 Steve Andrews. All Rights Reserved.