Twenty Uses For A Useless Sombraro
1. For months, the beach donkey had been wearing the old hat over his ears - But the sombraro had worn thin in places and become frayed at the edges - only to be thrown on the compost heaps along with all the other vegetable scraps. The useless sombraro was lay on the grass in the garden catching raindrops.
2. He was feeling quite rejected but refused to be told he was no good. A passing sparrow stopped off for a chirpy chat - he tried to buck up the useless sombraro's spirits by devising a number of ways in which the unemployed sombraro may find work. He dipped his beak down and took a sip of the cool waters - fluttering his wings and bathing in the sunlight rainbow. "A bird bath !", he cried.
3. Eventually seeds were sprinkled in the sombraro and flowers grew - restoring the sombraro to it's previous multi - coloured glamour - "Aahhh ! At last - a plant pot !".
4. The sombraro eventually ended up in a jumble sale - where a young boy bought it for thruppence and used it in his den as a lampshade. It stopped the flies from getting at his picnic and gradually gathered cobwebs.
5. The boy flung the sombraro out of the window - it flew across the garden and was reported as an unidentified flying object.
6. The sombraro landed on a roof, next to a chimney and was used as a television aerial over the next few months - bringing the news to the family of magpies in the garden. Electricity burned a hole in the sombraro, through which smoke from the chimney poured out.
7. A snowstorm forced the sombraro off the roof - it slid onto a passing milk cart - and was rattled with milk bottles and taken back to the dairy where the sombraro was used as a pot in which to make cheese. It was sold with a pound of cheddar cheese to a large and very hungry mouse.
8. The mouse nibbled the cheese, but wasn't at all interested in the sombraro - placing it on top of the bin for the refuse collectors to take away. They did - the sombraro was a very handy mascot for their football trip to Spain the following week (that was until it was left at the airport on the return journey).
9. The sombraro then turned up in the lost and found. It was used in the railway restaurant as a waste paper bin and collected bits of paper during the following months.
10. A small mouse, abandoned in the railway station, found the sombraro and tugged it to one side. He made the sombraro a very snug and warm home in the corner - lining it with leaves and bits of old litter. It sheltered him from the rain and winds, as well as hiding him from the feet of the passengers who scurried past on their way to work in the city.
© Jacqueline Richards 2005