The
book is set in an average kind of nursery. The main characters are
all 4 years old so are in the room for children aged 3-5 years old.
There are staff who are sometimes seen: They are stressed out wrecks
with wild hair and dizzy eyes that have seen many many terrible
things.
Page
1
Alice
was playing busily in Happy Bunnies Nursery when her friends Greg and
Chuck rushed up to her.
Alice
is tinkering with an extremely complicated machine.
“It's
terrible! It's a disaster!” Said Chuck. Chuck said that about most
things.
“Or
it might all be fine!” Suggested Greg.
Page
2
“Have
you heard the news?” asked Chuck. “Next week We're getting a new
Manager to run the nursery!”
“The
old one wasn't well.” Added Greg. “Lots of little pains in the
neck apparently.”
Alice
looked annoyed.
“How
come none of the grown ups have told us about it yet?” She said.
“Just like that lot.”
Page
3
“And
we've just got the teachers trained” Said Alice.
We
see the staff behind Alice. 3 staff huddled together in the corner
of the room, clutching mugs of coffee and looking stressed out.
Page
4
“I've
heard she's got some funny ideas” Said Chuck.
“Princess
used to go to her old place.” Said Greg. “Said it was too weird
for her.”
“Hmm...”
Replied Alice. “I suppose we'll just have to wait until Monday and
see if we want to keep her.”
We
see the 3 children talking and Princess in the background. Princess
is a girl in the frilliest pink princess outfit, with heeled play
shoes and tiara.
Pages
5&6
A
double page spread of the new look nursery. Captioned: Monday. The
room is divided into 2 halves: A pink half for girls and a non-pink
half for boys, with the toys on their stereotypical sides and pink or
non-pink whenever possible. The children are in the foreground
looking at their new Head Teacher.
Mrs
Marigold Monkey-Fright Looks very stern and old fashioned. She wears
rather large glasses and gives the appearance of somebody who once
smiled, but didn't like it much so sees no point in doing it again.
The
new Head Teacher spoke loudly: “My name is Mrs Marigold
Monkey-Fright. From now on the girls will play with proper girls toys
made for little ladies. Girls things must be pink, and ideally fluffy
with bows and pictures of fairies or princesses on. Boys can play
with everything else.”
“Any
child playing on the wrong side of the room will be punished! You
children have to know your place!!!!”
Page
7
Alice
wanders through the pink half of the room looking at the equipment.
Alice
looked around the girls side of the room and didn't like what she
saw.
“A
pink chair I can understand, but a pink house with pink walls and
roof and doors?”
“A
pink elephant?!”
“There's
even a pink globe with pink sea! That's ridiculous!”
Page
8
Alice
stands on the edge of the pink area and looks at the boy's toys.
Tiny, a small girl is crying.
Then
Alice looked at the boy's side of the room and started getting angry.
“Girls
get pink with maybe a bit of purple and white, while the boys get
blue, green, red, yellow, brown, black, orange... They've even got
elephants that are elephant coloured!”
“And
she took Mr Wubbles away because I touched something blue!” Said
Tiny, crying.
Page
9
Alice,
Greg and chuck meet at the join of the 2 sides. Alice is red with
anger.
“I'm
not having this.” said Alice turning red, meaning she was
technically on the wrong side of the room.
“Agreed”
Said Greg. “The new Head Teacher will have to go.”
“But
why did she think it was a good idea?” Asked Alice.
“You
could try asking the Wise One. He's on the climbing frame.”
Suggested Chuck.
“Good
idea.” Said Alice, and off she went.
Page
10
Alice
is going to see the Wise One in the garden when she meets Princess.
Behind them we can see the climbing frame with the Wise One just
visible at the top.
“Hello
Princess.” Said Alice as they met in the garden, which was still
unchanged by the new Head Teacher. “You must be pretty happy now
everything's turned pink.”
“Not
really.” Said Princess. “I wear pink because I like pink. I don't
want to be made to have just pink stuff. I was going to
be a Princess tyrannosaurs today and everybody knows that Princess
tyrannosauruses are green.”
Princess
thought for a second and added “Maybe I should sneak into the boy's
bit and wear the tyrannosaurus outfit so I can eat Mrs
Monkey-Fright?”
“I'm
going to see the Wise One about her.” Said Alice. “Maybe keep
that idea as Plan B.”
Pages
11 & 12.
Alice
has just climbed up the climbing frame to see the Wise One. The
climbing frame has become slightly mountain-like with wisps of cloud
passing underneath them both. The wise one sits cross-legged and
looks serene as he answers Alice's question.
After
many hours of hard climbing, Alice reached the top of the Wise One's
mountain.
“Have
you heard what's going on?” She asked.
“Yes.
I hear everything.” Replied the Wise One.
“So
why” asked Alice, “Does Mrs Monkey-Fright think all girls should
only have pink stuff?”
“Grown
ups are fascinating things.” Began the Wise One. “They can drive
cars, work computers, build rockets, get things out of high
cupboards, but there's one thing you need to remember about grown
ups.”
“What?!”
Asked Alice.
“No
matter how clever and sensible they are normally, they can still
sometime behave like complete twits!” Said the Wise One. “Pink is
just a colour, and toys are just toys. Anybody can play with
anything.”
“Hmmm...”
Said Alice. “I think we should have a meeting. Usual place.”
Page
13
Lots
of the children gather for the secret meeting in the play house,
though it looks a bit like an board room. There is Chuck, Alice,
Greg, Princess, the Wise One, Puddles, and a few others. There are
plans and diagrams all around.
“So
she has to go.” said Alice. “That's been decided. The suggestions
so far are: Scare her away, get her eaten by dinosaurs, or my plan.”
“Your
plan!” Agreed everyone.
“We'll
need a distraction to let me get into the office. ” Said Alice.
“Leave
that to me.” Volunteered Puddles.
Page
14
Most
Head Teachers like to sleep in their office all day, between tea
breaks, and Mrs Marigold Monkey-Fright was no exception. When she was
spotted through the office window the plan was put into action.
Alice
tiptoed past the guards as Puddles did her thing.
Puddles
makes a puddle under herself. The 3 members of staff crowd round her
as Alice sneaks past their backs. We can see the door of the office
area behind them all.
Page
15
In
the hallway outside the office there were boxes of children's things
that were confiscated after their owners had been caught breaking the
rules. Mr Wubbles the bear, Quack the duck, Lumpy the...whatever
Lumpy was, a box of blankets, and a whole pile of dummies.
Page
16
Alice
was as quiet as a mouse in slippers when she crept up to the sleeping
Head Teacher, who had taken off her glasses while she slept.
The
plan was put into action...
Alice
reaches out towards the sleeping teacher's glasses.
Page
17
A
little later on all the children were playing in the nursery room,
waiting for the fun to begin.
“I
think eaten by dinosaurs would have been better.” Said Princess.
“And they're endangered now so they need all the teachers they can
eat.”
Page
18
Mrs
Monkey-Fright's glasses are coated in see-through green paint.
Mrs
Marigold Monkey-Fright came rushing out of her office.
“Everything's
gone green! I can only see green!!!!” She screamed. “Green
furniture, green children, green toys! Aaaaaarghhh!!!!”
Tiny
held on to Mr Wubbles tightly and smiled.
Page
19 & 20
A
double page spread of the nursery room as seen through Mrs
Monkey-Fright's glasses.
“Green,
GREEN, GREEN!” Shouted the head teacher. “If I can't see
whether things are pink or not how will I be able tell what things
boys and girls can use?! There'll be girls playing with brown things!
BROWN! And boys with PINK
toys!
She
then screamed at the top of her voice and ran around panicking for
ages until she tired herself out.
Page
21
Alice
takes Mrs Monkey-Fright by the hand.
“Never
mind Mrs Monkey-Fright” Said Alice calmly. “Does it really matter
if boys and girls play with whatever colour they want?”
“But
how will they know if they're a boy or a girl?” Said the Head
Teacher meekly.
Alice
smiled and told her “They'll
know themselves. And when everybody is able to play with anything
that they want to, it doesn't really matter if they're boys or girls!
Now go have a cup of tea and everything will be alright.
Page
22
Captioned
“Next Week.” The nursery has bee changed back to normal. Greg,
Chuck, Princess and Alice are talking and playing. Princess has
another pink princess dress on, but also a monster mask and tiara.
“I'm
glad everything is back to normal.” Said Greg.
“And
that new Head Teacher Mrs Bumslide seems nice enough.” Said Chuck.
“Muph-gmuff-bram-buff?”
Asked Princess Monster.
“Mrs
Monkey-Fright? She's settled in nicely as one of our regular
teachers.” Alice replied, “Grown ups are useful...”
Pages
23 & 24
“...they
just have to know their place.”
We
see the 3 staff once again huddled shambolically at the side of the
room. Mrs Monkey-Fright has joined them looking as stressed out as
them and tightly hugging a teddy bear that looks a bit like Mr
Wubbles.
