Every summer, the Horsmarlonerpool fete is held in the Meadows, next to Bluebell Wood.
There are rides and games, and also competitions: Like, who can build the best castle out of hay bales? And, who’s got a pet or a farm animal that can do the best trick?
But this year, there was a new competition: Who could make the biggest bubbles?
You could bring your own bubble mixture, and your own equipment, and just about do whatever you liked to make the biggest bubble possible.
Noel and his friend Vaila had been thinking about it for a few days. Vaila had had the idea of using hula hoops to make the biggest bubbles, but then she’d made an extra big hula hoop about as wide as a car and as round as a train tunnel. At the same time, Noel had been working on special bubble mixture which needed to be very powerful and very strong to not break in the huge hula hoop.
But after several days of experimenting, Vaila and Noel had still not made it work. At the very last minute, just as they were getting ready to leave for the fete, Noel tipped a couple of extra ingredients into their bucket of bubble mixture: Some baking powder and three pieces of bubble gum.
“But what will they do?” asked Vaila.
“I don’t know. I’m just making it up,” said Noel. “But we know our mixture isn’t working - anything’s worth a try, or we’ll look silly.”
“We’ll look silly putting bubble gum and baking power in our mixture,” said Vaila. “Oh, never mind. Let’s just go.”
At the fete, which was so busy it felt like everyone from town was there, Vaila and Noel found the site for the bubble blowing. They put their names down, and waited to be called. Lots of other people were already blowing really big bubbles, and the watching crowd were applauding happily, so Vaila began to feel a little nervous.
“We’re going to look foolish,” she said to Noel. “Ours doesn’t work. We needed more time for testing.”
But before Noel could answer, Mr Bibbin the newsagent - who was in charge of the bubble blowing - called out through his microphone for “Vaila and Noel.”
They both walked in to the middle of the grassy space, and Vaila bolted together all the parts of their two huge hula hoops, whilst Noel unfolded a large plastic sheet and began covering it with the new bubble mixture.
The crowd watched on excitedly. They’d certainly never seen such huge hula hoops…
Vaila laid the first hula hoop in to the wet and slippery plastic sheet and handed it to Noel. Then, she did the same with her own hula hoop and stood a little way away to give them both room.
“Okay,” said Vaila to Noel. “Go!”
They both spun around, holding their hula hoops out, and as the air began to travel through the hoops two huge bubbles began to form!
“It’s working!” Thought Vaila!
They spun faster and faster until all they could see all around them was a wall of soapy bubbles that glistened like a rainbow. But then they both felt… weightless. They were drifting upwards! They were both being carried upwards inside their own bubbles!
“Oh, wait a minute…” thought Vaila, as she looked down at the fete below, and then over at Noel in his bubble floating alongside.
The bubblegum that Noel had added to the mixture made it very strong indeed, and Vaila found she could walk about inside her bubble and make it spin. And this seemed to change the way it travelled in the air.
Soon, both Vaila and Noel’s bubbles had floated far away from the fete and were drifting over the town. Vaila could see her house far below, and waved at Noel in his bubble to walk as quickly as he could in that direction.
Both bubbles spun and spun and floated down perfectly in to Vaila’s garden where her two cats, Pearl and Ocean, were so shocked and surprised at these two huge shiny objects coming down into their kingdom that they sprung up at them with their claws out and - popped them!
Now, Vaila and Noel stood, wet through with sticky bubble potion, laughing with relief!
“We MUST have won the contest with those two bubbles,” screamed Noel.
Vaila was cuddling Pearl and Ocean to make sure they knew everything was safe and said “Yes - but wait! The contest will be being judged any minute! If we don’t get back we’ll miss it!”
“Wait there!” said Noel, and ran around to his house - collected a fresh pot of bubble mixture (remembering to add extra baking power and SIX pieces of bubble gum before he left) and rushed it back to Vaila’s garden. There, they both stood together, and dipped one hula hoop into the mixture and spun it around, creating a bubble so big that it lifted them both, and Pearl and Ocean, up out of the garden and into the air.
But as they climbed higher, the two cats were so scared at suddenly flying that they scrambled around in Vaila’s arms.
“Hold on to them!” said Noel, realising that if Pearl and Ocean jumped down and scratched the bubble with their claws, it would pop and they’d all be sent falling back to Earth!
Vaila soothed her cats with calm words as they both ran inside the bubble to make it spin in the direction of the meadows.
A few minutes later, as Mr Bibbin stood on the stage with Mayor Dubbin to announce the winners of all the competitions, people started to point to the sky and turned to watch one huge bubble, with Vaila and Noel inside it, drift down and - with a swipe of Pearl’s claw - pop on the grass.
“The winner for best bubble,” said Mayor Dubbin. “Goes to… Vaila and Noel.”
“But tell me,” said the Mayor. “How does your bubble potion work?”
Vaila handed him a hula hoop covered with fresh bubble mixture and told him to spin. He did, and soon a perfect, rainbow coloured bubble formed all around him and began to lift him off the ground.
“No! Oh dear! Oh my giddy pants! I’m scared of heights!”
At that, Pearl and Ocean looked at each other and pounced.
A very damp Mayor Dubbin staggered back onto the stage and took the microphone.
“The winners of the pet with the best trick… This year, I award that to… Pearl and Ocean. For saving this old man from a very unpleasant journey indeed.”
