One of Dan’s favorite places to explore is Merrytime Stream, which turns off from the River Gurgleglug about half a mile west of Horsmarlonerpool, and then runs past Mr Harry’s watermill (where it pushes against the paddles which turns the big wheel and helps grind the corn or roll the paper or spin the thread) and then it continues through Alex’s pond and ends up in Bubbleyuk Swamp.
Merrytime Stream is fun because although it starts wide and fast enough to power a watermill, if you follow it inland it soon becomes narrow enough to jump over with a really big leap, and slow enough to stand in on a hot day - or sail big sticks in and pretend they’re ships.
And on top of that, there are so many animals to be found living along the banks. Water voles, otters, stoats. Even a weasel called Wilbur. And what’s more there are little islands about the size of car where the stream splits in two around, and which you can jump on to and call your own kingdom.
Dan could spend the whole day playing in and around Merrytime Stream, and not even notice the sun setting.
But on this particular day, the sun had barely risen when Dan got to the stream. It was a lovely warm day, but yesterday they’d been a rain storm which meant that even more water than normal had rushed down Lomberstack Mountain and into the River Gurgleglug. And that meant that even more water than normal had been pushed off to the side into Merrytime Stream.
It was rushing and swirling and bubbling past Mr Harry’s water mill, and even where it got slower and narrower inland, it was still surging and spinning around rocks, and flowing happily past the little islands.
Dan spent about an hour finding the biggest sticks he could and throwing them in to see how quickly they’d be pushed downstream. More and more sticks got thrown in, some of them so large they were really branches and not sticks, until he got bored of throwing and decided to walk down toward’s Alex’s pond.
But half way there, he noticed that the stream had begun to form a new pond. All his sticks and branches had clogged up one of the little routes around one small island, and the water couldn’t get through. This gave Dan a brainwave!
“Let’s build a dam,” he said to himself, and began rushing around collecting as many pieces of wood that he could find on the riverbank or in the nearby trees.
“Beavers make dams,” Dan muttered to himself as he dragged a huge log over to the stream and pushed it in. “I’m going to build a dam better than any beaver, ever.”
But despite how many sticks or logs he put in to Merrytime Stream, the water still found a way of getting through eventually, and after two hours the pond hadn’t got much bigger and Dan was hungry. He decided to go home.
But after he’d left, lots of little bits of wood and leaves that flowed quite naturally down the stream - especially after a storm - began to find themselves getting trapped in all the sticks and logs that dan had placed in the two waterways around the island. And the more that got lodged there, the denser and thicker the barricade became, and that meant that even more little sticks and leaves got trapped in it.
In their burrow in the riverbank, Mary the water vole had just got home and greeted her husband, Derek the water vole, and their five young pups. “The water is getting higher and higher out there,” she said. “I’m sure of it, Derek.”
“Well,” said Derek. “There was a storm. It’s bound to.”
But that night, as Dan slept soundly in his bed, all the sticks and leaves that had got caught in the two blockades around the island had formed walls so thick that now they really were dams. Better dams that even beavers could make. And slowly, the water in the new pond rose. And it rose towards the entrance to the water voles’ burrow.
Mary the vole woke about an hour later as the first dribbles of water started tricking down from the entrance and into their snug burrow. “Derek,” she called. “Wake up! We’re being flooded.”
And before disaster struck, Mary and Derek had carried their five young pups up the tunnel out of the burrow (which already had water flowing down it freely now) and into the night air. “We could all have drowned,” said Derek. “Beavers wouldn’t be so silly as to build a dam here. So what’s going on?”
When Dan arrived back at Merrytime Stream the next morning his mouth dropped open. The new pond had flooded over the sides of the riverbank and all the animals were rushing around in a panic - many of their burrows were now completely underwater.
Dan got on his walkie-talkie and called his sister, Jennifer. “I’ve made a huge mistake,” he shouted. “I think I’ve flooded Merrytime Stream!”
Jennifer used her walkie-talkie to call her friends Eilidh and Elliot, who were both very good architects which meant they were very good at solving problems.
Jennifer, Eilidh and Elliot arrived at Merrytime Stream on their bikes less than ten minutes later and took in the scene. There were lots of birds: two Spoonbills, five herons, nine kingfishers and even an Egyptian Goose, flapping about in a panic. And the mammals: the water voles, the stoats, the otters and Wilbur the weasel, were all dashing about in alarm.
“Oh, Dan!” said Jennifer.
“I didn’t mean it!” cried Dan. “I was playing!
Eilidh rushed down the riverbank to Alex’s pond to find her friend Alex the alligator, who swum back with her and began BITING at one of the dams to try and dislodge it. Meanwhile, Elliot had a very clever idea and rushed to find Mr Harry at his watermill and ask if he had a long length of rope. They both attached it to the water wheel outside the mill and then Elliot ran and looped it over one of the dams, and as the wheel turned it pulled and pulled against the trapped sticks and logs. And slowly, it began to move.
But then everyone heard the sound of engines, and racing down the stream from the River Gurgleglug came the Bubbleyuk Racers on their swamp machines. They jumped over the two dams with a roar, bouncing off them and smashing them up. And together, with Alex the alligator biting, and the water wheel turning, and the Bubbleyuk Racers zooming and crushing and jumping, the two dams gave way and the pond emptied out past the over the island with a surge.
As the water level quickly dropped, animals like Mary and Derek and their pups scurried back into the burrow and started pawing all the water out. And by lunchtime, everything had returned to normal.
“Dan,” said Jennifer as they sat in Mr Harry’s water mill with Eilidh and Elliot enjoying a nice lunch that Mr Harry had kindly made.
“The next time you want to build a dam, shall we just do it in the sand pit at home? I mean, that way at least you won’t make any animals homeless.”
Dan was cross. “But I, I didn’t mean to…” But then he fell quiet, looked at his sister, and Eilidh and Elliot, and said “Alright.”
Slowly, everyone began to giggle. The sandpit would be best for Dan! Even Dan couldn’t cause trouble in a sandpit! And you know what happens to giggles? They become laughs! And soon, everyone was having the silliest, funnest lunch that they could remember.
