Jemima Jones and the Great Bear Adventure by Joanne Macgregor

Author:Joanne Macgregor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Jemima Jones and the Great Bear Adventure
ISBN: 9781920532048
Publisher: Penguin Random House South Africa
Published: 2011-09-13T00:00:00+00:00

Disaster!

It felt so good to press that button that Jemima wanted to press it again, but under her hands she could already feel a sliding, grating vibration, as if the silver spout had opened. She felt the fur in her hands puff up a bit, and knew that the stuffing was beginning to pour into the fur. But it was happening very slowly. The fur had filled up much quicker when the woman had been operating the machine.

“Hurry!” urged Ravi.

Jemima quickly looked to the back of the shop. The adults were still grouped around Sabita, who was now wailing very loudly. At any moment, the woman might look up and catch her working the machine.

Jemima wished there was some way to speed up the stuffing process – this was taking too long! Then she remembered the foot pedal. Wouldn’t that make the machine go faster, just like the pedal in her mother’s car made the car go faster?

Casting another quick look over to the back of the shop, Jemima stretched out her left leg and tried to push down the pedal with the toe of her foot. But the pedal was too far away for her short legs. She slid her leg as far as it would go and stretched her toe out in a point which would have delighted Miss Jiette, her ballet teacher, but still she could not reach the pedal.

“Help!” she whispered to Ravi. He scampered over to the pedal and pushed down on it with his foot. Nothing happened.

“Harder!” hissed Jemima urgently.

Ravi pushed down harder, but the pedal moved down only a little bit. “It’s too tight,” Ravi said, his black eyes glittering with a mixture of excitement and fear.

“Stamp on it!” urged Jemima.

Instead, Ravi took five steps backwards, away from the pedal.

“What are you –?” began Jemima.

Ravi ran the few steps up to the pedal and sprang up into the air, jumping down hard on the pedal with both feet. With a loud clack, the pedal moved all the way down to the floor and a great spurt of fluff poured into the bear.

“Yes!” said Jemima and Ravi together.

More and more fluff streamed into the bear fur. It was filling up rapidly. Soon its snout and legs and stubby tail were firm with stuffing and its belly was swelling up.

“Okay,” whispered Jemima, “I think that’s enough. You can get off the pedal now.”

The bear was stuffed rigidly. Its legs stuck out stiffly in four different directions, and its red mouth had started to pop inside out. It looked rather horrible with the red gums and tongue bulging out. But still more and more stuffing was pouring into the fur.

“I said stop!” cried Jemima, turning to look from the ballooning bear to Ravi.

The first thing Jemima noticed was that his eyes were staring straight back at her, round and wide with panic. The second thing she noticed was that Ravi was no longer standing on the pedal. The third thing she noticed was that the pedal was still pressed flat to the floor.

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