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Fancy Nancy and the Bathroom Plant
Ruth Craft
Fancy Nancy was hanging onto the pushchair when her mother crashed into a post box.
Smelly Baby bawled and all the shopping fell into the road. The cereal box broke. And the eggs broke. Fancy Nanncy's mother got the cereal mixed up with the ty-oken eggs and Fancy Nancy tried to help.
"Oh dear!" said her mother.
"It could happen to anyone!" said. Fancy Nancy.
Fancy Nancy opened the new box of tissues and her n other found the new kitchen roll and they tried to cean each other up. Smelly Baby kept on bawling.
"Would the little girl like to come inside and wash
hands?" said a kind lady who was
leaning over her front fence and watching them.
"I'll get cornflakes all over your taps!" said Fancy
ancy. But the lady said she didn't mind and Fancy .Yancy went into her house. She went up the stairs which were very quiet and clean and into the bathroom.
The bathroom had rose-coloured wallpaper and a soft cream carpet. All the towels were folded into neat oblongs on shiny brass rails. The towels looked fluffy
and soft and were exactly the same colour as the
wallpaper. Soft, dry rose-coloured face cloths were
folded beside them.
There was no nappy bucket.
 There were no bashed up yoghurt pots or margarine
tubs.
There was no big jar of baby cream standing on the
side of the bath or shaving cream or toothpaste or
shampoo or plastic mugs on the shelf near the wash
basin.
"I just can't get them to grow," said her father.
"I mean, look at that!" said her mother and she pointed to a dull, small plant in a big pot on the windowsill.
"It wasn't like that when I bought it. It's got smaller and smaller and duller and duller."
"Oh," said Fancy Nancy.
The next morning Fancy Nancy was getting a carrot for her lunch from the vegetable
basket when she
noticed an old potato sprouting pale cream roots.
"Now that has possibilities," said Fancy Nancy and she put the sprouting potato into a jar of water and carried it to the bathroom windowsill. Fancy Nancy watched and waited. The sprouts turned green but nothing much else happened. She watched and waited some more.
"This is not a great success," said Fancy Nancy.
The next day, Fancy Nancy was watching Mr and Mrs Higgins, the neighbours, cutting branches off their big beech tree. The leaves were thick and green and shiny.
"May I have some of those branches please, Mrs Higgins?" asked Fancy Nancy.
 Fancy Nancy took the green branches into her house and lugged them upstairs to the bathroom. Her mother was washing nappies and her father was taking clean nappies off the line that hung over the bath and folding them up and putting them in the hot cupboard. Her mother and father stopped what they were doing and looked at Fancy Nancy and the branches of beech leaves.
"I suppose you want to fix your branches to the nappy line," said her mother.
"For just a few days," said her father.
"That's exactly right!" said Fancy Nancy looking very pleased.
Fancy Nancy helped her father and mother tie the green branches to the nappy line and they hauled the line up so that it swung over the bath.
That night, Smelly Baby and Fancy Nancy had their bath together. Smelly Baby played with his bashed up, old yoghurt pots and margarine tubs.
Fancy Nancy lay on her back in the warm soapy water and looked up into the green shiny leaves.
"Jumping Jehoshaphat!" said Fancy Nancy. "Now that is remarkable!"
 
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