Professor Puddle and the Enormous Word Machine

In the wonderfully wobbly town of Gigglewood, Professor Puddle loved two things.

Big, fancy words. And even bigger, fancier inventions.

One morning, he flung open his workshop door. “Friends! Come and see my MAGNUM OPUS!”

“Your what-us?” said Wiggles the worm, who was gently suspicious of most things.

“Magnum opus,” beamed the Professor. “It means my greatest, grandest work ever!”

In the middle of the room stood a whirring machine covered in levers, dials, and blinking bulbs.

A big sign read: THE ENORMOUS WORD MACHINE.

Benny Bumblebug buzzed in circles. “What does it DO, Professor? What does it DO?”

“Observe!” said Professor Puddle. “Speak any enormous word into the funnel, pull the lever, and the machine makes that word COME TRUE—for exactly one minute!”

Tilly Turtle blinked slowly. “Is that… entirely safe?”

“Perfectly, mostly, probably!” said the Professor. “Allow me to DEMONSTRATE.”

He leaned into the funnel. “AROMA!” he said, and pulled the lever.

KA-CHUNKA-WHIRR! POOF!

Suddenly the whole room filled with the smell of warm cinnamon buns.

“Mmmm,” said Molly Mushroom, sniffing. “What’s aroma?”

“Aroma,” said the Professor grandly, “is a lovely, noticeable SMELL. And there it is!”

For one minute, the workshop smelled delicious. Then—pop—the aroma was gone.

“Marvellous!” said the Professor. “Now observe ‘LUMINOUS’—it means glowing with light!”

He whispered it into the funnel and pulled the lever, and POOF—his own nose lit up like a tiny lamp. Glow!

“Luminous!” laughed Molly. “Your nose is a nightlight!”

Pop. The glow winked out.

“Remember,” said the Professor, “a word only lasts one minute. So whatever happens—do NOT panic!”

“One minute,” repeated Tilly. “That seems a wise thing to remember.”

“Ooh, ooh, my turn!” buzzed Benny, who never, ever waited.

Before anyone could stop him, he zoomed to the funnel.

“GIGANTIC!” Benny shouted, and yanked the lever with all his might.

KA-CHUNKA-WHIRR-WHIRR-WHIRRRR!

Benny began to GROW.

Bigger. And BIGGER. And BIGGGGER.

Soon Benny Bumblebug was the size of a HOUSE, filling the whole workshop.

“WHOA!” boomed Benny, in a voice like thunder. “WHAT HAPPENED?”

“Gigantic,” squeaked Professor Puddle from under Benny’s enormous foot, “means… ah… ENORMOUSLY, HUGELY big!”

“I can see that!” boomed Benny, accidentally knocking over a shelf. CRASH.

For one whole minute the friends scrambled out of the way of the gigantic, apologetic bumblebug.

“Sorry! SORRY!” Benny boomed, tiptoeing like a giant. THUD. THUD. THUD.

Then—pop!—Benny shrank back to his normal, tiny, buzzy self.

“Well,” said Wiggles flatly, “I feel very glad I didn’t say ‘volcano.’”

But the machine was not finished.

All that lever-yanking had jammed its dials. The bulbs blinked wildly.

WHIRR-CLANK-BLEEP! The funnel began sucking up words all by itself!

It gulped a word from the Professor’s dictionary: “VELOCITY!”

ZOOM! Suddenly poor Wiggles was zipping around the room at top speed.

“WAAAH!” cried Wiggles, whizzing past. “WHY AM I SO FAAAST?”

“Velocity means SPEED!” called the Professor. “How fast something moves!”

“I DON’T LIKE VELOCITYYY!” wailed Wiggles, looping the loop.

After a minute—pop—Wiggles flopped down, dizzy but slow again.

The machine gulped another word. “CAMOUFLAGE!”

POOF! Tilly Turtle’s shell turned the exact colours of the wall behind her.

She vanished! Well—almost.

“Where’s Tilly?” gasped Molly.

“Right here,” said Tilly calmly, perfectly blended into the bricks. “Camouflage means hiding by matching what’s around you. Some animals really do this, you know.”

“Fascinating!” said Professor Puddle. “Also—we must switch this off before it says something DREADFUL!”

But the machine gulped again. “TRANSPARENT!”

POOF! Little Molly Mushroom turned as clear as glass—you could see right through her!

“Whoa!” said Benny, waving a hand behind her. “I can see the wall THROUGH you!”

“Transparent means see-through,” giggled Molly, staring at her own clear hands. “Like a window—or clean water!”

Pop! Molly turned solid and mushroomy again.

Still the machine wasn’t finished. It gulped once more. “SIMULTANEOUS!”

And all at once—at the very same moment—every single friend hiccupped.

HIC! HIC! HIC! HIC! HIC!

“Simultaneous,” wheezed the Professor between hiccups, “means happening at the exact same time!”

Five friends, five hiccups, all together. HIC!

After a minute, the hiccups popped away, and everyone gasped for breath.

The machine rumbled. Its funnel opened wide, ready to gulp the biggest, wildest word of all.

“Quick!” cried the Professor. “The OFF switch is on the very top, but I can’t reach it!”

Everyone looked at the machine. It was too tall for the Professor.

Too fast for slow Tilly. Too high for little Molly.

“We’ll never do it alone,” fretted Molly.

“Then we shan’t do it alone,” said Tilly wisely. “We shall COLLABORATE.”

“Colla-what-o-rate?” said Benny.

“Collaborate,” said Tilly. “It means to work TOGETHER, each doing our part.”

So they made a plan, all of them at once.

“Benny,” said Tilly, “you be our lookout and tell us when it’s about to gulp.”

“Wiggles, you’re long and bendy—you make the ladder.”

“Molly, you’re light—you climb.”

“Professor, you steady the machine. And I—” said Tilly, “—will camouflage no more, and hold the ladder tight.”

“What about me?” squeaked little Molly.

“You, brave Molly, have the most important job of all,” said Tilly. “You reach the switch. We will hold you safe.”

Molly gulped. Then she nodded. If her friends believed in her, she could do it.

The machine hummed louder. Its funnel yawned open.

“It’s about to gulp!” buzzed Benny. “GO, GO, GO!”

Wiggles stretched himself into a long, wiggly ladder.

Molly Mushroom scrambled up, up, up, holding on tight.

The Professor braced the wobbling machine. Tilly held the base like a rock.

At the very top, Molly reached out one small mushroom-hand…

and PRESSED the big red OFF switch.

CLICK. WHIRRRR… bloop… bloop… silence.

The Enormous Word Machine powered down at last.

The friends cheered and tumbled into a happy, giggly heap.

“We did it!” cried Molly. “TOGETHER!”

“We COLLABORATED,” corrected Tilly with a small smile.

“Collaborated,” everyone repeated proudly. It felt good to say.

Professor Puddle wiped his brow. “Well! That was more EXCITEMENT than I intended.”

“Professor,” said Wiggles, still a little dizzy, “maybe put a lock on that thing.”

“An excellent idea,” said the Professor. “But you know… we DID learn some magnificent new words today.”

And they had.

Aroma. Gigantic. Velocity. Camouflage. Collaborate. Magnum opus.

“Big words aren’t scary at all,” said Molly. “They’re like little tools. Once you know what they mean, you get to USE them!”

“Precisely,” beamed Professor Puddle. “A big word is just a small idea wearing a fancy hat.”

That evening, the friends walked home through Gigglewood, trying out their new words.

“What a GIGANTIC sunset,” said Benny.

“It has a lovely AROMA of flowers,” said Molly.

“Let’s COLLABORATE on dinner,” said Tilly.

“The pond looks TRANSPARENT tonight,” said Wiggles, peering in.

“And we all yawned SIMULTANEOUSLY,” laughed Molly—and, all at once, everyone yawned.

And Wiggles, who was suspicious of most things but not of his friends, smiled.

“That,” he said, “was a magnum opus of a day.”