Saturday 29 December 2012

Further adventures of Marty and Gillian the motorcycling giraffes, story 8 Marty and Gillian's wonderful new years adventure


The further adventures of Marty and Gillian the motorcycling giraffes.

Story 8 Marty and Gillian’s wonderful New Years Eve adventure

Marty and Gillian are motorcycling giraffes who live in the big Kenyan city of Nairobi. Marty has a job working for his good friend Peter Ngono as a window cleaner’s assistant, while Gillian works with Peter’s wife Gloria running a stall selling fruit smoothies.

But what Marty and Gillian really like to do is to whizz around on their motorcycles and have lots of adventures.

As it is new years even Marty had finished his work early but Gillian had not started work yet, as she and Gloria are going to set up their stall in Uhuru Park ( a big park in the centre of Nairobi) and work all night selling smoothies to the crowd that will gather there to celebrate the new year arriving.

As well as Gillian and Gloria working at Uhuru Park, Marty and Gillian other friends, Peter, Victor (the trainee window cleaner), Emmanuelle (a farmer) and Moira (Emmanuelle’s girlfriend) will all be joining them at Uhuru Park later to join in with the celebrations.

Marty had agreed to go along with Gillian to help set up the stall because Gloria and Gillian wanted to put a big banner reading

“lovely smoothies kwa ajili ya kuuza”   (“Lovely cool smoothies for sale”)

High above their stall and of course Marty and Gillian are very useful when you need something put up high, as they can reach the top of the poles to the banner up with ease.

So after Marty had a quick wash and freshen up, they set of for Uhuru Park, Marty leading the way on his very fast motorcycle and Gillian following behind on her little pink motor scooter.

It didn’t take Mary and Gillian long before they reached Uhuru Park and found Gloria standing beside Peter’s van giving Peter instructions as where to put all smoothies’ equipment and boxes of fruit that he was unloading form the van.

Gloria can't help Peter carry the heavy boxes as she is expecting their first baby and is now quite heavily pregnant.

Peter and Marty helped Gillian and Gloria set the stall up and then Gloria took one end of the banner in her teeth and Marty took the other, Peter then pulled himself up Marty’s neck and sat on his head so he could tie that end of the banner to the tall pole an them Marty leaned across to the Gillian’s side so Peter could tie that one too,

“Oooh be careful up there” shouted Gloria

“Hakuna matata” laughed Peter “I spend most of my working day sat on Marty’s head to clean the windows on the tall buildings in Nairobi and I have never fallen off yet”

Once the banner was up the four friends stood back to admire their handiwork

“The stall is looking good, this should help to attract a lot of customer, we will be busy tonight” said Gloria

“Well you be careful and don’t work too hard” replied Peter “you have to take care of yourself and our little baby, it wont be long now before he or she makes an appearance”.

“Oh don’t fuss, I’ll be fine” smiled Gloria.

Peter then told the other that he has to go back to his window cleaning yard to some work in his office and that he see them all later on that night.

Marty decided to stay in Uhuru Park and wait for the others to arrive.

“Be sure your back before midnight to see the New Year in” he said to Peter.

 
“I will be” replied Peter before giving Gloria a kiss goodbye and jumping into his van and driving off

 
It didn’t take long for quite a big crowd to start gathering in Uhuru Park for the new years festivities and Gloria and Gillian were soon very busy selling there lovely cold smoothies to the thirsty revellers.


Marty decided to leave Gloria and Gillian to get along with running their stall and went off for a wander around the park to see what other fun things were taking place.

After a little while Gillian noticed that Gloria wasn’t looking too well.

“Gloria, are you okay?” asked Gillian

“No, I don’t feel to well and I am getting some pains in my tummy” replied Gloria

“Well you had better sit down and take a rest, you have probably over done it today, leave the stall to me for a while”

“But we are too busy, you can’t run the stall on your own” replied Gloria before letting out a load groan and almost bending double in pain.

“Gillian, Gillian, I think the baby is coming early” gasped Gloria, “you need to get Peter to take to the hospital”

“I will get Marty to go for Peter, he rides that motorcycle so fast it wont take him  long to get to Peter’s yard”

Gillian looked around the park and could clearly see Marty in the distance as his head and neck was sticking out way above the crowd, but with musicians playing, people dancing and children running around, the park was very noisy and no matter how loud Gillian shouted she couldn’t make Marty hear her.

“Oooh Hurry up please Gillian” groaned Gloria.

Gillian then had an idea and she bent down and pick up a mango from the box of fruit that was waiting to be made into smoothies, and with one mighty swing of her neck she threw the mango high into the sky.

The mango flew through the air above the head of the crowd and landed with a mighty thud against the back of Marty’s head

“Ouch! Who threw that?” said Marty with a very cross look on his face.

He looked around to see Gillian frantically beckoning him to come over.

Marty realised something must be wrong so he quickly ran across to the smoothie stall, making the crowd of people scatter out of the way, as they didn’t want to be kicked by a large giraffe.

“What’s the matter?” he gasped as he arrived at the stall

“Gloria is having her baby you must go and get Peter quick” said Gillian “Oh and the go to Emmanuelle’s farm and get Moira, I am going to need some help on the stall tonight”

“Oooh please hurry Marty, I need to get to the hospital”. Groaned Gloria.

Marty jumped on to his motorcycle and weaved his way through the crowd out of the park on to road, where he pulled back his throttle and accelerated at great pace and was soon whizzing through Nairobi’s busy streets.

At the windows cleaners’ yard Marty didn’t bother to get off his motorcycle instead he just shouted as loud as he could at Peter

“You have to get back to the park and get Gloria to the hospital the baby is coming!!”

Peter stood there looking stunned

“Haya! haraka haraka” (!Come on hurry hurry!”) shouted Marty and Peter snapped himself together and grabbed! his keys and headed toward his van, Marty turned his motorcycle round and shot off to fetch Emmanuelle and Moira.

Back in the park a big queue of people wanting smoothies was gathering at the stall as Gillian was struggling to serve them all on her own and look after Gloria at the same time.

“I wish Peter and Marty would hurry up and come back” sobbed Gloria

“They will be here soon” soothed Gillian.

The all of sudden a loud beeping of a horn was heart and Gillian looked around to see Peter’s van slowly making its way through the crowd flanked by Marty on his motorcycle on one side and Emmanuelle and Moira on Emmanuelle’s  motorcycle on the other side.

“They’re here they’re here” shouted Gillian

Peter parked the van and jumped out at and ran to Gloria

“Oh my love, are you ok?” he said giving Gloria a big hug and a kiss.

“Yes but we have to get the hospital quickly” replied Gloria

Gillian and Moira helped Gloria into the van and made Peter promise to look after her and to phone them as soon as there was news”

“Bahati nzuri” (“Good luck”) they al shouted as Peter and Gloria drove away.

“Its going to be a long evening waiting to hear any news” sighed Gillian before she went back to serving the queue of thirsty party goers at the smoothies stall.

“We will soon get the queue down with two of us working together “smiled Moira.

Later in the evening Victor (the trainee window cleaner) joined the others in the park to enjoy the new years festivities, but what they al really wanted was to hear some news form Peter and Gloria.

As the time was nearing midnight the crowd fell silent as one of the announcers from one of main stages in the park started the count one down

10, 9, 8

With that a text message came through to Emmanuelle’s phone which he read out to the others excitedly

“Baby Martina Jilly Ngono born at 11:50 pm Mother and baby doing great”

“Yippee a baby girl” shouted Gillian and Moira

And with that the announcer shouted “midnight! Heri ya mwaka mpya” (“happy new year”) and with a big bang, spectacular fireworks started to fill the night sky

“Well” said Gillian to Marty “that was an exciting end to an exciting year”

“Yes” replied Marty “and I bet 2013 will bring a lot more exciting adventures for

 
Marty and Gillian the motorcycling giraffes

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