The further adventures of Marty and Gillian
the motorcycling giraffes
Story 11 Marty and
the dinosaur
As you will know by now, Marty is a giraffe who lives in
the big African city of Nairobi in Kenya
But what Marty likes to do best is to whizz around on his
motorcycle while looking out for adventures.
Marty and Gillian are sat in the garden of their little
house in Nairobi discussing how they
could tidy it up and make it look a lot nicer.
“We could build a garage at the one side, that we could
store our motorcycles in” Said Marty
“Yes and we could have a raised patio outside the back door
where we could sit in the evening” replied Gillian.
“Mmm yes and how about planting some acacia trees in the
corner then we can always have a snack of fresh leafs and twigs while sat in
the garden” stated Marty.
'Matumaini wewe!' Alicheka Gillian 'daima kufikiri ya tumbo
lako, wewe alikuwa bora kuangalia au wewe kuwa kama mafuta kama kiboko' (“Trust you!” Laughed Gillian “always
thinking of your stomach, you had better watch out or you will become as fat as
a hippopotamus”)
This made Marty laugh, “we should get Emmanuelle (Marty’s
friend the farmer) to design the garden as he is good at these things and the
rest of the gang to help” he said.
So a couple of days later, first thing t in the morning,
Emmanuelle turned up on his tractor pulling a trailer filled with the necessary
tools, equipment, a self build garage and two acacia trees.
Moira, Emmanuelle’s girlfriend had also come along to help
out and soon after Peter and his wife Gloria (and of course baby Martina-
Jilly) and Victor also turned up.
Emmanuelle took charge of the operation and soon had the
whole gang working hard on the garden.
First they flattened the ground closest to the house and laid
the foundations for the raised patio and as Emmanuelle and Victor worked on
laying the patio , Marty, Gillian , Peter and Moira started to dig away at the
ground to lower the far end of the
garden . Baby Martina-Jilly had woken up by now so Gloria was excused digging
to look after the little one.
Peter and Moira dug the ground and shovelled the spare earth
into a pair of large buckets that Gillian and Marty held in their mouths, then
like two large spotty cranes Marty and Gillian lifted the buckets up and
emptied the earth into the back of Emmanuelle’s truck
“I can make good use of that soil back at the farm”
commented Emmanuelle.
It wasn’t long before the patio was finished and the second
half of the garden was suitably lowered so that patio had a nice raised look
“That looks really good” stated Marty
“Yes just the pond to be dug and the garage to be put up and
we will be finished” replied Gillian with an excited squeal
“Well you have al been working so hard, I think you had
better take a break before starting the rest of the work” said Gloria who had
come out into the garden with a large plate of sandwiches that she had made up
and a big jug of her special ice cool fruit smoothies.
The friends all tucked into the sandwiches and smoothies
(except of course Marty and Gillian as they don’t eat sandwiches they helped
themselves to a large pile of twigs and leafs instead)
After their break the gang got back to work and soon had garage
put together and erected at one side of the garage and dug two large holes for
the acacia trees to be planted in
Marty poured two large buckets of water into the holes and
Emmanuelle and Peter gently placed the trees into place and firmed the ground
around them.
“These trees should grow big and strong and provide you with
plenty of your favourite food” said Emmanuelle
“Asnte sana” (“Thank you very much”) said Gillian “ but don’t let Marty stop work and start
munching before my pond has been dug out” this made everyone laugh.
Peter, Emmanuelle and Victor all then started digging a large hole for the pond, again lifting the
soil into a large bucket that Marty held in his teeth and every time it was
full he lifted it up and poured the soil out into the back of Emmanuelle’s
truck.
Meanwhile baby Martina- Jilly had woken up and Gloria, Moira
and Gillian were happily cuddling and playing with her.
It was hard and thirsty work digging in such a big hole in
the hot African sun but soon they were getting down to level where they could
pour in a concrete base for the pond, when Victor’s spade hit something hard
and round.
At first he though it was just a large stone but it was very
smooth and as he cleared the mud off it he realised it looked like a large egg.
“Look at this, it’s a bit odd” said Victor
Yes that is a bit strange” replied Peter “and look there are
several of them”
With a bit more digging they managed to unearth eight of
these strange large egg shaped rocks
After a lot of head scratching and different opinions of
what they might be, Peter said that he had a friend at the Nairobi Museum and
he would take the rocks there to find out what they are.
So Peter lifted the rocks into the back of the van and
headed off to the museum.
“Typical” said Victor “Peter always finds a way to leave the
hard work to us”
While Peter was gone Marty, Victor and Emmanuelle finished
digging the pond they poured the concrete base in and after a little wait, to
let the concrete dry (it dried quite quickly in the hot African sun), they
poured the water in to make a lovely pond.
'Oh bustani yangu inaonekana ajabu' alisema Gillian 'asante
sana, una kila kazi kwa bidii' (“Oh my
garden looks wonderful” said Gillian “thank you very much, you have all worked
so hard”)
“Hakuna matata” replied Emmanuelle “ni jambo jema daima
kusaidia marafiki” (it’s always good to help friends out”)
“Well when Peter gets back we are going to have a big
barbeque party to celebrate our garden being finished” said Marty.
A little later Peter arrived back from the museum in a very
excited mood.
“Those rocks were fossilised dinosaur eggs, and my friend is
going to display them at the museum”
“Wow dinosaur eggs that is fantastic” exclaimed Victor, and
they all agreed that it was a very exciting find.
The friends then relaxed in the newly landscaped garden and
ate a large meal of barbequed food all washed down with lots of Gloria and
Moira special fruit smoothies. Marty and Gillian of course just ate lots of
their favourite food, fresh twigs and leafs from their new acacia trees.
After a while Gloria told everyone that she and Peter will
have to go home to put Martina –Jilly to bed and everyone else agreed that they
were all feeling tired after such a hard days work and will be heading for
home.
“Kwaheri, asante sana kwa kazi ngumu yako yote” (goodbye
thank you very much for all your hard work”) shouted Marty and Gillian as they
waved their friends off.
“Time for bed I think Marty” said Gillian
“In a minute” mumbled Marty with his mouth full of acacia
twigs and leafs.
“You’ll make yourself sick eating so much so close to bed
time” scolded Gillian
As they were both very tired it wasn’t long before Marty and
Gillian drifted off into a deep sleep.
A few hours later Marty was woken up by a strange scrapping
and digging sound coming from his garden.
Marty couldn’t believe his eyes when he looked out of the
window, as there in his garden was a large dinosaur scraping at the ground.
The dinosaur spotted Marty at his window and stood straight
up and peered into the window, the dinosaur was as big as Marty’s house and had
a large mouth with very sharp looking teeth, Marty felt quite frightened.
“Where are my eggs gone” roared the dinosaur
“But they are just fossils now” gibbered Marty “they are
thousands of years old, my friend took them to the museum”
“What!!” roared the dinosaur “I want my eggs now” and
smashed his head through the window, shattering the glass everywhere and
sending Marty spinning back across the room landing on his bed sitting bolt
upright.
Marty was very scared but then he heard Gillian’s soothing
voice.
“Marty wake up your having a very bad dream, I told you
about eating so many twigs and leafs before bedtime”
“Bbbbbut the dinosaur” gibbered Marty
“It’s just a dream” said Gillian now go back to sleep and in
the morning we can see what new adventures there are for
Marty and Gillian the motorcycling griaffes
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