Excerpt
Bluey: Trains
1Dr. Glenda awoke to the rumbles of a large jumbo jet flying overhead. She rolled over to discover it was actually the heavy snores of her sleeping husband. Her two-year-old daughter Poppy, sleeping beside her like a little hot water bottle, had been wide awake for ages. She turned the pages of her picture book happily.
Dr. Glenda used to find getting out of bed hard. But she’d learned that the best thing to do was to just do it! If you started a debate in your head about the benefits of staying under the warm blanket all snug and cozy for “just another five minutes,” you might stay there forever. But these days, getting out of bed was no problem because it meant she got to go to her job, and Dr. Glenda
loved her job.
Her husband lay snoring away. His work was one of those works where you have to work at night. Dr. Glenda had one of those works you do during the day. She was a vet, and every day brought a new animal to help.
“I’m up!” Dr. Glenda declared as she sat bolt upright, causing Poppy to giggle.
In just twenty minutes, Dr. Glenda had showered, eaten brekky, and helped get Poppy ready for day care.
“Goodbye, husband!” she called out, closing the front door behind her.
“Bye, Daddy!” shouted Poppy.
Dr. Glenda and Poppy skipped off down the busy footpath, hand in hand, to the train station. They jumped all the cracks for good luck.
They were just in time for the train. It pulled up with lots of loud sounds. The train guy, a handsome fellow with one of those train guy hats, leaned out from the back carriage.
“Train stopping! All aboard!” he shouted.
Dr. Glenda beeped her ticket and they got on the train. There were already lots of passengers on board. But they found a free seat,
and it was facing the way the train was going! Not the sideways old-person seat or the backwards seat.
Today was going to be a lucky day. Jumping over the cracks had worked!
2The train clattered along the tracks through the city. Dr. Glenda pointed out their favorite shops to Poppy: the newspaper shop, the bread shop. They pointed out the same things every morning. It was like checking in on old friends.
“Train arriving! Next stop is Mother Duck Day Care!” the train guy said over the speaker.
“Hooray!” said Poppy. This was their stop. Poppy loved Mother Duck Day Care. It was where she went when her mum was helping animals at her work.
The train pulled up. They exited through the sliding train doors, beeping the ticket on the way.
It was a short walk from the train station to Mother Duck Day Care. Dr. Glenda could tell Poppy was excited by the way she started skipping. All the other kids cheered when Poppy arrived.
“Poppy! You’re just in time for a story!” said Miss Meg, Poppy’s day-care teacher. She was very nice.
“I’ll pick you up after work, sweetie. Mummy loves you!” Dr. Glenda said. She kissed Poppy goodbye, signed her in, and hurried back to the train station.
She hopped on the next train and rode it two stops to work at the vet hospital.
Dr. Glenda had a busy day at the vet hospital. There were six sick skunks (which was difficult to say) and a very grumpy polar bear. Her assistant, Sharice, tried to calm the polar bear down, but she wasn’t as good at tickling polar bears under their chins as Dr. Glenda was. Not yet, anyway.
After a long, lovely day at work, Dr. Glenda rode the train back to Mother Duck Day Care. She picked up Poppy and together they caught the train home. They watched all their favorite shops closing up on the way.
They arrived home and did all the things you do at home. Then they had a full night’s sleep.
