Free story for children

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Mr Speakup goes to work

Dot and Ike have two children, a daughter, Kim who is eleven years old and a son, Owen who is ten.
Ike goes to work very early each day and I bet you can’t guess what he does.
Five days a week he gets up at four o’clock in the morning and drives to a little village called Warey. When he gets there he unlocks a big tin shed and gets ready to sell ….

FISH!

Ike is a fishmonger at Warey market. He isn’t a fisherman, in fact he hates fishing, but he does sell the fish that the local fishermen catch. Ike loves selling fish at the market because he can talk to people all day long. He can talk to all his customers and he can talk to all the other market traders. The stall next to him is owned by Paul who sells sunglasses and sunhats. The stall opposite Ike is run by Ron who is a butcher, which means that he sells meat.

Every day lots of people who live in Warey come in and buy some fish for their lunch or tea and some buy smoked haddock (or yellow fish as a lot of people call it) to make Kedgeree.

Ike often wondered where the word Kedgeree came from because he thought it was a very odd word. Today he decided that when he finished work he would go home and ask Kim, his daughter, if she could find out where the word kedgeree came from. Ike loved words and always wanted to know how to spell long words or how to say unusual words. One of his favourite books was a dictionary because it told him what all the words meant.

However, the first thing that Ike had to do when he got to the market was put all his fish out on display ready for the customers. Today he had cod fillet, haddock fillet, plaice fillets, skate wings, rainbow trout, kippers, smoked haddock and coley fillet. Ikes first customer of the day was Mrs Small. Mrs Small came into the market every Tuesday to buy a small piece of coley for her cat and a small piece of cod for herself.

‘Good morning, Mrs Small, what can I do for you today?’ said Ike as she entered the building.
‘Good Morning, Ike,’ replied Mrs Small. ‘Please can I have a small piece of coley for my cat and a small piece of cod for myself?’
Mrs Small said the same every time she came in but Ike always asked her what she wanted because he knew that this was more polite and one day she might change her mind!
‘Certainly, Mrs Small and how is Snuzzle your cat today?’ asked Ike as he picked up a small piece of coley and put it on the scales to weigh it.
‘Oh, she’s very happy sitting at home in the warm waiting for her fish,’ replied Mrs Small.
Ike wrapped up the coley and then he found a small piece of cod fillet for Mrs Small. He put both pieces of fish into a paper bag. Mrs Small paid Ike for her fish and then said Goodbye.
‘Goodbye Mrs Small’, Ike said, ‘see you next week’. Mrs Small walked home to cook Snuzzle his piece of fish.

Ike carried on serving people all day and when he had sold all of his fish he started to wash up all the trays so that they would be clean for tomorrow.

When he arrived home Mrs Speakup made Ike a nice cup of tea.

‘Do you know where Kim is?’ Mr Speakup asked Mrs Speakup.
‘Yes, she’s sitting in the lounge,’ answered Dot.
Like called out, ‘Kim, can you come here please’ and Kim came into the kitchen.
‘Kim, can you find out for me where the word Kedgeree comes from by looking on the computer?’
‘Yes, but what is Kedgeree? It’s a very strange word.’
‘That’s what I think,’ said Ike thoughtfully, then he continued, ‘Kedgeree is smoked haddock, rice and eggs all eaten together for breakfast.’
‘That’s a very odd breakfast’ thought Kim as she turned on her computer. ‘I’d much rather have toast with marmite.’
Kim typed in the word Kedgeree and found out that it’s a word that probably comes from the Hindi word ‘Khichdi’ which is a dish based on rice and lentils.
The British ate it in India and it was introduced into the United Kingdom as a breakfast dish in Victorian times. Apparently fish was often eaten at breakfast while it was still fresh. If they waited to eat it later in the day the fish would have gone off because they had no way of keeping it fresh.

Kim read it all very carefully and memorized what it said so that she could tell her dad all about it.
Kim ran into the kitchen and told her mum and dad where the word had come from.
‘That’s interesting’, said Ike, ‘the next time someone buys some smoked haddock to make a kedgeree I’ll be able to tell them all about it.’
‘Why don’t we have kedgeree for breakfast on Saturday?’ Owen asked.
‘What a good idea, we will’, replied Mr and Mrs Speakup together.

Feeling quite pleased with themselves Ike, Dot, Kim and Owen all settled down to watch a cookery programme on the television.

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