Stinky Creek (continued)
'No, wait!' Pong said, 'nobody is moving out.'
'But we can't live here with all these beautiful smells,' said Stench.
'But when we have the creek smelling the way we want it, nobody wants to visit us,' Malodor said sadly.
'Let's try to come up with a new plan then,' Pong suggested.
'A Plan?' Malodor twisted his snout.
'Hmmmm, a plan.' Stench repeated playing with one of his nostrils.
So the creatures of 'Stinky Creek' lay about all day planning. Well, really they did a lot of sleeping, but by the end of the day some planning had slipped in.
'Let's go and visit the other creeks!' Pong finally jumped up.
'Wha'?' Stench and Malodor said together, 'why?'
They had never visited the other creeks or creatures. They didn't know what another creek or creature looked like.
'So we can find out why their creeks don't smell,' explained Pong.
The creatures of 'Stinky Creek' knew there were three other creeks nearby, one near a big rock, one across the grassy way and one behind a large tree. Pong, Stench and Malodor were very hesitant, as they had never ventured away from their beloved 'Stinky Creek'.
They cautiously headed towards the creek behind the big rock.
The sign read:
CRYSTAL ROCK CREEK
The creek was crystal clear! They could see the bottom, they could see tiny fish swimming, and they could even see the feet of the rock creek creatures swimming in it. The rock creatures suddenly stopped what they were doing and looked about, 'Err, what's that smell?'
'Pworrrr,' yelled another. They all looked up.
'It's the creatures from Stinky Creek!' All the creatures jumped out of the creek and hid behind their rock. 'They stink!'
'Of course we stink, we just had a nice fresh bath in our creek this morning,' Pong explained.
'Yeah, we used our stinky water to clean ourselves up especially for our visit,' said Stench.
'It's a nice smell,' said Malodor as he sniffed his many under arms.
The creatures of rock creek only came out once they were wearing their gas masks. Pong explained why they were there and asked for help in changing their creek. They huddled with the rock creatures for a while and learnt lots of ways to make your creek crystal clear and clean.
Satisfied, Pong, Stench and Malodor continued their journey to the other creek creatures that lived over the grassy way. These creatures were also shocked about the visit from the 'Stinky Creek' creatures and only came out to talk once they were satisfied that Pong, Stench and Malodor had sprayed perfume onto their bodies. The 'Grassy Way Creek' creatures explained that each week they cleaned up their creek. Pong, Stench and Malodor were fascinated and listened in to how it was done.
The day was not over and they had one more creek to visit:
RECYCLED TREE CREEK
The creatures from 'Recycled Tree Creek' hid behind their big tree when they saw the creatures from 'Stinky Creek' arrive, well they could smell them arriving a mile away! They refused to come out until Pong, Stench and Malodor had put on full suits to cover up their smells. The Stinky Creek creatures looked like alien-astronauts as they had their meeting with the other creatures. 'Tree Creek' creatures explained how they pumped recycled water into their creek and showed them how it was done.
Pong, Stench and Malodor returned home to their stinky creek very very tired that evening, and went to sleep dreaming of bacteria, storm water drains, pesticides, sludge, chemicals, algae and cleanups.
The next day they put on their scientific laboratory coats, eye goggles and began to test their creek water. They put some of the brown murky water into a test tube and placed a few drops into their water testing kit.
'Brupp, bruup, bruup' the testing kit siren sounded. The kit spoke with a robotic voice, 'low oxygen levels, dangerous phosphate levels, high faecal colonies with rainbow oil slick, '
'Yay, look at all our friends,' said Stench pointing to the moving organisms, 'they have lots of colonies.'
'Rainbow slicks, I love rainbows,' smiled Malodor.
Pong pressed a button that said, 'Recommendations'.
'Isolate. Destroy. Renew.'
'Huh? Isolate, destroy and renew?' Stench was puzzled.
'What are we isolating, destroying and renewing?' Malodor asked.
'Our creek!' Pong yelled as he lifted his goggles. 'Our creek needs isolating, destroying and renewing!'
'What does that mean?' asked Stench and Malodor together.
'We need to steer clear, kill the creek and start again,' Pong explained.
'K..k…k….i…ll th…the creek!' screeched Stench.
'St … st…. start again!' yelled Malodor in disbelief.
'If we want visitors, this is what we have to do!' Pong said, 'tomorrow we close the creek.'
The next day, Pong roped the creek off and put up a temporary sign:
CLOSURE OF CREEK – DUE TO DANGER
Stench and Malodor were very sad that they couldn't have their daily mud bath.
'There!' said Pong 'the creek is now 'Isolated'.'
'Now we need to 'Destroy',' Pong said looking at the other two.
'But I can't kill our little friends,' Stench waved down at the mosquitos and squirming organisms, 'that would be murder!'
'And I can't get rid of the toxic fumes!' said Malodor, 'What will I breathe in every morning?'
They were no help so Pong set about cleaning and clearing the creek. Firstly he sucked out all the water with his snout and dumped it onto the grass nearby.
In the meantime Stench held a memorial service for his long lost mosquitos and organisms, while Malodor bottled some of the fumes that remained.
'Hey!' Pong yelled at the others, 'I need help with this shopping trolley and the old tyres.'
'Not the shopping trolley!' Stench cried.
'Not the tyres!' Malodor bawled.
'Alright,' Pong gave up, 'you can keep the shopping trolley and the tyres, but clean them up.'
They all stood back and looked down at their bare creek. It was now just a muddy hole, but they had cleaned up and 'Destroyed' everything that was in it. Now before they made up a new creek Pong wanted to make sure they were going to do the right thing from the start. He wanted their creek to be crystal clear like 'Crystal Rock' and he wanted their creek to be cleaned weekly like the 'Grassy Way Creek' . He also wanted to use recycled water like the 'Recycle Tree Creek'.
Pong set about drawing up a roster of jobs. He sent Stench off to the nearest town wearing a placard around his neck that said:
YOUR WASTE WATER IS OUR HOME
Stench walked the streets with the sign and created awareness about how whatever humans put down their stormwater drain ends up in the creatures' creek.
Pong ran a seminar in town for the humans about the stormwater drains, asking them not to put any pesticides, chemicals, oils, fertilizer or rubbish down them as they go straight to their creek. He suggested they could use low chemical substances.
It was Malodor's job to test the water weekly at first and to organise monthly creek cleanups.
Now they had one more problem. Where were they going to get the recycled water to re-fill the creek? And then they realised that the water coming from the stormwater drains was not only rain water, but recycled water as the humans had connected some of their pipes from their homes to the stormwater drains.
They allowed their beloved Stinky Creek to re-fill.
They were done! They had 'Isolated', 'Destroyed' and 'Renewed' their creek. Three very happy creatures swam about in their new crystal clear creek, they could see their many toes through the water. It was now time to make up a new sign.
And so they put their new sign up and stood there feeling very proud of themselves.
NOT– SO- STINKY CREEK
Plonk! A duck landed in their creek and began to wade up and down the crystal clear water.
'Oi!' yelled out Pong.
'Get out of our creek,' screamed Stench.
'Yeah no one allowed but us!' Malodor crossed his arms defiantly, 'and maybe some other creek creatures.'
So even though their creek was squeaky clean they still hadn't learned how to share – but that's another story.
The end.
