"Always keep your readers close. If possible, keep one in every room, so that when you wake up too early, instead of waiting for a cue, you can simply wave a hand past the calamity of your own words and receive an instant kick of other, much more pleasant ones."

--The Readers, J Johannesson Gaitan

Join us for a cuppa and a tale from our kitchen reader. You know you want to.

Short prose by J Joannesson Gaitan. Music by Gurdenark.

"Ellis had slept under the bed for a week now. Ever since the windstorm had come, she'd been frightened. Not afraid of anything in particular, no concrete fear. She wasn't afraid of wind, after all — she'd played with wind, throwing leaves at it to watch them dance and laughing, hands shielding eyes, at sand spun in whirlpools of air. The wind she was used to didn't bring down trees, smash greenhouses and steal away the neighbours' cat." (Windstorm, Suky Goodfellow)

"Pumpkins — the only fruit

that rhymes with oranges.

When I was young, we had none;

we carved turnips, with a lid

which stank in the candle's heat." (All Hallow's Eve, Colin Will)

"Excuse me," I said.

The Policeman leant forward over the counter.

"Yes boy, what can I do for you?"

"I wonder, have you seen a Bogle?"

"A Bogle? Have you lost one?"

"No, no, but I'm looking for one."

"Well, nobody has been in here looking for Bogles in years. I'll look in the book."

And the Policeman got a great big book out and heaved it onto the counter, licked his finger and flicked through the pages.

"I thought so, the last Bogle reported missing was, um, Good heavens! That's a long time ago." And he leant forward over the counter.

"Where did you lose him? It is a him, I suppose - on a walk, was it? That's the usual place."

We're going a-bogling today. Make yourself a hot chocolate and warm your hands around your mug as you listen to a children's story for adults by Alexander Hamilton. Oh, and, did I mention that this is the first of our podcasts showcasing work from our third issue (out soon!) Under the Bed?

"It was as if I had

been in a story,

walking down a lane

to a house and a door,

with cut-out birds

and cut-out stairs."

-Red Riding, Chelsea Cargill.

Whimsy of a poetical nature written and read by Chelsea Cargill. Hoorah!

Music courtesy of Gurdenark.

"There are two things you should know when facing down a leopard.

One: Don't run.

Two: Don't run.

And three, which I know I didn't mention earlier, but am going to list anyway because facing down a leopard does strange things to structured thoughts: don't think of that crazy friend of yours who calls leopards "Leo (after that Titanic heartthrob) - pard (you know, like padre)," as though he's been on first name basis with these dark-spotted, sandy-haired, long-tailed and entirely too-sharp-clawed animals since they were in diapers."

-Pallavi Rao

Short prose and bad jokes from the inimitable Pallavi Rao. Read by the superlative Ceris Aston and hosted by [insert adjective here] Annie Rutherford.

Oh, and we have orange mints. Music courtesy of Gurdenark.

"The airport road is one of those roads that are perpetually overcast and blustery regardless of season. Empty crisp packets and newspapers tumble incessantly. A steady stream of traffic is flanked by tired industrial units. Everyone drives. No-one walks down the airport road unless they are a little shady or very poor. When you're driving down the airport road and see someone walking, even if you have a hundred and one thoughts nagging for attention inside your head, some corner of your mind will ask, where is that person going and what are they up to?"

Short prose and an off-the-cuff interview with Niall Foley. Music courtesy of Gurdenark.

"The van was old and threatened to break down before destination. Among clangs and shrieks it struggled across the desert making its way through the haze that blurred the horizon, the only discernible border that obviously moved farther and farther away as we got closer. A pitiless chase for the shattered vehicle and our longing for arrival. Tiny grains of sand continuously hit our sweaty faces through the open windows sticking to them like dead mosquitoes; they flew in with the vehemence of a sand storm despite the low speed. The heat was suffocating but the dramatic poignancy of the arid landscape captured us completely."

Short prose by Olivia Arieti and poetry by Pete Thompson. Music courtesy of Gurdenark.

"The sky glows orange in the distance and as we walk I feel the ground begin to ramp. The smell of birch in the air, sweet and light. According to the map there's a good campsite nearby but no one seems ready to stop. I mean sure, my boots are beginning to hurt but there's nothing like that feeling when you get to the peak of a mountain: the way the Earth winds and dips below you; the pointed tops of a hundred trees; the sound of your voice echoing for miles." (Tennessee, Samuel Best.)

Fantastic short prose from Samuel Best. Exquisite poetry from Gillian Craig and Jean Atkin. Bad jokes.

"It was a place where nothing, especially not the genuinely mundane, was allowed to be simply ordinary. Where a girl might arrive and find a doll's house awaiting her, perfect in every minute detail: with shingled roof, working lights and a kitchen with the same linoleum as in the beloved house. Where hospitals were strange resorts in which the only inconvenience was a perverse insistence by the staff on the eating of jelly. Where leather armchairs were inverted to become child-sized slides. And where ginger ale, placed in hollow-stemmed crystal glasses, became champagne."

We built a sandcastle, went picking lemons and swam in the Canadian Pacific in Sarah Miles' moving tale of peeking behind the curtain.