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Red Man, Green Man - Part 2

It was the end of the summer and the leaves on the trees were starting to turn brown. Everyday Red Man and Green Man watched from their lights as the boys and girls pressed the button and waited for the Green Man to light up when it was safe for them to cross the road. It seemed a long time ago since they had climbed out of their lights and gone on their adventure. They had never had so much fun and now they were getting restless again, and had decided that they must go on another adventure before the winter came and snow covered the ground.

That night as the traffic started to ease and the people stopped crossing the road, they made up their minds they would once again climb down from their lights and go on another adventure. So long as they were back in the lights by the next morning to make sure the children got safely across the busy road, no one would ever know. Soon everything was quiet, just the moon and stars shining. The cars had stopped and there was nobody crossing the road anymore. It was the middle of the night and everyone was fast asleep. It was time for Red Man and Green Man to go on another adventure.

First Green Man climbed out of his light and slid down the pole, closely followed by Red Man. Feeling very excited, they crossed over the road and waved to the other Red Man and Green Man in the lights opposite them. “Come with us” they shouted “we’re going on another adventure”. The other Red |Man and Green Man didn’t hesitate. They had really enjoyed themselves the last time they had climbed out of the lights and couldn’t wait to have some more excitement. They quickly climbed out of the lights and slid down the pole. There were now 2 Red Men and 2 Green Men all alone in the darkness and ready to have some fun. They decided that this time instead of going up the hill to the children’s’ playground, they would go in the other direction and see what was on the other side of the road. They linked arms, so happy to be out of the lights again, and laughing and jumping with joy they crossed over the road.

The first thing they came to was a little park with pretty flowerbeds and benches where people could sit and enjoy the sun. In the corner of the park were 2 huge horse chestnut trees and lying underneath were lots of conkers that had fallen off. When the Red Men and Green Men saw the conkers under the trees they were really excited. They had watched the boys and girls as they crossed the road, playing with conkers attached to string, but didn’t really know what they were. Now was their chance to find out. They raced over to the trees and started to pick up the conkers. But they were only little and their hands couldn’t hold them properly, and they kept falling back onto the ground. They started to kick them around like footballs and then started rolling on the top of them. Because the electricity in the little men made them glow, the conkers now were shining red and green and they shrieked with excitement as they rolled round and round on top of the conkers, as if they were on a roundabout.

Now unbeknown to the Red Men and Green Men up in the trees lived 2 squirrels called Berty and Benny, and they had gone to sleep for the night. They were suddenly awaked by all the noise under the trees. They peeped over the branches to see what was happening. It wasn’t often anything happened in the park in the middle of the night. When they saw the 2 Red Men and 2 Green Men having so much fun rolling around on top of the conkers they shouted down to them. “Can we come and join you? We want to have some fun. The Red Men and Green Men were very surprised when they saw the 2 squirrels and at first felt a little bit frightened in case they were going to hurt them. Berty and Benny could see they were frightened and shouted, “ We won’t hurt you, we just want to be friends with you, nobody ever comes to play with us”. “Yes, come and join us” shouted back the Red Men and Green Men and Berty and Benny quickly scrambled down from the trees.

What fun they all had in the darkness with the Red Men and Green Men lighting the park up. The squirrels gave the Red Men and Green Men rides on their backs, racing round the park and up and down the trees. Then Berty and Benny took the Red Men and Green Men right to the top of the 2 big trees and showed them their home in the trees and their store of nuts for the winter. It seemed really funny to the 2 squirrels seeing their little home at the top of the trees light up red and green from the glow off the 2 Red Men and 2 Green Men. Then the squirrels took them back down to the ground and the 2 Red Men climbed on Berty’s back and the 2 Green Men climbed onto to Benny’s back. “Let’s see who is the fastest” shouted Benny and Berty set off at top speed with the 2 Red Men holding on as tightly as they could. “You can’t beat us” shouted Benny and with the 2 Green Men clinging on he chased Benny all around the park, up and down the trees, through the flower beds, over the benches and through the bushes until both the squirrels were so tired they couldn’t run anymore. They said goodbye to the 2 Red Men and 2 Green Men and went back up into the trees to go to bed.

Now Berty and Benny had gone, the 2 Red Men and 2 Green Men decided to see what else they could find. They ran out of the park and went further along the road. Soon they came to an open door leading into someone’s garage. In they went to explore. Everything looked really big. Inside was a rusty old car and piles of old tyres. Lying on the floor were lots of tools and around the side of the walls were tins of paint. Red Man climbed up onto the old tyres to take a look at the car. He saw lots and lots of cars everyday with people inside driving them, from where he lived in the traffic lights, but he had never seen such an old rusty one like the one in the garage. It had no wheels on it and it was covered in cobwebs. The other little men climbed up the tyres to take a look.

As they were peering in the dirty windows, they suddenly heard a squeaking noise, which made them jump. Whatever could it be? They’d better get out of here quick. But they needn’t have worried. It was only a few mice that had made a nest inside the old car. They had been fast asleep until the traffic light men had disturbed them. But the little men didn’t know that. They jumped down onto the tyres beneath, but the tyres were springy and the little men jumped high into the air and then back down again. They tried again but again they sprang up high into the air. They soon forgot about the squeaking noise they had heard and carried on jumping up and down on the tyres. Higher and higher they jumped. It was just like being on a trampoline. “”Bet I can jump the highest” shouted a Red Man and with all his might he jumped as high as he could and suddenly PLOP he landed straight into one of the tins of paint which was stood at the side of the wall. He felt something wet and sticky cover his little body and when he climbed out of the tin of paint, he wasn’t a Red Man anymore. He was covered in blue paint and he was now a Blue Man.

When the other traffic light men saw what had happened to him they started to laugh. He looked really funny shining blue instead of red. “We want to be blue men” they shouted and they all jumped as high as they could to try and land in the blue paint. PLOP, PLOP, PLOP. The 3 little men all landed in a tin of paint, but when they climbed out of the tins, they weren’t blue they were all different colours. They had all landed in different tins of paint. One was yellow, one was white and the other one was orange. They all thought they looked really good and danced round the garage all pointing at one another and laughing. The garage now was all lit up in different colours as the traffic light men jumped from tyre to tyre. Even the little mice came out from the old car to see who was putting the lights on. They were really surprised to see 4 little shining men running around the garage lighting everything up.

After a while they decided to go back outside and make their way up to the shopping centre to look in the shop windows. They passed the empty traffic lights on the way. It seemed funny not to be in the lights and as they looked at one another, they began to get a little bit worried now because they were different colours. What would happen when the children pressed the button in the morning to cross the road and instead of a Red Man to stop the traffic and a Green Man to show it was safe to cross, they saw a Blue Man or a White Man, or an Orange Man or Yellow Man. The children wouldn’t know what to do and the traffic wouldn’t know when to stop. Oh dear, what could they do. How they wished they were still 2 Red Men and 2 Green Men. They tried to rub the paint off themselves, but it was no good, it just wouldn’t come off. They ran towards the shopping centre, trying to think how they could get the paint off. Blue Man and White Man were in front and Orange and Yellow Man ran behind. But as they ran, Yellow Man noticed that Blue Mans legs were turning back red and White Mans legs were turning green again. He looked down at his own legs and then at Orange Man. The same was happening to them. Because the electricity inside them was warm, it was burning the paint off them all, and soon all 4 of them were back to their proper colours again. The 2 Red Men and 2 Green Men carried on their way, feeling happy now that they would be able to cross the children safely across the road in the morning.

They were now approaching the shopping centre. Of course, because it was still dark and everybody was in bed, the shops were all shut. The 2 Red Men and 2 Green Men stood on each others backs and looked in the windows of the different shops which were lit up. Next to one of the shops was a big red box with a little opening at the top of it. It was the Post Box where people posted their letters but the 4 little traffic light men didn’t know that. They wondered what it was. They decided to climb up and look through the opening to see what was inside. Standing on each others backs they just managed to get Green Man far enough up so he could look into the opening. “What’s inside?” Red Man shouted “I don’t know, I can’t see” shouted Green Man “I need to be a bit higher, I’ll climb on the edge so I can see better”. He reached out and tried to hold onto the side of the opening, but oh dear me, he slipped and fell right through the opening onto all the letters inside.

Inside the Post Box it was very dark, but because Green Man glowed, all the letters lit up green. Green Man thought it was really funny and started jumping up and down on top of all the letters. The 2 Red Men and 1 Green Man who were waiting outside the Post Box could hear him laughing and jumping about inside. “What’s inside?” they shouted to him. But Green Man was having so much fun he didn’t answer. The light from the Green Man inside the Post Box was shining through the big keyhole on the front of the Post Box and the little men looked through to see what he was doing. They could see the Green Man jumping up and down and throwing all the letters about. He was enjoying himself so much that he didn’t realise the more he jumped about, the more he was sinking further and further down amongst the letters and because he was made from electricity it was starting to get very warm inside the Post Box.

After a while Green Man was getting too hot and shouted to the other little men “I’m getting hot in here, I’m going to come out”. He started to climb out from under all the letters, but the more he tried to get out, more letters fell on top of him. He could see the 2 Red Men and 1 Green Man looking at him through the keyhole. “Help me, I can’t get out” he shouted to them. They could see him struggling to push his way up through all the letters but the letters were very heavy on top of him and he wasn’t strong enough to move them. He was really hot now and he could hardly breathe. The 3 little men didn’t know what to do. If Green Man didn’t get out of the Post Box soon he was going to suffocate. They looked round. What could they do to get their little friend from out of the Post Box. They couldn’t pull him out because they couldn’t reach him, and if they climbed into the Post Box to help him they wouldn’t get out either. They looked through the keyhole again at Green Man inside. They couldn’t see him now because he had sunk further and further down under the letters and his green glow was starting to fade. He was trapped inside the Post Box and there was nothing they could do to help him.

It was starting to come light and soon they would have to get back into the traffic lights but they couldn’t leave Green Man inside the Post Box to die. But help was on it’s way. Just then a big red van pulled up at the side of the road. It gave the 3 little traffic light men a shock. The big red van was the mail van that came very early in the morning to collect the post and who do you think climbed out of the van. Yes, it was Mick the mail man. He had come to open the Post Box and put all the letters in his empty sack. He didn’t see the 3 little men hiding behind the Post Box. From his pocket he took out a big bunch of keys. One of the keys opened the door of the Post Box and as he bent down to collect all the letters, Green Man jumped out. Mick the mail man was so shocked he dropped all the letters out of his sack and when he saw the other 2 Red Man and 1 Green Man run out from behind the Post Box he thought he must be seeing things. “It’s time I went and got myself some glasses” he thought to himself “I could have sworn that was the 2 Red Men and 2 Green Men from the traffic lights”. He picked up his sack of letters, got back in his van and drove off, still feeling very puzzled. He decided to go and check out the traffic lights, but the 2 Red Men and 2 Green Men were now safely back in the lights ready for the start of another day.

All was well and the 2 Red Men and 2 Green Men waved to each other and settled down. They had really enjoyed themselves but knew they would have to wait now until the winter was over before they went on another adventure. Meanwhile, the first thing Mick the mail man did was to make an appointment with the optician to have his eyes checked. He was certain he must really need to wear glasses if he was seeing things. But we know different, don’t we?

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