Welcome to Story Quest, a weekly podcast where we bring your stories to life!
In this episode we bring Mika’s story – Tommy’s Secrets- to life.
If you have a story idea, you could be like Mika and have it turned into a Story Quest. All you have to do is send us your story idea here. We know you have the best imaginations and together we can create the most brilliant stories!
That’s just what Mika did. You can watch the story they suggested come to life below, plus they tell us all about the inspiration behind the story at the end.
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Read along to Tommy’s Secrets Here
You can read along to the story while you listen. Just follow the text below. Don’t worry if you find a word tricky – you can pause the video whenever to give yourself more time
“Don’t you know a human brain can only hold a handful of secrets before it explodes! The boy will have steam coming out of his ears!” said the ancient wizard furiously.
Doesn’t sound great does it? I mean secrets can be fun but exploding heads? Not so much fun. So let’s go back to the start of the story.
In some classes you have the cool kids and the, well not so cool kids. Tommy was not one of the cool kids, but he really wished he was. But whenever he tried to join in with them, well… it didn’t usually go so well.
One Friday he spotted Dale – the coolest of the cool kids getting ready to go home. He knew it was Dales birthday on Saturday.
“Hope you have a good birthday!”
“Yeah – should be um… good…“, mumbled Dale
“Having a party?”
Dale shrugged and then turned away.
“Why are you always trying to get him to like you? He’s never been nice to you!” said Tommy’s friend, Alex. Alex wasn’t cool either but the difference was Alex didn’t care. At all!.
Monday morning came and all the cool kids in the class had been raving about Dale’s party. They’d had nerf battles and cake… so apparently he HAD had a party and Tommy was not in on this secret. He was fuming!
The next day Tommy was walking home through the park and he saw all the cool kids playing football together. He’d literally asked half an hour earlier if anyone wanted a kick around in the park after school and no one had answered. Now here they were doing it without him – he ran after them but they ran to the other side of the park. He plodded home sadly and moaned at his mum about it.
“I wish I could read their minds – hear all the secrets – then I wouldn’t be left out.”
He didn’t realise that a small pixie was passing by and heard these words. This was going to be important… but to find out why we need to go into the dark deep forest and find a magical being – The Secret Keeper. We met him at the start.
I said he was a wizard – he technically wasn’t – he was a bit like a wizard but his ears were much much bigger. His amazing skill was that could hear all the secrets whispered around the world. Lots of secrets are fun and exciting – like when you’re planning a surprise for someone. Other secrets weigh more. These are secrets like knowing you’ve done something naughty, and some secrets are the heaviest of all and can really hurt people. The wizard tried his best to help when secrets went bad, or started to hurt people and here’s how he did it. He would cast a spell to wind into their dreams, urging the person to tell someone they trusted. Telling someone you trust can break the spell of a bad secret and he’d whisper this truth in dreams and hope that he’d made a difference.
But anyway… most secrets were the fun exciting “surprise” kind of secret – or the ones that didn’t weigh very much at all, not the big scary stuff. But he had a big problem. He was ILL. He had a terrible cold and his head was so bunged up that he couldn’t hear a thing. This meant the secrets went unchecked and he worried about this as he tossed and turned in a fever.
Darcy was a small pixie – we met her just now eavesdropping on Tommy. She kept The Secret Keeper company usually but now she was worried. The Secret Keeper getting weaker as a all the secrets whooshed in and around the room, trying to be heard.
“I must find someone to listen to the secrets for a while so The Secret Keeper can rest!” she thought.
She was too small… but a human might be able to do it – with a little pixie dust.
So when she heard Tommy saying how much he wanted to hear secrets, well it seemed like the obvious solution.
“BRILLIANT!” she thought delightedly. This kid really wants the job!”
After thinking things through a bit more she thought that perhaps Tommy should only get the simple secrets – after all he was only a kid.
“Psst!” She said from the window sill – Tommy turned and jumped in surprise to see a tiny pixie tapping on the window. Bemused, he opened it and let her in.
“What on earth are you!”
“No time for that. Long story short – we need someone to listen to the secrets on the wind whilst the Secret Keeper gets better.”
“What’s a secret keeper?
“What do you think? They train elephants at the circus! Durr! They listen to everyone’s secrets of course! So are you up for it or not?” She tapped her foot impatiently.
Tommy (although still quite perplexed about this rather sarcastic pixie) felt excited.
“Don’t worry” Darcy added – you’ll just get the basic secrets – nothing about secret criminal masterminds or anything scary like aliens planning to take over the world. Just your everyday basic secrets.”
Tommy was more than happy with this – after all the kids in the playground weren’t exactly criminal masterminds – their secrets were silly and just involved leaving him out – annoying but not scary and he was excited to know that he would finally be able to hear them all! He’d never be left out again!
“Hang on did you say aliens are planning on doing WHAT?”
Darcy put her hand over her mouth and looked sheepish.
“Ohhh nothing, just a completely random example…. Totally made up… and even if they were it wouldn’t work because they’re the size of ants and so wouldn’t be able to do much even if they did exist. Which they definitely don’t. Honestly.”
Tommy decided this pixie was clearly bonkers but agreed to the job and with some pixie dust it was done!
Darcy returned to the Secret Keeper’s cottage in the wild woods and mopped his feverish brow and was pleased to see the secrets on the wind ebbed to a gentle breeze.
At first it was brilliant. Tommy heard so many secrets – some were surprising – secrets on the wind told him that Mrs Potts the form teacher was going to have a baby! He didn’t tell anyone of course but it made him feel special to know something so nice. Some were quite boring – Millie in his class had hidden her sister’s favourite pokemon card, even though her sister thought she’d lost it… Brogan was secretly worried he’d fail his tests.. I mean Brogan was so clever he’d been star of the week for a record seventeen weeks in a row – he’d probably ace the test, it was weird to think people weren’t always as confident as they seemed.
Best of all the very next day he heard Dale the coolest cool kid thinking about the secret water pistol fight planned for the skatepark. Jackpot!
They were surprised when Tommy turned up with his water pistol, and wondered who’d blabbed the secret. They grudgingly let him join in for a bit and Tommy was ecstatic.
The next day he heard the secret of where they were planning to hang out after school – the coffee and cake shop on the high street! So there he went – and hung out for a total of five whole minutes before the boys sloped off.
“They don’t want you around – not really!” said his friend Alex.
“Well I can’t help it if I just happen to turn up in the park or the high street!”
Alex had no idea what Tommy was up to but was worried. “Want to come round to play X box?”, said Alex later that week. “We haven’t chilled out for ages!”
But Tommy was too distracted to even answer. Another secret nerf battle was planned and he would be there!
Alex slumped his shoulders and went home, thinking about things and wishing they could change. He missed his friend.
In fact, things WERE about to change. That night Tommy woke up in the dark to find one secret carried on the wind, louder than any others he had heard. It was a secret his friend Alex was keeping.
“I don’t think I want to be friends with Tommy any more.” It said.
Tommy was shocked – the words repeated over and again, whispered so sadly it made Tommy feel sad too. He huddled in the covers and thought about the cool kids – Alex was right – they never really wanted him around. He wished he’d never started hearing the secrets and wondered how you find a pixie when you needed one.
Fortunately a pixie was very much on the way. The Secret Keeper had recovered and when he found out that Darcy had given the secrets to a KID he’d gone totally bananas and bellowed at her furiously.
“A human brain can only manage a handful of secrets before it explodes!”
“Actually explodes?”
“Not literally – but it will do them no good – sort it out before steam starts coming out of his ears!”
So just as Tommy was feeling gloomy, who should appear but a guilty looking Darcy and with another sprinkle of pixie dust the noises and whispers stopped and Tommy could sleep.
The next day he found Alex and said he was sorry he’d ignored him and wondered if he was still up for playing X box later on?
Alex smiled and looked relieved. “Are you sure there’s no secret nerf battles to crash?”
Tommy shrugged “No idea. And even if there are, well, I’d rather hang out with someone who actually likes me! What was I thinking of?”
And they laughed as they walked home – and Tommy didn’t even notice the cool kids playing football in the park. So that’s the story of Tommy’s Secrets. I wonder if you would want to hear other people’s secrets – might be fun but like Tommy you might hear something you don’t want to know!
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