Martin Burke loved adventures, not real ones, but in his imagination. Everyone was used to hearing Martin’s adventures. His ship had sunk in the ocean. He had flown across high mountains. He had saved a maiden from a dragon. He had caught a whale while fishing. He rode on a white horse. His stories went on and on and on!
Mrs Burke told him that he had better start writing them down in a notebook. Someday, she said, he would become a writer, if he could tell such wonderful stories.
But one day, a real adventure happened to Martin. He had gone to bed with a storybook. As he lay reading, he heard a soft sound outside his window. Wondering what it was, he peeped out. There were six little men working in the garden. Martin crept silently out into the garden. He sat behind a large flower pot watching the little men.
“Here, pass me the spade,” said the one in the red hat.
“How can I work if I give you the spade?” asked Green Hat.
“We need two more spades then,” said the one with the white beard. He waved his hand and two spades appeared! Martin’s eyes were wide open with surprise.
“Blue, just rake up these leaves, will you?” requested the one in a yellow coat.
Blue silently raked the leaves into a pile and blew on them. They vanished!
White Beard spoke, “Little, we must finish this in one hour. After that, we have two more gardens to do.” Little was a tiny gnome. Each of them wore coloured clothes and carried gardening tools. They all seemed to enjoy working up in the garden.
Suddenly, Martin sneezed. The gnomes froze. Then White Beard peered around the flower pot and saw Martin.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“I’m Martin. I live here. Who are all of you?” asked Martin in surprise.
“We are the Garden Gnomes,” said White Beard, “We come every night and do up the gardens of different houses. But we don’t go to houses where the children are very naughty or the people are very rude.”
“Oh! I love thinking up new adventure stories. But this is the best real story I have seen!” exclaimed Martin.
“But you must never tell grown-ups about us,” warned White Beard, “Otherwise, we’ll be turned into little statues!”
Martin never spoke about it to anyone at all! But he goes out sometimes when the gnomes come to his garden to play with them.
