The Imagination Hat

One breezy, sunny evening, a lady was looking for her hat. She loved her hat, because it was an imagination hat and she loved using her imagination to play with her daughter, Anita, and tell her stories. But on this day she could not find it.

Anita’s mum went looking for the hat. She searched the house from the top of the attic to the bottom of the cellar, but could not find it anywhere.

It might be in the garden, she thought. Anita’s mum walked out their front door and ran down the steps. She looked in the garden beds and around the flowers, where the bees were buzzing merrily collecting their nectar so that they could make some yummy honey. She looked in the trees and bushes, but it wasn’t there.

High up in the bright blue sky, she saw it being blown by the wind. Anita’s mum raced out of her garden and ran down the street chasing the hat. As she wasn’t looking where she was going she kept bumping into people and falling over!

All the way down to the seafront she ran. When she got there, she saw her hat bobbing merrily on the waves, like seagulls do. How would she get her hat? The water was freezing cold and she didn’t want to get wet, but she really, really wanted her imagination hat back.

On the beach, at the edge where the waves washed up on the shore, she saw an old man who was fishing. Anita’s mum walked up to him and asked if he could help. She pointed out to the ocean and showed him where the seagulls were bobbing merrily on the waves and asked if he could see a hat.

At first the old man couldn’t see her hat. Then he looked again. He saw something that was not a seagull. A third time he looked. This time he could see the imagination hat!

The fisherman reeled in his fishing line and took the bait off the hook. He walked along the beach until he was standing directly in front of where the hat was floating. Picking up his fishing rod, he leaned back, leaned forward, leaned back again, threw the fishing line out and … it hooked the hat! Very slowly he reeled it in, slowly, slowly, slowly so that he didn’t lose it.

Just as the hat was getting close to the edge of the water… a big purple and orange fish came up. It swam and it swam and it swam. Up it jumped and the fish took the imagination hat! Anita’s mum cried and cried, because she wanted her imagination hat back, but now the fish had taken it.

Then a mermaid appeared in the waves and asked why she was crying.

Anita’s mum told her the story of the missing imagination hat - all the way from when she first noticed it was missing right through until the purple and orange fish stole it.

The mermaid realised that the purple and orange fish was the Gramma Fish. She knew him and knew where he lived. So the mermaid offered to visit the Gramma Fish and get the imagination hat back.

Down the mermaid swam, deep deep deep into the ocean. Through the coral beds and the anemones. Past schools of beautifully coloured fish, all the way to the Gramma Fish’s home.

She knocked politely on the door.

“Hello Gramma Fish,” said the mermaid.

“Mermaid! Hello!” said the Gramma Fish. “Would you like to come in? I was just telling my children a story.”

“That’s what I’ve come about,” she said..

“Not now, not now, come and sit down and listen to the story,” said the Gramma Fish.

The mermaid went in and made herself comfortable. The Gramma Fish was telling his children a most amazing story. It was about being a human being and how wonderful it was to be able to walk on legs in the sun. The mermaid sat there thinking, “Oh that sounds like a lovely way to live, I would really like that.”

When the Gramma Fish had finished his story, all of his children had fallen asleep. The mermaid had enjoyed the story so much, she had almost forgotten why she had come to visit the Gramma Fish. She sat up in the seashell chair. Swishing her tail she thanked the Gramma Fish for the story. The mermaid was about to swim out through the front door, when she suddenly remembered the imagination hat. She turned around and swam back.

“Gramma Fish, that hat that you’ve got, the one that helped you tell the story,” said the mermaid.

“Oh yes, isn’t it wonderful. It is so beautifully coloured and I told my children the most wonderful story I’ve ever told them. I like this hat. I think I’ll keep it,” said the Gramma Fish.

“But you can’t,” said the mermaid. “It doesn’t belong to you.”

“But I found it just bobbing on the ocean”, said the Gramma Fish.

“Yes, it was. But the lady who owns it was standing there trying to get it back because she wanted to tell her child a story. She cried when you took the hat away.”

“Come with me,” pleaded the mermaid. “We’ll take the hat back to her. I have a suggestion that might please you both.”
After checking that his children were still asleep, the Gramma Fish carefully closed the door to his home. He swam with the mermaid all the way up up up, past the schools of beautifully coloured fish, past the anemones and through the coral beds. Together they swam all the way to the surface of the ocean, the sparking sunshine and the beach.

Anita’s mum was still sitting on the beach crying. When she saw the mermaid, she wiped the tears from her eyes. The mermaid told her that she had found the imagination hat, but the Gramma Fish was reluctant to give it back.

“He told his children the most wonderful story, I heard it. And we all know that the Gramma Fish doesn’t have a very good imagination, so he doesn’t tell his children stories very often.”

“Where’s my hat, where’s my hat?” asked Anita’s mum.

“Well,” said the mermaid, “before I can give you back the hat, we have a suggestion. Why don’t you and the Gramma Fish share the imagination hat? You can have it in the evenings to tell your daughter a story. In the morning, you could come down to the water’s edge and give it to the Gramma Fish. He can have it during the day and tell his children a story. In the afternoon you and your daughter could come for a walk along the beach and get the imagination hat back for the evening.”

“That sounds like a wonderful idea!” Anita’s mum said. “I would be very happy to share the imagination hat.”

As soon as she said that, do you know what happened to the hat? It split itself into two hats so that they didn’t have to share it, but they had a hat each.

Anita’s mum went home and told her daughter the most wonderful story ever about a hat, a mermaid and a purple and orange fish.