The Mystery of the Garden with No House, 2007-10-08*

I am just SO backlogged with story transcriptions that I have close to 70 untranscribed recordings still on my computer, dating from the second week of September. But this afternoon's story was such a surprising one, that I decided to transcribe it immediately and post it, and clear the backlog as and when I am able to - there ARE some real gems in there too, only her rate of storytelling was so great that I lost track of which files contained the great stories (they're saved with cryptic names such as REC018-10Sept, for example...). But in the past several days, since she turned 3, she has NOT been allowing me to record any stories again. However, this time she has been insisting I sit and listen to her TELL the stories, WITHOUT any recording device nearby or anything (in her phase immediately prior to this one she would announce which stories she wanted me to record, and was quite happy for me to leave the recorder near her and let me get on with other things). Anyway, the net result of this change has been that I've been listening to some amazing new stories from her, but have not been able to record any, and have had no time to transcribe any of the backlogged ones either.

So on to the present story. She suddenly decided I could record this one. And then decided to leave me with a cliffhanger! You'll see when you read the story below. The explanation of what happened later is after that.

You can listen to her tell this story HERE.

“We can find here a garden, but no house.”

“Very mysterious,” said Aladar getting out from bed, and...

“Daddy, there is a mystery to solve.”

“Please let go of that mystery.”

“That mystery?”

“There’s a garden with NO HOUSE!”

“(Shocked noise),” says the daddy, “WHAT??? There’s a garden with NO HOUSE???”

“There’s a garden with no house daddy!!”

Corin jumped, from bed too. “(Gulping sound) There’s a mystery to solve, YIPPEE!!!” he said jumping out from bed. “Yippee!!!” he said, then jumping out from bed.

Corin jumped. All of them jumped out from there, and all wearing their night caps and pyjamas. They didn’t dress up. So, so when they had read this, the garden with no house, “(Shocked sound) There’s no house anymore!” said Corin, “it had been tooken away by someone else!

Corin jumped. “(Shocked noise) NO ONE!!! SOMEONE HAVE TOOKEN THE HOUSE!!” said Corin.

“(Shocked noise) Now someone is got garden, where’s the house? Someone tooken it!!” said Aladar.

“Shh.. someone is coming... the policeman. Shhh,” he said, “the policeman is coming.”

“You’re RIGHT! The policeman is coming. Shh.. the policeman Corin is coming,” said the good Corin. “Shh! The bad Corin is coming. Shh! The bad Corin is coming!... Shh..” said Corin again. “Shh! Shhh! Sshhh!!! Be quiet!”

So the policeman came nearer and nearer and nearer and nearer to them. Almost he reached there a GAP came from the edge. A mysterious thing HAPPENED. “MY!!!!!! A most mysterious thing happened!”

(A nearby siren goes off and the next phrase is indecipherable). “I will see Aladar’s ribbon, thank you.”

Then he could be scared the... the mysterious gardener was coming. “Better be quiet!” (Singsong, quietly) Asked, “What shall I do?” He went, “AH! High heels!... they have finally got it at last. Well, my father then, he have finally got it at last!”

“My new deputy, you make a very good one!” His... his partner was a inspector! “Sshh! Here comes him again.”

Corin jumped as he went to the mysterious house that have been tooken away. The house have goed along some bad corips(?) of hills.

(To me: I shall stop here!

Me: No, don’t stop! I want to know, how did they find out where is the house?

B: The house been tooken somewhere by a person that they didn’t know.)

After this she teasingly started the continuation of her story many, many times, always starting and stopping at the same place, with me begging her to finish the story in between. I will not transcribe all these repititions here, but only the two sentences that she intermittently started and stopped for the rest of the evening, giving me a cheeky grin each time she left me at the cliffhanger!

Corin JUMPED as he went to some dark open plains!..... I shall stop here!