HAL AND HIS GROWING DOOR

A STORY FOR CHILDREN WITH A FOOD PROBLEM

Althea Hayton

This is a story about a boy called Hal, who was small and not very energetic. Every day he dreamed about being tall and strong, but to do that he had to go though his growing door.

The keeper of the growing door said: “Hal, you are the wrong shape to go through your growing door. It is waiting for you but you have to change your shape.”

Hal looked and there was his growing door, all ready for him to pass through. “Can’t I go through the growing door now?” asked Hal.

“No”, said the door keeper. “You will have to change your shape. Then you will be able to go through into the Land of Tomorrow.

Hal longed to go through, because some of his friends had done that already. They were in a land where they could be the people they were always meant to be.

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Hal and his growing door

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The trouble was that Hal was much too hungry. He was full of hungry foods. The more he ate, the more he wanted MORE!!

But the hungry foods made him grow into the wrong shape and so he couldn't go through his growing door.

So he asked the doorkeeper, "Door keeper, what can I do? I want to change my shape so I can go through my growing door."

The door keeper scratched his head and thought for a long time. Then he said, “Perhaps the hungry foods are making you hungry. Then, because you are hungry you eat too much. When you eat too much it makes you too big and round.”

“What are the hungry foods?” asked Hal.

“Go and ask the Wise Man, he will help you,” said the door keeper.

Hal set off to look for the wise man. On the way he met Fred, who was a very fat boy.

“I need to find the Wise Man,” said Hal, “so I can learn about the hungry foods.”

“Hah!” said Fred. “Every food that ever was is a hungry food! That is all you need to know.”

Hal felt very confused. Fred was very hungry too, because every kind of food was making him hungry. Would Hal get fatter and fatter and be like Fred?

He walked along slowly until he met Tina, who was a very, very thin girl.

“Why are you thin?” said Hal. “Don't the hungry foods make you hungry?”

“Ah yes,” said Tina, “but that's easy - I just eat a teeny weeny bit.”

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Hal meets Tina and Fred

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Tina seemed to be very happy being so thin, but Hal knew that she would never get through her growing door. But she had given Hal an idea. He decided that he would eat just a teeny weeny bit. Then he would get thinner and he would fit his growing door!

So the first day he ate a teeny weeny bit. His tummy was rumbling and he felt very, very hungry.

The next day he ate a teeny weeny bit again but he was so hungry he couldn't bear it any more. He felt very ill and tired and was hungrier than ever.

He sat down by the side of the road because he didn't have the energy to walk any more. He didn't notice Someone coming along the road. Then the Someone stopped and looked at him.

“You look very hungry,” said the Someone. Hal looked up and saw a tall man. Hal was too tired and sad to say anything.

“Would you like something to eat?” asked the man. Hal nodded.

The stranger handed him an apple. Hal ate it. It tasted very good.

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Hal asked the stranger, "Will the apple make me hungry? I am trying to eat just a teeny weeny bit so I get thinner and I can go through my growing door and be with my friends."

"Ah! " said the man, smiling. "The growing door. You will need happy foods to perfectly fit your growing door."

"What are they?" asked Hal. "Every food that ever was is a hungry food."

"Who told you that?" said the stranger.

"A very fat boy."

"I am sorry he told you that, because it is not true. There are hungry foods and happy foods. That apple is a happy food."

Hal smiled. "Will the apple make me happy again?"

"I don't know about that", said the stranger, "but it will make your body happy and strong."

That sounded very good to Hal. "So if I eat lots and lots of apples I will be happy and strong?"

"Apples are good but you will need all kinds of happy foods, not just apples," said the man.

"How can I find out about happy foods?" asked Hal.

He wondered why Fred and Tina didn't know about happy foods. If he found out where the happy foods were, then Fred and Tina could become the shape they were meant to be. Then they could get through their growing doors instead of being stuck on the wrong side.

He felt happier just knowing that. The apple must be working! He decided to learn more about happy foods but when he looked around, the stranger was gone.

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So Hal had to walk on alone. He came to a food shop and he asked the shop keeper if he had happy foods or hungry foods in his shop. The shop keeper said, “I don't know, food is food. There are no happy foods or hungry foods.”

Then Hal came to a farm and he asked the farmer, “Do you have happy foods on your farm?” The farmer said, “I don't know, food is food. There are no happy foods or hungry foods.”

Hal was even more confused. Then he rea l i sed someth ing very important. Maybe, everyone has their own special happy food and their own special hungry food.

It could be that the shopkeeper and the farmer didn't know that, so Hal decided to find his own hungry food and happy food. He would eat all the foods that made him happy so he would fit his growing door. It seemed to be the right thing to do - he still wasn't sure.

So Hal went home and began to make two lists. One list was all the foods that made him happy and the other list was all the foods that made him hungry.

There was a big problem. The first thing he tried was chocolate cake. It made him very happy. But then it made him hungry too, because he wanted to eat more and more of it. He had to go outside and think of something else, or he would have eaten the whole cake!

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The next thing was an apple. He knew apples made him happy but would they make him hungry? He ate the apple and he was still hungry so he ate another one. But by the time he had eaten the second apple, he didn't want any more. He wanted something different.

So he ate some potato chips. They were crisp and hot and delicious. He ate some and wanted more, so he ate some more.

Then a little later he ate even more. Were potato chips hungry foods? He was not sure.

Then he ate some biscuits and cakes. He wanted more and more, until his tummy was completely full. So biscuits are hungry foods! That was clear enough, but there were so many kinds of biscuits and cakes. He didn't know which were the hungry ones and which were the happy ones.

So he went to the baker's shop and asked the baker which cakes were hungry foods. The baker thought and thought. Then he said, "Well, everything I make in my shop is made with flour. Do you want to see it?"

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That sounded interesting, so Hal went with Mr Baker to see the flour. It looked like a powder and it came into two colours - white and brown.

“What is flour?” asked Hal. Mr Baker showed him a picture of a spiky plant with lots of seeds on it.

“This is wheat,” he said.

“We take the seeds and crush them. That makes the flour. If we use just the middle bit of the seed, the flour is white, but if we use the whole seed it is brown.

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Hal finds out more about two hungry foods

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We use the white flour for cakes and biscuits and the brown flour for making bread."

Hal had an idea. “Is flour a food too?” he asked.

Mr Baker laughed. “Of course it is! It's a food, but we can't eat it when it's like this - all dry and powdery - but we add all kinds of other things to it. Then we bake it and it tastes really nice.”

Hal watched while Mr Baker put some flour in a bowl. Mr Baker mixed in some butter, water, sugar and other things. It looked very pale and damp and not at all delicious. Then it was put in the very hot oven. After a little while Mr Baker took the mixture out of the oven and it had turned into a wonderful pastry!

It was brown and smelt delicious! Hal had no doubt - the flour had turned into a hungry food! Even looking at that pastry made him feel hungry.

But Hal had another question: was it the butter or the sugar that made the flour a hungry food?

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Mr Baker answered slowly, “I think it's a magic combination - the butter, the sugar, the flour and the hot oven.”

Hal was a clever boy and learned a lot by asking questions, so he asked Mr Baker, “Is sugar a hungry food? What does sugar look like?”

“I think you should ask Mr Kane at the sweetie shop," said Mr Baker. “He will tell you about sugar.”

So Hal went to the sweetie shop and asked Mr Kane the shop keeper about sugar.

Mr Kane was very happy to be asked. He knew about sugar and liked to talk about it.

He showed Hal a picture of a tall plant.

“This is sugar cane”, he said. “It grows in hot countries and it's a very tall, green plant. Inside the sugar cane is a delicious juice. We crush the stalks to squeeze out the juice. That's where sugar comes from. We let the juice dry and it makes wonderful, sweet crystals.”

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In the back of the shop Mr Kane showed Hal the sugar. Just like flour, it was in two colours - pure white and various shades of brown.

“But that's not all!” said Mr Kane. “There is syrup and treacle too. In fact, all the sweets in this shop are made with sugar - it's very clever stuff. It makes all sort of delicious sweet things.”

“Are sweets a hungry food or a happy food?” asked Hal. He loved the taste of sugar.

He was sure that sugar must be a happy food, because it make him happy just to think about eating things made from it.

"I don't know” said Mr Kane, smiling. "But I do know that when people are feeling sad, sweeties cheer them up. Maybe sugar is a happy food!"

Hal was so happy that he bought some chocolate, sweets and lollipops.

He was sure he would have enough sweeties for the whole of the week, but by bedtime he had eaten them all!

So even though sugar made him feel happy, it must be a hungry food. This was all very confusing.

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Hal was too muddled to go on asking lots of questions. He went to look for Fred and Tina to see what they thought. On the way, he bumped once again into the tall man.

“Hallo again! What's your name?” asked the tall man.

“I'm Hal,” said Hal.

“And I'm Noot.” said the tall man with a smile. “Are you ready for the growing door now?”

“No. I am very confused,” said Hal. “I found some happy foods but they made me hungry, so I now I don't know which is which."

“Aha!” said Noot. “That's easy. There are only a few hungry foods to know about. Some people think there are lots and lots of different foods - but actually there are very few ingredients in the food we eat.”

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Hal meets Noot

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“Ingredients?” asked Hal, “what are they?” “Aha!” said Noot, smiling even more.At that moment, Fred and Tina came along and together they all listened to Noot.“If you wanted to be a cook," Noot went on, "and make food that everyone will want to eat, what foods would you use?" That was easy. “Hungry foods!” they all cried at once. “Yes,” said Noot. “If you use hungry food ingredients they will eat everything you make and want more and more."

That idea made Hal's tummy rumble with hunger.

“But what about the growing door?” he asked, in a very small voice.

“The growing door needs lots of happy foods,” Noot said, gently. “Come with me and I'll show you.”

So Hal, Fred and Tina followed Noot to the market. The market stalls were bright and colourful with all kinds of fruits and vegetables.

“I don't like vegetables!” cried Fred in a loud voice.

“I am not sure about all that fruit,” said Tina to herself.

Hal said nothing. Some of the vegetables looked very strange and he was sure he would never like eating them, so they were surely not happy foods!

“These are the happiest foods in the world!” said Noot. “And I'm going to show you how.”

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So they bought lots of apples and lettuces and carrots and celery and pears and pineapples. Then they bought nuts and cucumbers, tomatoes and turnips. Their shopping bags were so heavy they could hardly carry them.

They went into Noot's enormous kitchen and he made soup and salads and all kinds of amazing things for them to try.

They ate and ate until they were really full up. They didn't want to eat any more. Noot said that was because their bodies felt happy.

“Now I'll show you some other happy foods, but you only need a little bit of those to make your body happy.”

Noot showed them meats and fishes and cheeses and eggs and herbs and seeds, until their heads were spinning.

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“Noot, how many ingredients are there in the world?" asked Hal.

"Hundreds," said Noot. "Hundreds of happy foods. There is no need for the hungry foods. They just make you want to eat too much in the wrong kind of way."

Tina asked, "What is the wrong kind of way?"

"Well," Noot said, "it's like this. You get hungry, then you have something to eat. That makes your body happy and you don't feel hungry any more.

But hungry foods make you hungry, even when you are not really hungry, and that makes your body very unhappy.

If you try to eat only a teeny tiny bit of a hungry food, that is really difficult. You can end up being scared of food and too thin to fit your growing door.

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The happiest foods in the world

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“Or too fat!” said Fred.

“So”, said Hal, very slowly, thinking hard. “If we all eat the food that makes our bodies happy, we will all get to be the right size for our growing door!”

“That's absolutely right!” said Noot, smiling more than ever.

And so it was, after many months of eating happy foods, that Fred got slimmer and slimmer. and Tina grew bigger and stronger.

Soon Tina and Fred were each able to step through their own growing door and pass into the land of tomorrow.

But Hal was still waiting to be just the right size for his growing door.

Sometimes he missed the hungry foods so much that he ate some, but then he got very, very hungry.

At those times, something inside him kept shouting "MORE!" and it made his body feel unhappy. So when that happened, he would eat some happy foods. Then he would feel much better.

He knew that this was the right kind of food for him. The more happy food he ate, the taller and stronger he became.

Eventually, with the help of lots and lots of happy foods, he was able to fit his own special growing door.

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He stepped through it and walked happily into the Land of Tomorrow. At last, he could become the person he was always meant to be.

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More about hungry foods

6From Wren Publications

www.wrenpublications.co.uk

For people with a food problem

(£6.99 with free delivery)

The book

Advice about how to get started on the Four Zero Plan

Four hungry foods:

Wheat Cow’s milk Sugar Potatoes

19

Are you a food addict? Here is a food addict’s diet:- find out what your favourite “food fix” is, take control and

start eating to live!

More.........

HAL AND THE GROWING DOOR

Copyright © 2014 Althea Hayton

Stick figures courtesy of Presenter Media. With permission.

Althea Hayton asserts her moral right to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved.

Published as a free e-book in 2014by

Wren PublicationsPO Box 396

St AlbansHertfordshire

AL3 6NE

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