Maurice was a very ordinary ‘Take-me-as-you-find-me’ floor mop.
He wasn’t exactly handsome, but floor mops
never are.
He wasn’t exactly clever, but did you ever meet a floor mop that was?
If anything, Maurice was messy. Terribly, terribly messy. And he was messy because he was impatient.
Far too impatient.

One day, Maurice was feeling very impatient, and he looked around for something to do.
Now as floor mops can really do only one thing, there was only one thing Maurice could do.
And that was mop the kitchen floor.

“You can’t do that now!” said Beryl the bucket crossly. “You’ll make a terrible mess!”
Maurice took no notice.
Now the first thing Maurice needed was water and, as Beryl wouldn’t help, he needed something to put it in.
How about Dennis the dustpan?
“If she won’t help, I will!” grinned Dennis, who thought it would be rather fun.

Maurice helped Dennis climb into the sink, and then he turned on the tap.
The cold tap.
“Yeow! It’s freezing!” squealed Dennis, spilling all the water on the floor.
“Sorry,” said Maurice. “I’ll use the hot tap.”
He turned it on.
“Yeow!” squealed Dennis for the second time. “It’s boiling!”

Poor Dennis. He hopped around splashing water everywhere until he managed to tip it all out.
He tipped it over Beryl, who wasn’t amused. “Err… sorry,” said Maurice. “It won’t happen again.” But he crossed his fingers. Just in case.

It didn’t take long for Maurice and Dennis to get the hang of it and they were soon happily sloshing water all over the floor.
“Wheee!” said Maurice as he slid from one end of the floor to the other.
“Sploosh!” said Dennis as he threw water willy-nilly aroung the kitchen.
Slop! Sploosh! Splosh!
“Huh!” said Beryl, stepping from one puddle to another. “It’s a mess. A horrible wet messy mess!”
Maurice looked around. She was right.
But he wasn’t going to say so.