Clippety Clips

One of the stories in the collection starts:






The telescope, an antique of untraceable origin, was a prize in a competition that no one could remember entering. The little girl who won the telescope put it to her eye and found a magical new world. One day the little girl, a strained eye glued to the telescope, noticed something that not even the biggest space agencies and organisations had noticed. Way beyond the reflection of her own eye she saw the surface of the Moon. It was strangely cut up and scuffed. She looked every day; in the morning long before school and in the evening before she had to go to bed. On the tenth day of intense gazing she reached a point of clarity: there was a horse loose on the Moon. There could be a hundred reasons for a horse to be on the Moon but she couldn’t think of even one. She felt close to him; she thought she knew him, even if it was only from a picture-book or telly-ad. She knew him as Ol' Clippety-Cloppety.



The story involves a lost Cloppety, and a missed intergalactic conference due to the Blue planet being infested with deadly bacteria: humans. I hope the story isn’t too spoiled by telling you that Ol’ Clippety gets his Cloppety back before the last full stop brings the curtain down.