Once upon a time, there lived a boy named Bert. One day Bert traded the family bicycle for a bag of magic beans.



But Bert's buddy, Ernie, looked in the bag and said, "Beans? Blah! How boring." And he threw the boring beans out the back window.



Immediately, the beans began to bloom. By breakfast, they had blossomed into a big, beautiful beanstalk.



When Ernie saw the beanstalk he said, "Look. A big, beautiful beanstalk. That's really boring."



But Bert wasn't a bit bored. "I feel brave!" Bert bellowed. So he bounded up the beanstalk.



Up, up, up went Bert, beyond the bean blossoms, beyond the birds, beyond the blue ... until he came to a big black building.



The building belonged to a giant named Burly Barney. Burly Barney was in the bedroom eating his breakfast of bushels of buttered buns, barrels of blueberries and bunches of bananas. When Bert saw how big Burly Barney was, Bert beat it to the back room. There, Bert found a big basket. It was full of bottlecaps.



"Boy, oh boy, oh boy!" said Bert. "Bottlecaps! I collect bottlecaps!" So Bert brought the basket of bottlecaps back to the beanstalk.



But Burly Barney saw Bert, and he began to bellow. "You took my bottlecaps!" "I'd better beat it," said Bert.



Boldly, Bert climbed down. Barney bounded down behind him. But, on a bottom branch, Bert slipped and fell with a bump.



"I'll bet you want to bash me because I borrowed your basket of bottlecaps," blurted Bert.



"Are you batty?" bellowed Burly Barney. "Those bottlecaps are boring! They were driving me bananas! Thank you for borrowing my bottlecaps!"



And Burly Barney shook Bert's hand. In fact, he shook Bert's whole body. Then Barney bounded back up the beanstalk to his beautiful black building.



And now that the basket of bottlecaps belonged to Bert, Bert had the best and biggest bunch of bottlecaps on the block. So Bert was beaming.



And everyone lived blissfully ever after. Except Ernie ... who was bored.