When carrying out investigative work in the primary school, one often considers how familiar the children are with the context. This usually means considering the practical and life experiences the children have already had. However, it is also valuable to consider the children's literary experiences. Think about all the stories, novels, folk tales and nursery rhymes that children know inside out. Stories such as the "Three Little Pigs", "Cinderella" and "Humpty Dumpty" are easily used as the starting points for investigations with younger children: a house of straw might not be much use against the big bad wolf--but which pig would fare best in a "rainstorm"? Are glass slippers "really" practical? What "is" the maximum safe fall distance for a raw or cooked egg? However, one of the problems with this approach is that it is inherently limited: it is only possible to see how "some" stories might be used for "some" investigations. Whilst this may provide a few valuable starting points, many teachers will look at the curriculum that they are teaching and find that it is difficult to decide just what story might provide just the right stimulus. The solution is really quite simple. Rather than inventing stories from scratch, a useful starting point is to consider the concept of the "sequel". That is, write a short story that includes characters and situations that are already well known. In this article, the author shows how writing sequels to well-known stories can promote science investigations.