On the Wall

Leave a comment

Being omniscient is not all it’s cracked up to be.  After all, what good does it do to know everything, if you can’t do anything about it?  And that is the story of my life.  If there’s a disaster somewhere, I can see it.  But I can’t help.  I can’t make things better.  I just have to hang here, waiting for someone to come along and ask the right question, so I can warn them.

It wasn’t so bad with my first master.  He was a powerful sorcerer and a little selfish, but he was also very wise.  He knew what to ask and when to ask it.  And he would listen to me.  It only makes sense to listen to someone who knows everything, right?  At least with him, I felt like my knowledge was being put to use, if not always good use.

Then he died, and I was left to his daughter.  That woman is a nightmare.  Selfish?  Yes.  Vain?  You don’t even want to know.  Wicked?  Without a doubt.  But I could probably overlook those things in general.  From all I’ve seen, everyone has a little bit of selfish, vain, and wicked in them.  What kills me is that she is so vapid.  Is there a whole world out there?  Not as far as she’s concerned.  From day one, the only thing she has ever asked me about is her own beauty.

When she was going to get married, did she bother to ask if her husband-to-be was kind or cruel or…I don’t know…had a child already?  Not at all.  Just, “Am I the fairest of them all?”  Yes, my lady, yes you are.  And off she went to make a life changing decision with little to no information.  When her husband’s kingdom was being invaded by dwarves, did she consult with me about what could be done?  Of course not.  Just, “Who is the fairest of them all?”  Still you, my queen.  And likely to keep being you if this war continues.  When the peace treaty was finally signed and the king was trying to help his people rebuild their country, did she ask for my help?  You guessed it.  It was just, “Am I the fairest of them all?”  Yes, my queen.  I think we may have been over this before.  That was the day I decided that I could take matters into my own hands…even if I don’t actually have any hands.

My plan involved my mistress’s step-daughter, who was just now getting old enough to be useful.  The girl’s 15th birthday was coming up, and I knew the queen was a little jealous of all the attention the girl was getting.  So the next time she came with her insufferable question, I was ready.

“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?”

“O queen, you are lovely, graceful, and tall, but Snow White is fairest of them all.”

I have to confess that I may have been a little creative with the truth there.  The girl was quite pretty if you like the pale-skinned, wide-eyed kind, but she wasn’t going to win any beauty contests.  Here’s the thing.  I am bound to speak the truth, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my years of knowing everything, it’s that the truth is a matter of perspective.  For example, little Snow White was at her prettiest when she was asleep, all innocent and sweet with her little black lashes against her little white cheek.  The queen, on the other hand, was quite unattractive in the middle of the night.  Her dark hair was tangled and oily, her cheek bore the imprint of her pillow, and her nightgown made her look…well, chunky.  So all I had to do was picture the two of them at midnight and then my answer was as true as Snow White’s innocent heart.

As I predicted, my mistress completely lost control.  She never expected to hear anything but an affirmation of her own gorgeousness.  (Don’t even get me started about perpetually asking a question to which you already know the answer.)  She was not used to not having things go her way.  Her face turned purple.  She stuttered a little.  She pulled at her hair and threw a vase across the room.  For a minute I thought I might have made a mistake and that she would smash me before my plan had a chance to work.  But then she calmed down and began to make the wicked schemes that I knew she would make.

I know that you are familiar with most of Snow White’s story.  (How could I not know that?)  You know that her step-mother tried to have her killed and that she was saved by the very hunter who was to have killed her.  You know that the wild animals helped her and led her to a new home with some of the very dwarves who had previously been her father’s enemies.  You know that she was happy there for a while and that she won the hearts of those dwarves forever.  I had predicted all of these things.  I knew the kind-hearted hunter had a daughter just Snow White’s age.  I knew that seven dwarves in desperate need of a housekeeper were living very close to that part of the woods.   It was a risky plan, but I knew the probability of success was great.

My part was to help my mistress find Snow White.  It wouldn’t do me any good to have Snow White killed by someone else or even living happily ever after with the dwarves.  Unless I could get my mistress to go after the girl herself, unless I could get her locked up in the deepest dungeon, I would never be free.  So I concentrated hard on the way my mistress looked when she was angry and the way Snow White looked when she was singing to the dwarves, and the next time my mistress came, I had her answer ready.

“Mirror, mirror, on the wall, NOW who’s the fairest of them all?”

“You are lovely, my lady, graceful and tall, but Snow White is still fairest of them all.”

That was a dangerous moment.  For me.  For the poor hunter.  For my mistress’s blood pressure.  But fortunately, her first question was about the location of Snow White.  Once I had showed her that, she was too obsessed to worry about the rest of us.

And so the story unfolded as you have heard.  Snow White ate the poisoned apple and was buried in a glass casket in the forest.  The dwarves captured the wicked step-mother, who was locked away in the dungeons forever.  I have to confess that I was so overjoyed at being free from answering that same inane question every day that I didn’t think much about poor Snow White sleeping a deathly sleep all alone.  When I said everyone is a little selfish, vain, and wicked, I didn’t claim to be the exception.

It didn’t take long for me to get bored with my new existence, though.  I may have been free of one silly mistress, but now no one talked to me at all.  I wasn’t even sure if anyone knew about me.  When they cleaned out my mistress’s room and carried me off to be hung in the library, I began to be worried.  But I got lucky.  One day, when the king was reading, he suddenly threw his book down and cried out, “Why, oh why, did my Snow White have to die?”

It was my big chance.  Before he could rush off to cry I said, “It is not as you said, oh King, Snow White is not dead.”

I really wish you could have seen his face.  I’m not even capable of describing it, and I know all the words there are.  In any case, it didn’t take long after I’d explained the situation for him to find a suitable prince who was willing to kiss a not-quite-dead princess.  Snow White and her prince came home to live with her father.  Everyone was so grateful to me that I was hung in a place of honor in the family dining room to be consulted by every family member whenever they had need.

And I am pleased to say that we are all living happily ever after.

The Major Family in the Mines of Morado, ch. 2

Leave a comment

If you missed chapter 1, it’s here.

If you suddenly found that you could fly, what would you do?  Would you whoop and holler and zoom around the room?  Would you tremble and shake and try to keep your feet firmly planted on the ground?  Would you laugh?  Would you cry?  Would you tell all your friends?  Or would you make it your own little secret?

Tommy Major didn’t do any of those things.  It was a bit of a shock to discover that he could hover in mid-air.  His first thought was something like, “!!!???!!!???!!!”  But then his second thought was, “Now I can follow that mysterious creature down the hole and find out what it is and what it was doing here.”  And that is exactly what he did.

Just as soon as he disappeared down the dark hole, Flops the puppy pulled his scared little tail out from between his legs and picked up one of those purple rocks from the creature’s bag.  He could feel it vibrating in his mouth.  First his head, then his body, then his tail got all warm and tingly.  He could hear a humming noise that made him howl.  And when the noise went away, there he was, floating two feet off the ground.   Then he ducked his head and flew straight down that hole after Tommy.

When Tommy and Flops got to the bottom of the deep, deep hole, they found a large cavern.  It was not so dark here because there was a tunnel leading out of the cavern and into the bright daylight outside.   Tommy could just see the dark creature gliding along that tunnel.  He gave a shout and flew straight toward it.  The creature could move very fast, but apparently it couldn’t fly, so Tommy and Flops caught up to it just as it was about to reach the outside.  Flops flew straight over and landed in front of the opening, blocking the way while Tommy reached down to grab the creature.

But he couldn’t do it.  Tommy put his hands around the creature and lifted, but it glooped right through his hands like so much jello.  Tommy was even more surprised than he had been when he found out he was flying.  Immediately, he dropped to the ground with a thud.  Ignoring his jarred legs, he reached out again, and again his hands found nothing really solid to hold on to.  The creature was black as a shadow and seemed to have legs that it was walking on, but it was nothing but goo.  As soon as it was free from Tommy’s hands, it ran ahead, straight toward Flops.  Flops barked warningly, but the creature just smooshed right through Flops’ legs and out of the tunnel.  There was nothing Tommy and Flops could do.  They stood in the opening and watched the creature disappear down the mountainside.

Tommy knew they should get back to the rest of the family.  They would be wondering where he had gone.  He whistled for Flops, and the two of them flew back up the tunnel, into the cavern, up the long chute that led them there, and into the tunnel where they had left the bag of purple stones.  Between the two of them, they managed to carry the bag back up to the place where the rest of the Major family was working.

You can imagine how Tommy’s parents and sisters felt when they saw him flying toward them!  Mr. and Mrs. Major’s eyes got wider and wider and wider, and Pansy’s mouth fell open so far that a little fly buzzed right in, and Baby Rose was so scared that she fell right down on the floor.  Tommy landed and told the family the whole story.  They carefully examined the rocks as Tommy pulled them from the bag and made a small purple pile on the floor.

Then they each took a rock.

Pansy felt the vibrating and the warm tingle.  She was so excited to start flying like her brother.  But when the feeling passed, she was still standing on the floor, and no amount of jumping could make her soar into the air.  That made her mad.  In a fit, she threw the now dull rock to the ground.  It hit the ground with such force that it buried itself in the hard rock floor.  Everyone stared.  Pansy couldn’t fly, but she was now stronger than the strongest man they had ever seen.

Mr. Major held tight to his rock while it grew warmer and warmer in his hand.  He felt the tingle pass through him.  Then he looked around to see if anything had happened.  His family just looked back at him.  He seemed the same.  Until his hands started to feel a little warm again.  He held them up and looked at them.  Then he pointed at the wall, and fire shot out of his fingertips, scorching the rock in front of him.  Mrs. Major screamed.  Pansy and Tommy cheered.

Mrs. Major thought that holding the rock felt very strange.  She also thought that it didn’t do anything to her at all.  But that was because she couldn’t see that she had turned invisible.  Her family watched her disappear, though.  They were quite impressed.

Baby Rose didn’t know what to think of that strange glowing feeling because she was only a baby.  She did know that she thought it was very, very funny when she could crawl faster than her big brother could run.  Mrs. Major may not have thought it was quite as funny, but she had much more on her mind than her worries about a super-fast baby.

They all did.  They realized that the mines of Morado held a treasure much more valuable than diamonds.  A treasure that was both wonderful and also very dangerous.  They were pretty sure that the mysterious black creature that had collected these purple rocks would be coming back to try again.  They were pretty sure that it was up to no good.  And they were pretty sure that it was now their job to protect these special rocks from anyone who was up to no good.

And so it was that the real adventures of the Major family began.

My Traveling Pants

14 Comments

Come into my closet, ignore all the mess
There’s something worth seeing behind that red dress
Under those mittens and next to that shoe
Are my traveling pants, and they’d like to meet you.

They’re not much to look at, just plain ugly brown
They’ve got grass stains, the zipper’s perpetually down
You’re right when you say that they look quite absurd
But they tell the best stories that you’ve ever heard.

Like the one about terrible bank-robber Hamish
My pants were right there on the night he got famous
Old Hamish was brave, but he hadn’t a gun
So he held up the bank with his finger and thumb.

Once my pants saw a flood down in Mississippi
When the water rose higher than all of the trees
And in Texas they sat on a branch for a break
But they jumped up real fast when it hissed like a snake.

They’ve seen lizards grow new legs and fish that can fly
They’ve even seen frogs raining down from the sky
So if tales both exciting and true make you dance
Then come spend some time with my traveling pants.

(Inspired by Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop. Head on over and check it out for more fun.)

Mama's Losin' It

Bluebell and Buttercup

5 Comments

Not so far away, but very, very long ago, there lived two fairy sisters named Bluebell and Buttercup. In their day fairies looked the same as other people, only much more beautiful and with powers that could be felt though they couldn’t be seen. Bluebell and Buttercup, the only daughters of the fairy queen, were the most beautiful of all the fairies and the most powerful, too. But they were spoiled and selfish and didn’t realize that their power was given for the good of everyone. They thought their power was theirs to play with, and that is exactly what they did.

The sisters were always causing trouble. When they were just two years old, Bluebell caught three mice, turned them purple, and kept them as pets. Buttercup was jealous of those mice, so she grew them all three feet tall to scare her sister. They ate all the cats in the county before the fairy queen finally caught them and shrunk them down again.

When they were five, Bluebell discovered that she loved chocolate, so she turned all the fence posts in the neighborhood into chocolate bars. The sun came out and melted all those chocolate fences before she could eat them. The cows and sheep and horses and chickens all got free from their fields and ran loose everywhere. In the middle of the chaos, Buttercup decided to make the best of the melted chocolate situation and turned all the grass into vanilla ice cream to make some sundaes. The mess was unbelievable. It took all the fairies several days to pick up all the sticky chicken feathers and wash the chocolate clumps out of the sheep’s wool.

When the girls were seven, they needed more time to play outside with their new bouncy ball, so they stopped the sun in the sky. It burned and burned until some of the dry grass caught fire, and there was a big blaze, and everyone was so tired from being awake for so long that they couldn’t even lift the buckets of water to fight the fire. If the fairy queen hadn’t come just in time and made it rain all over the fire, who knows what would have happened?

On their tenth birthday, Buttercup turned all the trees purple because that was Bluebell’s favorite color, and Bluebell made hundreds of mushrooms grow everywhere because they were Buttercup’s favorite food. All of that was fine until their two spells collided and giant purple mushrooms the size of trees began to sprout up everywhere. One popped up right under the Buttercup’s feet and she was stuck on the top of a twelve foot tall mushroom until her mother came along and fixed things again.

But the worst catastrophe of all happened when Bluebell and Buttercup were thirteen. Bluebell had gotten a new dress. It was purple, of course, and sparkly and swishy. She was so proud of her dress that she couldn’t stop talking about how pretty she looked it in. Buttercup was annoyed. When she couldn’t take anymore of Bluebell’s bragging, she said, “Like a toad all green and spotty, make that purple dress turn dotty!”

Bluebell’s sparkly purple dress was suddenly covered with ugly green polka dots. She was so mad that she instantly said, “In any dress I’m prettier than you, especially when your skin is blue!”

Buttercup instantly turned bright blue. She was furious. She ran at Bluebell yelling, “Think you’re pretty when you’re tall? Let’s see what you look like small!”

Bluebell shrank down until she was only the size of a leaf. The flowers in their mother’s garden towered over her. She couldn’t see her sister. She couldn’t see anything but the stems of the flowers and a little patch of blue sky peeking through the roof of yellow tulips above her. She was so scared that she spoke without thinking, “I’m a fairy, I won’t cry, I just need some wings to fly.” Instantly, delicate wings sprouted from her back, and she fluttered up above the flowers. Elated, she looked around for her sister.

At first she didn’t see her. It wasn’t until she heard a voice calling her name that she turned and saw Buttercup, two inches tall, flying toward her on tiny fragile wings. Each sister stared at the other’s blue face. Every spell that they had spoken had worked on both of them, and they hadn’t even realized it. They began to feel a little afraid. Buttercup whispered, “Spell go back without a trace. Give me back my normal face.” Nothing happened.

Bluebell sniffled a little and said, “Even if my sister wins, magic make me big again.” Nothing happened. They couldn’t undo their own magic. More scared than ever, the sisters flew off to find their mother.

They looked in the queen’s palace, but they didn’t see anyone. They looked in the gardens and in the forest, and still they didn’t see anyone. Now they were absolutely terrified. Finally, they went to the queen’s fairy pool. There they saw all the fairies gathered around the water, looking at their reflections. Every single one of them was tiny and blue, and every single one of them had wings. Bluebell and Buttercup were horrified. Their mother flew over to them.

“Girls, I assume we have you to thank for our new appearance?”

The girls nodded miserably and waited for their mother to make everything right. She did nothing. “I’m sorry, girls, I already tried. There is nothing I can do either. Together your magic proved too strong to be undone.”

Buttercup and Bluebell felt so sorry for what they had done that they worked very hard from that day on. They helped everyone make new tiny houses to live in out of twigs and flower petals and hollowed out pumpkins. They learned how to make a tiny little oven for baking tiny loaves of bread. And they made friends with all the animals of the forest, so that none of them would eat the fairies as they went about their work. Eventually the fairies learned to enjoy their new wings and make the best of their new life. But Bluebell and Buttercup never used their magic again.

And so it is that to this day, all the fairies are very , very small, and they all fly on delicate wings.

A Mother’s Day Song for Kids

2 Comments

(In my head, this is sung to the tune of “My Bonny Lies Over the Ocean.”)

Aren’t you thankful you have such a mommy?
Don’t you love how she fixes you snacks?
She gives the best snugly cuddles.
So stop whining, start rubbing her back.

Mommy, Mommy, This is her very special day
Mommy, Mommy, would like you to hush and go play

Don’t you love your sweet, wonderful Mommy?
She cuts all the crusts off your bread.
She kisses away all your boo-boos.
So go make her breakfast in bed.

Mommy, Mommy, this is her very special day
Mommy, Mommy, would like you to hush and go play

The Mad, Bad King

1 Comment

Once upon a time there was a mad, bad king, who didn’t want anyone to be happy.  He had never had any happiness himself, and he did not think it was fair for anyone else to have something the king didn’t have.  Getting rid of happiness is harder than it seems, though.  Happiness is sneaky and has a tricky way of popping up when you least expect it.

At first, the king just made a law saying that no one was allowed to be happy.  Whenever his soldiers caught anyone smiling or laughing or doing something fun, they would capture that person and put him in the dungeons.  This didn’t really work, though.  Pretty soon the dungeons were full, and there were lots of people still being happy out there.

The king gave his soldiers a new order.  Anytime they saw someone being happy, they were to take away whatever it was that made them happy.  At first it was easy.  If a little boy was having fun riding his bike, the soldiers would take the bike away.  Then they would take away every bike in the kingdom, so that no one else could enjoy one either.  If a little girl smiled while eating a lollipop, the soldiers would take away all the lollipops in the kingdom, just in case they made anyone smile.   Pretty soon there were no toys in the whole kingdom.  All the candy was gone, too.  Then one day, a soldier saw a woman humming while she watered her roses.  The next morning, all the flowers in the kingdom had been dug up and thrown away.   The day after that, the king saw a family playing happily with their puppy dog.  He immediately made his soldiers round up all the puppies and kittens in the kingdom and lock them away in the dungeons.  Of course, to do that, they had to let all the prisoners out, which made them and their families very happy, but they had learned their lesson, and they did not act happy until they were all at home and had closed the doors and curtains and no one could see them.

For a while, it seemed that the king’s plan was working.  He never saw anyone smile or laugh or sing or dance.  Everything was just as gloomy as the mad, bad king himself.  But then spring came.  The trees started budding.  The sun was shining, the air was warm, and the sky was bluer than blue.  People began to stay outside as much as possible and have picnics and talk with their neighbors.  Children ran around together and played tag.  Babies crawled on green grass with little gurgles of delight.  The mad, bad king was furious.  But who could get rid of spring?

The king called in the most famous magician in all the world.  He offered him all the gold in his treasury if he could make it cold and miserable again.  The magician agreed.  The next morning when everyone woke up, the ground was covered in snow.  A cold wind was blowing.  Things were very quiet and dull in the kingdom that morning.  Hardly anyone came out of their houses.  But then in the afternoon, some of the older children put on coats and hats and scarves and came out to dig tunnels through the snow.  Once the ground was cleared a bit, the younger children came out, too.  Some of them started to build a snowman.  Then some fathers and mothers came out to admire the snowman.  Pretty soon, most everyone was outside.  A few people started a snowball fight.  Some women handed around hot chocolate.  It was obvious that everyone was having a good time.

The mad, bad king was enraged.  He called for the magician again and demanded that he make the snow go away.  The magician just shrugged his shoulders.  The king didn’t have any money left to pay him this time.  He had used all his gold getting the magician to make the kingdom cold.  The king yelled and screamed and finally called for his soldiers to put the magician in the dungeons.   The soldiers rushed toward the magician with their swords raised.  The magician just calmly raised his hand and said a few words very quietly.  The soldiers stopped, waiting for something magical to happen.  Nothing happened.  After a moment, the bravest soldier stepped forward again and tied up the magicians hands.  Then the magician did a very strange thing.  He began to jump up and down and make noises like a monkey.  The soldiers thought he had gone crazy, but then they heard a strange noise behind them.

“He, he, he, ha, Ha, Ha, Hee, Hee, Hee, HAR, HAR, HAR!”  The mad, bad king was laughing.  He laughed so hard that he fell on the ground.  He laughed so loud that some of the soldiers started to giggle, too.  Pretty soon everyone in the room was roaring with laughter.  When things finally calmed down, the king stood up and ordered that the magician be released.

“I feel so good!” he said.  “I feel… I feel…HAPPY!”

The magician’s last spell had worked.  The mad, bad king was not mad or bad any more.

So they all trooped out of the castle to play in the snow, and the king invited everyone in the kingdom inside afterward for hot chocolate.  All the puppies and kittens were released from the dungeons, and someone found all the toys and candy hidden away in the storerooms.   After the best party you could ever imagine, they all proceeded to live happily ever after.

The Run That Came To A Stop

Leave a comment

When I was a little boy, about 11 or 12 years old, I went to a school that was a couple of miles from the housing area we lived in.  Between the school and the housing area there were several big hills and no roads.  Most of the time I would ride the school bus to and from school.  But sometimes, when the weather was good and I had plenty of time, some of my friends and I would walk over the hills to get home.

One time we walked and when we got to the top of the last hill we could see all the houses below us where we lived.  One of my friends challenged us all to a race, down the hill, across the cow pasture, and into the housing area.

Now I was never a very fast runner.  Usually I would come in last in any race, but I decided I would do my best no matter what.  So I hitched up my school books under my arm and took off running downhill as fast as I could.

It was all I could do to keep from falling down because the faster I ran the harder it was for my feet to keep up with my body.  I would stretch out my legs as far as they would go and keep looking ahead to make sure my feet would land in just the right place. Every little mound of dirt became a launching pad that I would step on and from which I would jump as high and as far as I could.

In this way, for the first time, I found myself actually beating the other boys in the race.  Boy was I happy about that.  I had just a dozen or more long strides to make and I would win!  I looked ahead and there was one more dirt mound that I could use to spring from and dash into the housing area.

As my left foot stepped on the top of the dirt mound I glanced down at my feet and there, coiled up just on the other side of the mound, was a very big and very black snake.  With just a glance I couldn’t tell what kind of snake it was, but my right foot suddenly came to a stop beside my left foot.  The problem was my body didn’t stop at all.

My books went flying out of my hand as I reached to catch myself as I fell across that snake.  My hands stopped my body, my feet didn’t move, and that snake was curled up right under my belly.  With a loud yell I pushed with all my might and sprang forward from over that snake and just sat there with my heart racing.

It turned out that the snake was a harmless king snake, even though it was about 6 feet long.  After I calmed down, we captured the snake and played with it for awhile then let it go.

Oh, yes.   I still won the race, because all my friends had stopped to see the snake too.

Mush Mommy

Leave a comment

Once upon a time there was a mommy who loved to tell stories to her children, Molly, Matt, and Maggie.  Every morning when they woke up, the children would say, “Please may we have a story?”  Then their mommy would tell them a story while they ate their breakfast.  She would tell them stories while they were doing their work, tell them stories while they were walking to school, and tell them a brand new story each night as she tucked them into bed.  The last thing they would hear before falling asleep was, “And they lived happily ever after.”

That falling asleep was where all the trouble began.  It started with Molly, who was eight.  Molly decided she was too old to go to bed at the same time as her baby brother and sister.  So she asked for extra stories, and when that didn’t work, she asked for a drink of water, and when that didn’t work, she asked for some toys to play with in bed, and when that didn’t work, she cried.  With all this asking and crying, it was much later than normal when Mommy was finally able to get Molly to sleep.  

Then is was Maggie’s turn.  Maggie had fallen asleep with no trouble at all, like the sweet little baby that she was.  But just when everyone else had begun to dream their happiest dreams, Baby Maggie woke up.  And she cried.  And she cried and cried and cried.  It was a very long time before Mommy could get her to go back to dreamland.  By that time, Mommy was very, very tired, and she sighed happily as she crawled back into bed.  

Just then, Matt woke up.  He didn’t mean to stay awake.  He just missed his Mommy.  So he got up and went to her bed and curled up against her.  He was a very sweet and snuggly boy…all except for his elbow.  His elbow was very sharp and pokey, and it was determined to have as much space as it needed to stick out.  Mostly the place where it decided to stick was in the Mommy’s back.  After a while of being poked by elbow, Mommy got up and carried sleeping Matt back to his own bed.  Then, just as she settled back into her pillows with a smile….it was morning, and Molly and Matt and Maggie were waking up and asking for a story with their breakfast.

The first morning after a night like that, Mommy’s head was a little mushy, but she shook herself and drank some coffee and made up a new story.  

The second morning, Mommy’s head was quite mushy, so she shook herself and drank some coffee, but she still couldn’t think of a new story, so she told everyone Molly’s favorite fairy tale.  

The third morning, Mommy’s head was nothing but mush.  She drank her coffee, but it just seeped right out of her mushy head.  She tried to remember Matt’s favorite story, but her mushy head could not do it.   Matt had to tell the story himself.  

The fourth morning, not only was Mommy’s head mushy, now her arms and hands had turned to mush, too.  Molly had to make breakfast for everyone, and she tried to think of a story, but Maggie cried because her breakfast was too hot, and Matt complained that Molly’s story wasn’t exciting enough.  

The fifth morning came, and now Mommy had turned entirely to mush.  She tried to get out of bed, but her mushy legs couldn’t stand up.  Molly, Matt, and Maggie didn’t know what to do.  They tried to make her sit up, but she was too mushy.  The tried to roll her out of the bed, but she just glooped right over the edge and landed in a pile of mush on the floor.  Molly called the doctor, who rushed right over.

“Yes,” said the doctor, “this is the worst case of Mommy Mush I’ve ever seen.  It’s a good thing you called me when you did.  Tell me, now, has she been getting any sleep at night?”

Molly, Matt, and Maggie just looked at the floor.

“That’s what I thought,” said the doctor.  “Well, fortunately, Mommy Mush is curable, but it’s going to take  some very fast music and then A LOT of sleep. ”

So Molly went on put on their very loudest dance music, and they all watched anxiously as Mush Mommy slowly turned back into their real Mommy.  Only when she was able to smile a very, very weak smile did the doctor lift her off the floor and back into her bed.  Then he turned off the light, and they all tiptoed out of the room and let her sleep.

It was a very long day for those children without any Mommy to tell them stories, but Matt and Molly tried to take turns telling all the stories they could remember.  And that night when it was time to go to bed, Molly went straight to sleep without any complaining.  In the night, Maggie woke up and wanted to cry, but then she thought of Mush Mommy and grabbed her blankie and went back to sleep.  A little later Matt woke up and wanted to curl up by Mommy again, but instead he cuddled down in his blankets and dreamed of having his Mommy back to normal again.

In the morning, Mommy was all better.  She got up and made breakfast with no signs of mushy hands.  At breakfast, she told them the best story ever.   And of course, they lived happily ever after, sleeping all night long every night.

Run, run!

3 Comments

Okay, so I’ve just been told there are some nasty rumors going around about me.  Something about how I’m a snotty little punk who taunts taunts people who aren’t as fast as me?  Or better yet, how I’m all brawn and no brains…a fast runner who can be outsmarted by a common fox.  Sorry, people, your intel is a little off.   I mean, yes, I am very fast, but I’m not stuck up about it.  Seriously, I’m not.  How could I possibly think I’m all that when I’m sporting little cherry buttons and currant eyes?  Tasty?  Of course.  But not exactly manly attire.

Here’s the thing:  all I ever really wanted was to break free from the stereotypes, you know?  You say “gingerbread man,” and everyone thinks it’s time to chow down.  Like we’re just here to be delicious or something.  But I wanted to be more.  I wanted to help people, to really make a difference.  And to do that, first I had to keep from getting eaten.  And it’s not just about me.  Eating me would be really unhealthy.   I’m all made out of butter and sugar and molasses, and everyone knows those things are bad for you.  When I came out of the oven, I took one look at that old lady and knew her ticker couldn’t take too many more meals like me.  What she needed was some exercise, but obviously she was lacking motivation.  That’s when it came to me, all in a flash.  Without even thinking, I yelled, “Don’t eat me!” and then I ran off.  I knew she would chase me.  I also knew that no one with those love handles was going to catch a brand new gingerbread man like me.  Just to make sure she kept moving, I started to sing, “Run, run, as fast as you can!  You can’t catch me; I’m the gingerbread man!”

Okay, people, I get that it’s not the best song in the world.  I get that it maybe sounds like I was mocking her.  But I had to make it up as I went; there was no time for being polite.  Plus, you have to admit.  It worked.  That little old lady moved faster than she had moved in years.  She was puffing and panting, and there was no doubt that it was aerobic.  She chased me for a good twenty minutes, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is a great workout for a woman her age.  She may have been mad that she lost her snack, but someday she is totally going to thank me.

As for that fox, don’t believe anything he tells you.  I don’t normally dish about my clients, but since he started it, let me just say that he was carrying a good 20 extra pounds when I met him.  Running wasn’t getting it done, so we switched to swimming.  I would ride on his back and make sure he kept up a good pace.  Did he occasionally have a lapse of judgment and try to eat me?  Yeah, he did.  Did he ever succeed?  No, of course not.  I’m still here, and you’d better believe that after two months with me, he’s looking like a new fox.  Please tell the ungrateful cur that I said, “You’re welcome.”

So that’s how I found my calling in life, and I’ve been making people run ever since.  Some people may argue with my methods, but no one can argue with my results.  Are people eating cookies?  No.  Are they outside, breathing fresh air and getting some good cardio time in?  Yes, they are.  Thank you very much.  That’s all I have to say about that.

Prince and Princess

2 Comments

Once upon a time there was a young prince named Leo who lived with his family in a giant castle.  Life as a prince is pretty great, but it’s also more work than you might think.  True, Prince Leo got to eat off of golden plates at every meal and take a bath in a bathtub the size of a swimming pool every night, but he also had to dress up in stiff clothes for horribly boring formal dinners and copy lines over and over to make his handwriting as fancy as possible.  Even his favorite parts of being a prince were hard work.  Every morning he had to practice horseback riding and sword work and archery.   And every afternoon he studied ways to break through evil enchantments.

Prince Leo had an older sister named Princess Elena.  Princess Elena was about to be 15 years old, and everyone was planning a huge birthday party for her.  Her father, the king, had ordered his cooks to make the biggest feast anyone had ever eaten in the castle.  Her mother, the queen, had ordered the most beautiful dress of shimmering purple made for her to wear.  Prince Leo worked hard in all of his free time to make a wonderful present for his sister.  Using only his own little knife, he was carving a huge wooden horse for Elena that looked just like her favorite real horse, Fettle.  Prince Leo tried hard to keep his present a secret.  He  only worked when he knew Princess Elena was at her dancing lessons, and he kept the horse in one of the lowest dungeons where she would never go.  But Prince Leo knew his sister.  He knew that she couldn’t stand secrets.  She never said anything, but he was pretty sure that she had spied out what he was working on.  He hoped she would still like it, even though it probably wouldn’t surprise her.

Unfortunately, before he could find out if she liked it or not, everyone in the castle got a much worse surprise.  On the night before her party, Princess Elena went missing.  She had been trying on her party dress one last time when the seamstress was called out of the room.  When the woman came back, Princess Elena was gone.  They searched the entire castle, but she could not be found.  No one had any idea what had happened until one of the servants found a black feather on Princess Elena’s pillow.  A black feather: the calling card of the wicked sorcerer Malvent.

Once the king found out that Malvent had taken Princess Elena, he called for all his advisers to meet him in his throne room.  The talked long and hard about what should be done.  The generals suggested sending out knights to hunt for her, but the king knew that swords and shields would be of no use against a sorcerer like Malvent.  Instead, he asked his chief minister which of his men was the most skilled at battling sorcerers spells.

“There can be no doubt,” said the chief minister.  “The best man for such a job is Prince Leo.”

The king was surprised and also proud.  Prince Leo was still very young.  But he was a prince, and he begged his father to let him go and bring back his sister.  The king agreed.  He knew that Prince Leo had the best chance of success.

That night, Prince Leo studied all the maps and memorized the way to Malvent’s fortress.  Then, early in the morning, he set out to rescue his sister.  The sorcerer Malvent lived on a jagged mountaintop.  The road to his fortress was narrow and steep.  Half way up, Prince Leo had to leave behind his horse because the path was just too tight for a horse to pass through.  Climbing on foot was cold and tiring work.  And it wasn’t just the steep climb and the frigid wind that made it difficult.  Soon, a weird mist began to creep up around Prince Leo’s ankles, then his knees, then his waist.  Soon he was surrounded by the mist and couldn’t see where he was going.  Fortunately, Prince Leo had studied enchanted mists, so he knew just what to do.  He reached into the bag at his side and pulled out a special candle that his mother had made.  Once he had the candle lit, the love his mother had put into it cleared the mist just enough for him to see where his feet needed to go.  Step by careful step, Prince Leo reached the doors to the fortress.

The fortress doors were also enchanted.  They would only open with certain words.  Fortunately, Prince Leo had studied enchanted doors, and so he knew just what to do.  He closed his eyes and remembered all the enchanted passwords he had memorized, trying them out one by one.  On his fifth try, he found the right words, and the door opened.  Prince Leo walked boldly into the main hall of the fortress.  He knew that sorcerers always keep their prisoners high up in the tallest tower, and so Prince Leo began to climb the stairs.

Naturally, Malvent’s stairs weren’t ordinary stairs.  When Prince Leo was halfway up, the stairs suddenly began to jump around and almost pitched him straight over the side.  Fortunately, Prince Leo had studied enchanted stairs, and so he knew just what to do.  Reaching into his bag again, he pulled out a pair of his father’s boots, which he slipped onto his own feet.  All of his father’s wisdom which was in the boots helped Prince Leo find just the right places to step as he climbed and climbed those jumping stairs.  Finally, he reached the very top, and opened the door in front of him.

Behind the door was a round room containing seven cells.  In the cell that was straight in front of him, Prince Leo could see his sister, Princes Elena, sitting on a stool and knitting something large and blue.  He cried out with joy, and rushed forward.  He was just about to open the door to her cell when he heard her voice from behind him.

“No, Leo!”

He turned and saw his sister in the cell behind him.  Then slowly he turned and saw that each of the seven cells had a girl in it.  They all looked exactly like Princess Elena.  All at once they all began to talk.

“I’m the real, Elena!”

“No, Leo, you know me.  I’m your sister.”

“Don’t let any of the other ones out.  They’ll turn into monsters as soon as the door is open.”

Unfortunately, Prince Leo had never studied enchanted monsters that look like your sister, and he didn’t know what to do.  For several minutes he just stayed right where he was, turning on the spot and staring at all those copies of Princess Elena.  Then he had the perfect idea and stopped where he was, looking straight at the first Elena.

“What did I make you for your birthday?” he asked.

“I don’t know!  You kept it a secret,” said the first one.

“That’s a trick question,” said the second one.  “You bought me some jewelry.”

“No, you wrote me a song,” said the third one.

“You know that it was a surprise,” said the fourth.  “I really don’t know.”

The fifth Elena blushed.  “You carved me a wooden horse,” she whispered.

And quick as a flash, Prince Leo opened her door and grabbed her hand.  She smiled at him, while the other Elenas all turned back into monsters and began gnashing their teeth at him from behind their bars.  Leo and Elena ran for the stairs.

They were down all the stairs and almost to the front door when Malvent himself appeared right in front of them.  He raised his hands and began to say the words of a spell.  Fortunately, Princess Elena had also studied enchantments by evil sorcerers, and she knew just what to do.  She grabbed the edge of the blue cloak that she had been knitting in her cell and threw it over the sorcerer.  His spell rebounded off the cloak and hit himself.  Where once there had been a terrifying sorcerer, there now stood a large gray hippopotamus.   The prince and princess ran out the door and down the path.  When they reached the point where Prince Leo had left his horse, they found several men standing.  The king had sent his men to escort his children home.

Princess Elena had a beautiful birthday party.  Among other exciting games and prizes, it featured a ride on a real hippo.  And they all lived happily every after.