Literary Endeavors

About this Blog!

2006-07-30T23:27:00.001-04:00

Having already posted on-line Fabulae, which took up much of my time in high school, and "Working Title" which took up much of my time in college, I decided to go back through my child hood stories and post everything up through middle school.

This isn't everything of course, it's simply everything that survived. I can think of a number of pieces I wrote that for one reason or another got lost, misplaced, or thrown away over the years. I guess everyone's childhood is like that. This is what I could dig up though. (Some of the lost stuff I wrote up brief descriptions of here, mostly just for my own sentimentality.)

Besides that big factor, a couple other minor cuts have been made. Anything I did in my free time I decided must have been important to me at one point because I put my own time into it. So I've reproduced it here, (even if it turned out to be a complete disaster like "The Story of Giddo.")

School assignments I was a bit more picky on. Stuff I really got into, I reproduce here. Stuff where I was simply going through the motions to get the grade I've left off.

You'll note I don't say, "Stuff that was really good." From the perspective of adult-hood, none of this seems particularly good. But some of it I really got into at the time, or was very proud of at the time.

A Farewell to Pork

2006-07-25T11:35:00.000-04:00

11th grade English class. The assignment was to re-write a fairy tale imitating Hemmingway's style.

I stood at the entrance to the three pig's house. "Little pig, won't you let me in?"

"You can't come in."

"Let me in. I'll be good."

"You can't. We won't let you in."

"Please let me in. It'll be grand."

"Won't you have some wine? Wine really is grand."

"I shall not have any until you let me in."

"We can not let you in. Let's not talk about that."

"I shall blow down the house. I really shall."

"You still can't come in. Not yet."

I took a deep breath and blew out and out and out. My breath went out swiftly, all of it. Then I breathed and it was back. Again I blew out. Then I was exhausted, and I started to cough.

From inside I herd the laughter of the pigs, and it angered me. I went to the roof to drop down the chimmney, but the pigs had set a pot below me and filled it with Kummel, Cognac, and Vermouth, then set it on fire. I landed in the pot, but jumped out and fled. I felt no guilt about abadoning my supper. Although I still have several friends who eat pork, and I wish them the best of luck, it is not my show anymore.

Invasion of the Frogs

2006-07-23T10:38:00.001-04:00

This is the plot outline to a story that I started to write in 8th grade. I'm not sure what happened to the actual story itself, but it doesn't really matter because I only got a couple pages into it anyway.

This plot outline follows the format that my 8th Grade English teacher laid out as the proper way to write a story. Before that I would just make stuff up as I went, which was the fun way to do it. After 8th grade I took it as gospel that all stories had to be plotted out before you could begin, which kills all the fun. The reason I never really continued this story is because I already knew what was going to happen, so what was the point of writing it?

Also I had been taught that all stories should contain both a "theme" and a "thread". I tried to shoehorn both of these elements into my plot outline, but as you can see my heart wasn't really into it.

Title Ideas
Invasion of the Frogs
Frog Invasion
Mutant Frogs
Frogs

Characters
Timothy David Esot is a brilliant scientist at age 26. He is obsessed with his work and will do nothing else if he can help it. He is often criticized for never having time for other people. He has black hair, blue eyes, and wears glasses. His hair is parted to the right side. He makes a living off of selling inventions, but the money is never enough and he is forced to make many presentations on science to make money. These presentations are the only reason he keeps himself well groomed. His main goal in life is to join the ranks of Thomas Edison or Albert Einstein. He is 6 foot 1.

Froger is a large frog, about four times as big as Tim Esot's fist. Froger is two and a half years old. He's mostly green, with a white underside and red eyes. He has a deep voice, and a warped laugh that's unmistakably his. He does not hesitate to kill, but is very careful of killing his own frogs, because he knows their services may be required later, and he doesn't want to cause a revolt. If he does kill a fellow frog, he does it in secret.

Jumpy was a frog highly respected by the others. He was normal size and green with black stripes and a white belly. He could never agree about anything with Froger. The two hated each other. When Jumpy threatens revolt, along with his large group of followers, Froger takes him to a room to discuss it. This room, which turns out to be an artificial forest, is filled with starving rattle snakes. Jumpy is devoured and Froger informs the rest of the frogs that Jumpy had tired of the Frog council, and simply hopped away.

Plot
Tim Esot finds a way to increase the intelligence of other creatures, and test his theory out on Froger. He find success. Froger becomes as intelligent as a human. Then, when Tim is gone, Froger sets the machine on "Super Intelligence" and uses it on himself. Finding success, he uses it on many other frogs in the nearby swamp. The frogs, with their super-intelligence, build an army of robots and prepare for a crusade to kill all the humans. After the frogs massacre a school, the frogs call Tim to their headquarters to explain to him their intentions, and offer Tim a chance to join them in gratitude to Tim for inventing the machine.

Tim refuses and reports everything to the police. Pretty soon the navy is called in, but the navy is miserably defeated because they can find no way to penetrate the robots that the frogs ride in. Also, the frogs have developed laser beams that are incapable of missing their target.

The Frogs realize that it was Tim who reported them, and send a robot to kill Tim Esot. But because Tim was the one who made everything possible, they decide to give him a sporting chance and send a less developed Robot that is capable of missing. Tim grabs his intelligence increasing machine and runs. Then, when cornered by the Robot, it panic he shoots the intelligence ray at the Robot. The robot explodes. Tim realizes the rays of the intelligence increaser somehow act as a short circuit to the Frog's Robot technology.

Tim reports his findings to the police. The police immediately call in other scientists. One scientist takes the intelligence increaser back to his lab. The frogs, however, have a spy in the police station. The frog. spy reports everything back to the Frog base through a micro-radio strapped onto him. When the scientist was walking back to his car, a robot was waiting for him. The robot shoots the scientist, and takes the intelligence increaser.

Once Tim and the others realize what has happened, they conclude that the Frogs must be examining the intelligence increaser in order to make their Robot ships impervious to its rays. With his back up machine, Time decides to send amplified intelligence rays into the frogs camp before the frogs can safe-guard their robot ships. The plan works, and all of the frogs, and their robot ships, explode.

However 5 of the frogs, and their robot ships, were outside of the main camp at the time, busy trying to figure out how to safeguard their ships. When they see the explosion, they decide to get revenge. 4 of the ships were sent to terrorize and destroy humans, while the 5th ship was sent to intelligize more frogs and rebuild their army. This 5th ship by chance just happened to end up at the swamp near Tim's house. Tim shot rays at the robot with his back up machine, but it did no good. The ship was already safeguarded against intelligence increasing rays. The Frog saw Tim, and fired back with a laser from its Robot ship. In panic, Tim shut the window. The laser was reflected off the glass and exploded the frog's ship instead.

Next, using home made grenades, Tim blows up all the newly intelligized frogs before they could build their own robots. Arming himself with two hand held mirrors, Tim went out to face the other four robots. He was able to find their location by listening to the news on the radio.

The first Robot shot at Tim, but Tim deflected the Shot with his mirrors, and it blew up the Robot instead. Then he jumped in between two robots who fired at the same time, and deflected both shots at once. Only Froger's robot was left.

Froger's robot lured Tim into a gun shop and, after a frightening confrontation, Tim succeeded in blowing up Froger's ship. The ship blew up next to the gun powder supply, and the whole store exploded. The next scene shifts to twenty years later, when Tim's family has a reunion and talks about how he was presumed to be killed by the frogs. Howe the frogs were ultimately defeated is a mystery to everyone.

Theme
Take time out for others

Thread
Every Room always has a lamp in it.

The Wolfclan

2006-06-06T23:17:00.000-04:00

The wolfclan was a project I started in 7th grade. It was supposed to be not just one book, but a series of books all following the adventures of a super-powered wolf pack. However as is often the case in these projects, the initial burst of imagination is a lot bigger than the follow through. I didn't even finish the first book. I got 8 chapters in, and then let the project drop.

The plot in a nutshell is that an Alien race wants to create a super powered wolf pack to destroy earth. However after giving the wolves super powers and intelligence, the wolves escape and return to earth, thus ending the first book. The subsequent books would follow the super-hero like adventures of this wolfpack.

While I was in the middle of this project, we were assigned to write couplet poems for English class at school. I wrote a poem about wolves hunting. Although I had always dreaded poetry, I was pleasantly surprised to see that this couplet rhyming business wasn't so difficult after all. You ended on one word in the first line, and you could usually force the rhyme out in the second line. It was like discovering a new power.

I decided to go back and write prequel adventures about the wolf pack before the transformation. I adopted my poem from English class by inserting the names of the wolves from my story. I started on a second poem, "Mack's Attack," but never finished it.

The Wolfclan: The Hunt

2006-06-06T19:20:00.000-04:00

Wolves have to hunt
For them it is quite a stunt

First they go and stare at the deer
This fills the creatures with fear

Then the deer begin to run
And the hunt has begun

The wolves pick up the pace
And so begins a furious chase

Then Cholk with all his might
Caught up to a deer and gave her a bite

The deer kicked Cholk really hard
Cholk went flying almost a yard

Cholk went up for a flight
It was really quite a sight

Cholk went through the air with a flash
And landed on the ground with a great big crash

Another deer stood up to fight
With hooves that shone as black as night

He kicked Kenam and gave a bellow
He was really quite a strong fellow

The wolves passed him by he was not their pick
They wanted a deer who was old and sick

Then they found the perfect prey
It would be the kill of the day

The wolves then closed in
Each one thinking of the pups in the den

If they could bring it down there would be meat for all
Even the pups who were very small

Then Bosard attacked as he leapt through the air
And bit down hard into deer hair.

The deer screamed and shook her back
Then did all the other wolves attack.

There was fighting and biting and a great deal of kicking,
As the wolves gave the deer a licking

Then as all the other deer fled
Lay the wolves deer, who was dead

That night there was meat for all,
Even the pups who were very small

The Wolfclan: Mack's Attack

2006-06-06T19:00:00.000-04:00

The Wolf pack was quite happy
But Humans wanted to end that snappy

They wanted to kill all of the pack
And add some more Wolf pelts to the stack

People back then thought wolves were bad
The thought of a wolf pack made them mad

They hired a wolfer to destroy the pack
A man who went by the name of Mack

Mack cheerfully went to buy a gun
For him killing wolves was lots of fun

Mack wanted all the wolves to be killed
Cause then he knew his pockets would be filled

He marched into the woods, the wolves he would shoot
Cause he wanted to drag in all the loot

He marched through the woods with a gun in his arm
If he could see a wolf, he'd do it some harm

The wolves smelled the human scent
and into hiding they all went

But Mack was no dope, he knew his stuff
It was awfully hard to pull his bluff

He thought he had the wolves for sure
He followed the footprints to find where they were

Wolfclan: Chapter 1

2006-06-06T18:26:00.000-04:00

The middle ages were not an ideal time to be alive if you happened to be a wolf. The wolf was hated and persecuted more than any other animal. Childish superstitions caused the cruel and continuous attack on one of God's most beautiful creatures.

During this time of injustice there lived a certain pack of wolves. Led by the courageous Kadash and his beautiful mate Molkem, the pack managed to escape countless attacks by humans. Kadash had tried several times to move the pack to a place where no humans lived, but there seemed to be no such place. Outside of the small forest where the wolves lived, humans were everywhere.

Bosard was the back bone of the pack. He was the bravest and strongest of them all. Darny was the clumsiest. He bungled just about any task you could give him. Ramuz was an all around wolf, skilled at everything, exceptional at nothing. Kenam was cunning and smart, and last but not least was Cumrod, who was exceptional at fighting with other animals.

The pack was also fortunate enough to have a liter of five pups. Their names were Zimram, Jokshan, Medan, Dedan, and Kenaz.

Human efforts to eliminate the pack had always failed. Although, sadly, once or twice they had eliminated a wolf from the pack. Pentus and Cholk were two members of the pack who had been killed by humans.

Meanwhile the earth was begin observed by aliens in a space ship. The Aliens looked just like people, except they had a sharp horn on their heads. The horn was about 6 inches and could be very deadly if the alien decided to ram his head into you.

The Commander of the ship was in the library when an excited crew member burst through the doors.

"Sir," he exclaimed, "We found intelligent life on T-50323."

"Shhh," said the commander. "This is a library."

"Terribly sorry sir," whispered the crew member.

The commander stayed where he was for a short time and looked at the books. Then he left the library with the crew member right behind him.

The commander walked down the hall to the main control room. "One of the crew informed me we have found another planet with intelligent life," he said.

"That is correct," said the first officer. "Planet T-50323. The intelligent life on this planet call themselves 'humans' and they call their planet 'Earth'. After scanning their history books we have learned the human way of life is more like our own way of life than any other life form we have encountered before."

"How so," asked the commander.

"Well," began the first officer, "They aren't always living in peace and being nice like those wimps on U-209."

"I remember those idiots," said the commander. "They were the easiest planet we ever destroyed. They had no weapons anywhere."

"However, " continued the first officer, "These humans are, in a way, wimps also. They're not near as great as us. Some of them are even foolish enough to show mercy on an enemy. Many believe you have to actually have a reason to kill somebody, and there are many other foolish things that these humans do."

"What would be the quickest way to destroy this planet?" asked the commander.

"The planet has limited technology," said the first officer. "It has no protective coverings that would prevent us from just blowing it up."

"Now," said the commander as he rubbed his hands together, "What would be the slowest and most painful way to destroy the planet."

The Wolfclan: Chapter 2

2006-06-06T18:00:00.000-04:00

Sheban lived in a village just outside the forest where the wolf pack roamed. Sheban had been living a relatively normal life since the day he was born. Little did he know how abruptly his lifestyle was about to change.

It all started one day when Sheban was working in his bakery, which also happened to be his house. He had just sold a loaf of bread to a customer and was putting the money away when in dashed his childhood friend, Asite.

Asite's face was covered with mud, his clothes were torn, and his arms were bleeding. "Asite?" said Sheban. "Is that you?"

"Sheban! Sheban help me!" Asite screamed desperately.

"What's wrong?" asked Sheban.

"I'm a were wolf!" answered Asite.

Sheban was stunned. "Are you sure?" he asked.

"I'm positive!" said Asite. "The town's people know also. They want to kill me. You got to help me Sheban!"

Sheban stood there for a moment too shocked to do anything. Then, coming to his senses, he ran to a clay pot, in which he kept his money, and smashed it on the ground. Frantically he rummaged through his earnings until he found a silver coin. Holding the silver coin he warned Asite to stay away from him.

"Now hold on," said Asite. "It's not a full moon. It's daytime. Besides, I'm not an evil were wolf."

"I know of no other kind of were wolf," said Sheban.

Asite smiled. He had obviously lost his frightened attitude. "I think I see the problem here," he said. "Do you know how a person changes into a were wolf?"

Sheban looked at Asite cautiously. "There are many ways," he answered. "You can put on a wolf skin on a full moon and chant an evil spell, or you can drink water from a wolf's footprints, or you can--."

"That's what you believe," cut in Asite. "But none of those ways are really true. There's only one way to become a were wolf, and that's to take the burden of being a were wolf away from someone else."

"What do you mean?" asked Sheban.

"To rescue someone from being a were wolf, you must, on a full moon, stab them three times with a knife that has a silver blade. Then the were wolf puts his hand on you and says, 'were wolf leave me, go to my brother.' Then you say, 'were wolf leave my brother, go to me.' Then the were wolf goes to you and you become a were wolf. This is how I became a were wolf, by taking the burden off of my father, who got it by taking it away from someone else, and so on."

"Why did you do it?" asked Sheban.

"You mean take the burden away from my father? The reason is because being a were wolf is not a very pleasant thing. At first it's nice. Every full moon you become indestructible to anything except silver. And you are filled with super human strength. Being a were wolf does not make you evil, like many people think it does. I've kept my same personality and values ever since I became a were wolf, even during a full moon.

"However it doesn't take long before other people find out you're a were wolf. They believe, just like you do now, that anyone who is a were wolf is evil and must be destroyed. During a full moon it's pretty hard for them to kill you because of the super human strength of a were wolf and because the only thing that can harm you is silver. However when there is no full moon, you are like any other human and have almost no chance of escaping, except to have someone take the burden of being a were wolf away from you and throwing the villagers off your trail."

"That's why you've come to me?" asked Sheban.

"Correct," answered Asite. "You do believe me, don't you?"

"I know you would never turn yourself into a were wolf if you believed it would make you evil. I also know that you would not even then turn your self into a were wolf unless it was for an extremely good cause. So in other words, I believe you."

"Then you will do it?" asked Asite. "Will you take the burden of being a were wolf away from me?"

"Well," said Sheban, "I don't really know. Becoming a were wolf is not an idea that appeals to me."

"If you will just take this burden away from me for one week to throw the villagers off of my track, I promise that I will take it back when the week is done."

Sheban thought for a moment. "Okay," he said. "I'll do it."

"One more small favor," begged Asite. "Hide me until tonight."

"Is tonight a full moon?" asked Sheban.

"Yes it is," answered Asite.

"Then you can hide in my cupboards until then," said Sheban as he headed toward the door.

"Where are you going?" asked Asite.

"To buy a knife with a silver blade," said Sheban. Then he added, "which you will pay me back for when this is all over with."

The Wolfclan: Chapter 3

2006-06-06T12:25:00.000-04:00

The commander of the space ship was doing his duties in the main control room when the first officer walked in. "Sir," he said, "I have carefully studied the planet T-50323 and I believe I have come up with the slowest and most painful way to destroy the planet, as you requested."

"Well done," said the commander. "What is it?"

"The humans on this planet have a creature called the were wolf. This creature is human by day and a were wolf on nights with a full moon. When it turns into a were wolf it has super strength and is unable to be harmed by anything except silver. If we could catch one, we could make it totally invincible. Then, with the help of our mind control program, we could program its mind to do our will. If we could also capture a pack of wolves, which is an animal that lives on T-50323, make them invincible, increase their strength, and program their minds also, we could release them on earth. With no way to kill them, they could destroy all life on earth one life at a time. Of course, this process would take a long time before it succeeds, maybe even centuries, but with no way to stop them, it can't help but succeed eventually."

"I like that plan," said the commander. "Get to work on it right away."

"We have already located the perfect pack of wolves," said the first officer. "However we will not be able to locate a were wolf until night falls. Fortunately there is a full moon tonight."

"If it's possible," began the commander, "try to make the were wolf from the same general location as the wolf pack."

"Yes sir," said the first officer. The first office left the main control room. The commander stayed in the control room a moment longer, then he left also. There were only two aliens left in the control room. There names were Cretal, and Elim.

Cretal walked over to Elim. "You heard what they said, another planet destroyed. Millions of intelligent life killed for no reason other than to make sure our alien empire has no competitors. Since I was drafted into space fleet, I've witnessed the destruction of many peaceful planets, and I can't take it anymore. I'm going to do something about it Elim! I'm going to free that pack of wolves or die trying."

"You must be mad," said Elim.

"Am I?" asked Cretal. "Am I mad for trying to save a planet about to be destroyed for no good reason?" Cretal looked at the floor. "I was also hoping you would help me."

"What?" said the startled Elim.

"Sure!" said Cretal, regaining eye contact. "Why with that gift of shooting fire that you have, we're almost guaranteed a victory."

Elim remembered the gift of shooting fire that he had. He had got the gift from an intelligent life form that lived on planet Z-64. The creature spoke the same language that the aliens did, but sadly enough it was destroyed by the aliens. The aliens had captured it and planned to use it as a specimen for a special acid that they had developed. If the acid was successful, the aliens were going to use it to destroy planet Z-64.

The acid was specifically designed to cause the creature great pain, and then kill him after an hour or so. The creature came from a peaceful race and did not suspect hostility from the aliens. It cooperated with them to the fullest extent and tried to help as much as it could. However, when the aliens put the acid on him, it became clear to the creature what the aliens really wanted. The creature then demonstrated an unusual power that it had. The creature began to shoot fire out of any part of his body that he chose.

The creature ran through the ship, inflaming every body who tried to stop him. The creature finally made it to the escape craft, where he would have escaped if he had not been stopped by three aliens wearing fire resistant suits. They captured the creature and brought him to a small fire resistant room, with see through walls. The room was filled with about an inch of acid. The acid immediately caused the creature great pain, but did not even start to dissolve his feet until an hour had gone by. The creature would have passed out because of the pain, but the air in the room was just like it was on the creature's planet, which made it impossible for the creature to pass out. So the creature slowly dissolved in acid over a period of forty eight hours. The acid killed him in half that time however. The room that the creature was in was not sound proof, and the creature spent the whole time screaming in pain and begging for mercy. After about four hours, the commander and the first officer and everybody else got bored and left. The next day the commander, and the first officer, sprayed the whole planet with the acid, killing all life on that planet in the same cruel way, but that's a different story.

Elim was walking through the halls when he heard the creature's shouts. Elim walked over to where he could see the creature.

"Please!" the creature shouted to him. "Please have mercy and let me out of here! Please help me! I'll be your slave. I'll do anything your government wants, just let me out."

"I can not let you out," said Elim. "My commander will kill me. I wish I could help you because I do not agree with my government's cruel ways."

The creature spoke, "open that window." He pointed to a small window near the bottom of the cage. At first Elim did not, but then the creature said, "I give you my word I will not try to escape, or harm you, or damage your ship." Elim slide the window open. "Give me your hand," commanded the creature. Elim obeyed. "I give to you the gift of fire," said the creature. Instantly Elim felt a surge of power run through him. "I have just given you the ability to shoot fire," said the creature, "so that the gift need not die with me. You now can absorb fire, and shoot it out later, out of any part of your body that you want to. You can shoot the fire through telepathy. You too can also give this gift away, the same way I did, but I would recommend you keep it until you're dying. Just remember you cannot shoot more fire than you absorb, and use this gift wisely my friend."

The creature then collapsed into the acid. Immediately he yelled in pain, but could not find the strength to pull himself out. Elim, not wishing to see the creature suffer any longer, ran back to his quarters and cried because of what was happening to the creature.

Cretal knew what Elim was thinking about. "You're thinking about how you got that gift, aren't you?" he said. "We have both made a big mistake by letting our government kill that creature, by letting our government destroy that creature's planet, by letting our government destroy all those planets. We made a big mistake with all those planets, and I don't plan to duplicate that mistake with the case of planet T-50323."

"Cretal, I'm not so sure--," began Elim.

"Elim," interrupted Cretal, "when you received the gift of fire it was because you showed compassion to that creature. The creature was undoubtedly hoping you would help free him. Even so, he accepted you for what you were and rewarded you for your kindness. Yet he was probably thinking in the back of his mind that this guy still has time to change. Remember what he said to you? He said use this gift wisely my friend. I bet he meant using it for the good of the Universe."

"Cretal, wake up!" said Elim. "What you're talking about is a suicide mission. It would be virtually impossible to fight off the whole ship and safely make it to earth. Even if we could accomplish this amazing feat, we would be stuck on a world unkind to anything different from themselves. We'd probably be killed by the intelligent residents of T-50323. In addition, the space ship would just find another pack of wolves to use, and if we managed to survive persecution by the "Human," as they call themselves, we would only be destroyed with the rest of the world. Also, if you're about to suggest we take over the whole ship, I don't think I need to remind you about how impossible that would be. Besides, Earth would only be waiting for the next ship to come along."

"Elim, you're not looking at this right," said Cretal. "Sure it's a suicide mission, but what do you expect me to do? Just watch? This mission in one way is impossible, but in another way it's bound to be successful. Whether we succeed in bringing the wolves back to earth or not, we will become an inspiration for others to follow. Sure we can't do anything by ourselves, but we can set an example for others. There are many ones like us, who oppose the government, but are too frightened to do anything. But maybe if they hear about how two people, like them, got the courage to do something against the government, they'll follow our example."

"Cretal, I just don't know about this," said Elim.

"Elim, said Cretal, "Are you going to help me or not?"

Elim thought for a moment. "I'll help you," he said at last.

"Good," said Cretal. "Here's the plan."

The Wolfclan: Chapter 4

2006-06-06T11:05:00.000-04:00

Sheban looked up at the sky. The moon was full and bright. He turned back to Asite, who had already turned into a were wolf. "Are you ready?" asked Sheban.

"Do you remember what to do?" asked Asite. Sheban nodded. "You may proceed then," said Asite. Sheban took the dagger with the silver blade and stabbed Asite three times in the chest. The knife cut through Asite like he was made of butter. Asite fell to the ground like one dead. He managed to lay his feeble hands on Sheban's foot. Asite moved his lips and struggled to speak. "Were wolf leave me, go to my brother," he whispered.

"Were wolf leave my brother, go to me," said Sheban. No sooner had Sheban uttered these words than Asite started to glow a bright blue. Sheban saw Asite's hairy hands turn back to normal. His claws withered away and his sharp teeth turned back to normal. Sheban then looked at his own hands. They now had become hairy, and had sharp claws. Sheban ran to a mirror and looked into it. He was all covered with hair. His teeth were sharp and his ears turned pointed.

Asite picked himself off the ground. "Thank you so much," he said. Then he embraced Sheban, and ran to the door.

"Where are you going?" Sheban asked.

"I'm going to prove to the villagers that I'm not a were wolf," answered Asite. Sheban watched Asite run out the door, and then decided that the safest place for him to spend the night was in bed.

Meanwhile the villagers sat huddled by a statue of a wolf, made out of silver. The statue was used to keep away were wolves. Suddenly a woman yelled, "Asite is headed this way, and he ain't no were wolf." All of the villagers rushed over to see.

"Impossible!" said an old man. "We all saw him change into a were wolf." The villagers voiced their agreement.

"The devil must be giving him the power to look human!" exclaimed a woman. Again the villagers agreed.

"Quick, get your weapons ready," called a man. Almost every man, woman and child there had brought along something silver. The ones who brought silver bullets aimed their guns.

"Wait! Don't shoot!" called Asite. "Can't you see I'm not a were wolf?"

"If you're not a were wolf than prove it," somebody called out to him. Than that person tossed him a clump of silver. Asite caught the silver and rubbed it all over himself to prove that he wasn't a were wolf.

This left the villagers very confused. "If he's not a were wolf, " said one man, "then how can it be that we all saw him transform last night?"

"The Devil must be giving him the power to not become a were wolf for one night in the hopes that it will throw us off of his trail," said a woman. The villagers agreed.

"No, I'm not a were wolf," said Asite. "I never was a were wolf, and I have not had any dealings with the Devil."

"Then how do you explain last night?" asked a villager.

"The Devil was giving a were wolf the power to look like me for one night so that you all would think I was the were wolf and kill me," said Asite.

"Why is the Devil out to get you?" inquired a man.

"Um, he hates me because I'm so righteous," answered Asite.

"If that's true, than where were you last night?" asked a teenager.

"Um, I was out of town," said Asite. "That's why the Devil chose last night to pull his little trick."

"But I saw you in town yesterday," said a woman.

"Yeah, um, that's because I left at night," replied Asite. No sooner had the words left Asite's mouth than he realized his mistake.

"You traveled at night? On a full moon too? Don't you know how dangerous that is?" asked a man.

At the same time another man said, " only the Devil's creatures travel at night."

"Yeah, but, um, an angel told me it was okay to travel at night just this once."

"Where were you going that was so important that an angel told you that you could travel at night?" asked a villager.

"Well, you see, um, God told me not to tell anyone," stammered Asite.

"The almighty God himself came down to you?!" said a man.

"Angel! I mean the angel!" replied Asite. Asite could tell the villagers did not think too highly of his story.

"Where were you earlier tonight," asked a teenager.

"I was at home," answer Asite. "I was out of town last night, so I didn't know about the were wolf around town."

"Then how did you find out about the were wolf?" someone asked.

"He attacked me while I was in my home," Asite said.

"I don't see any scratch marks or wounds on you," pointed out an old woman.

"Yeah, well I was lucky," said Asite.

"So if we went into your house, we would find fresh were wolf tracks," said a lady. "You know how muddy it is outside your house."

"Um, yah, but the were wolf covered up his tracks," replied Asite. By the look of the villagers, Asite could tell that they weren't too impressed with his alibi.

"Hold on one minute while we discuss this," said a man. The villagers gathered in a huddle.

"I think he's lying," said a villager.

"I know he's lying," said another villager.

"We all know he's lying," said someone else. "So let's kill him right here and now."

"Wait a minute," said an old man. "I admit his story is pretty far fetched, but our own story, about how the Devil is giving him power to avoid becoming a were wolf for just one night, does not make the greatest sense either."

"But didn't you see his face?" pointed out a woman. "One could tell just by looking at him that this demon doesn't know what he's talking about."

"And why did we have to drag the story out of him bit by bit?" asked a man. "Why didn't he just tell us the whole thing when he came here." Several villagers shouted their approval.

"But maybe he really is innocent," said the old man. "We don't want to kill an innocent man."

"Okay," said another man. "We'll give him one last chance to prove he's not a were wolf. If he can prove himself to be innocent, we will not kill him of course. However, if he can not prove himself to be without guilt, whether we have proven him guilty or not, he shall be killed. Do you agree?"

"I agree," said the old man. With this said, the villagers turned around to question Asite.

"Asite," spoke the man who had proposed the test. "Can you tell us where the were wolf is right now?"

"What happens if I can't?" asked Asite.

"We will kill you for being a were wolf," came the answer.

Asite gulped. He thought about whether or not to expose Sheban. Asite turned all the factors over in his mind. Who should die, him or Sheban? "Come on," he said at last. "I'll take you to the were wolf."

"One more question," called out a teenager. "If you knew where the were wolf was, why didn't you tell us right away?"

"Asite," called out the old man, "You are not obligated to answer any more question." Many people turned to glare at the old man. The old man simply shrugged his shoulders and said, "that was the bargain, wasn't it?"

"The old man speaks the truth," said another man. "That was the bargain." After this, the people said no more. Asite led the people to Sheban's house.

"Here is where the were wolf is," he said.

"Wait a minute," said another woman. "Sheban wasn't there last night when we saw Asite transform. He doesn't even know there is a were wolf."

"Correction," said Asite. "Sheban was there last night and he does know that there's a were wolf."

"You mean Sheban's the were wolf?" asked a child.

"That's what I mean," answered Asite.

"Now you wait just a minute," yelled a woman from the back of the crowd. "I know Sheban, and he wouldn't turn himself into a were wolf." The rest of the villagers agreed.

"I know it sounds incredible, but you must believe me," said Asite. "You can even go inside his house and see for yourselves."

One man stepped forward. "We'll just break it down." The men and the older boys there began flinging themselves against the door. Asite watched them and felt a little sad because of what was about to happen to Sheban, but mostly he felt happy because he had saved himself.

The Wolfclan: Chapter 5

2006-06-06T10:53:00.000-04:00

Sheban watched Asite leave, and then decided the safest place for him to spend the night was in bed. Sheban locked the door and went into bed. Sheban stayed in bed for quite a while, but then he heard voices outside. There were lots of voices, a whole crowd he figured. Sheban began to get nervous. Why were these people here? What did they want? Then Sheban heard a voice he recognized as Asite’s. Sheban relaxed. Surely Asite would keep the people outside. Sheban waited some more feeling very scared. He could hear lots of talking but couldn’t make out any words. Then Sheban heard a sound which was unmistakably the sound of someone trying to break down the door. Sheban didn’t know what was going on, but he wasn’t waiting to find out. Sheban ran to the back door, but before he opened it Sheban peaked through a little hole in the wood. Sheban saw that there were people in the back of his house too. Sheban quickly went to both sides of the house, and peaked through some tiny holes, only to find out that the house was surrounded on all sides.

Just then the door broke down. People swarmed into the house. Sheban quickly hid himself in the only way he could. He went inside the closet. A voice said, "Well Asite, here we are. Now where is that were wolf you said was in here?"

Sheban heard Asite’s voice say, "He’s in here somewhere. Look around. He’s probably hiding." Sheban was shocked that his friend, whom he trusted, had betrayed him, but right now he had more important things to worry about, like staying alive.

Sheban saw that someone was opening the closet door. Sheban stooped down so that he was on the floor. As soon as the door was opened, Sheban grabbed his attacker’s feet and flung the man behind him. The man hit the closet wall, but fortunately suffered only minor injuries.

Sheban ran through the crowds in a frantic effort escape. Somebody hit him in the back with a silver rod. Sheban fell to the ground with a burning feeling where the rod had hit him. Instantly he was surrounded by the villagers. They began whacking at him with all their silver items. The silver caused Sheban great pain, and he cried out in agony.

Then the voice of a man boomed out over the crowd. "Stand back everyone," he yelled. "I’ll handle this." Obediently the people stood back and the man came forward. The man carried a gun, inside the gun he had silver bullets. The man aimed his gun at Sheban’s head. In a lightening quick movement, Sheban grabbed the barrel of the gun and pushed it back into the man’s stomach. The man fell over. Sheban jumped to his feet and quickly climbed up the wall using the book shelves. When he got to the top of the shelves he, using his superhuman strength, was able to jump through the wooden roof. Sheban was able to accomplish all this before the villagers had time to react because of his strength. The villagers quickly poured out of the house and onto the street. Sheban took a running start, and then jumped over them and landed on his feet. Without missing a beat, Sheban began running again. All of the villagers who had brought guns with silver bullets fired. All of the bullets missed. The villagers began chasing after Sheban. Sheban ran into the forest with the villagers close behind him.

Sheban ran and ran and ran, not even bothering to look behind him. Eventually Sheban stopped to rest. He looked behind him and did not see the villagers, or even hear them coming. Sheban began walking again. He knew he could no longer live with humans. He would have to walk until he found a spot far enough from civilization. As he was walking, he noticed a bright light coming from the sky. Sheban stood in wonder, starring at it. The object got closer and closer until it landed right beside him. The object was rectangular, about 4 meters high and 6 meters long with a width of 2 meters. A door opened to the object and out came two creatures who looked just like humans except they had horns on their heads. The horns were about 6 inches long. Sheban thought these strange creatures must have been sent by either God or the Devil. The people of that day believed heaven was located above the earth, and hell was located in the center of the earth. Since these creatures came from the sky, they must have been sent by God. The creatures did not look like any of the angels Sheban had seen in the pictures at the church. They must be angels of death. To Sheban, everything seemed clear now. Becoming a were wolf must have been a great sin. So great that God had sent his angels of death to strike Sheban down. Sheban knew it was no use trying to run from God. He simply lay down and waited for the blow. Instead of killing him, these "Angels" took him into the object with them. Sheban saw, through a window, that they were flying away. Sheban sat there and wondered what was going to happen to him.

The Wolfclan: Chapter 6

2006-06-06T09:56:00.000-04:00

Although Sheban didn’t know who these creatures were, I think the reader should recognize that they were the aliens, collecting their were wolf. The aliens had also captured a pack of wolves and, you guessed it, it was the same pack of wolves we met briefly at the beginning of this story. All of the wolves in the pack were there, even the pups.

As soon as the space craft carrying Sheban docked at the space ship, Sheban was forced into a tiny prison. Right next to him was the wolf pack. Sheban was now very confused as to what was happening.

The commander of the space ship arrived before long, with the first officer. He looked at the new prisoners. "Well done," he said to the first officer. "If the rest of your plan goes well, your success will be noted on your record." The First officer smiled, and the commander continued looking at the prisoners. "What about the cubs?" asked the commander. "Do you plan to make them invincible and control their minds also?"

"Yes we do," said the first officer. "In time they will grow up to become adults and destroy the world with their parents."

"Good thinking," said the commander. "Well, lets go." The first officer and the commander left the prison area. "I want you to begin the process of programming the minds of the wolves and the were wolf in two hours," the commander said.

"Yes sir," answered the first officer. As the two walked, they met up with the science officer. The science office spoke: "sir," he said, "We have just received orders from the government. They have sent over an intelligent life-form which they want us to kill, using a special acid. We have the acid in our science lab."

"Why couldn’t they do that themselves?" asked the commander.

"Kill the creature you mean?" said the science officer. "They didn’t have the acid."

"Well go ahead and kill it then," said the commander.

"Yes sir," said the science officer. "Good day sir." The science officer left the commander and the first officer and went on his way. He went back to the science lab and prepared the acid.

The Wolfclan: Chapter 7

2006-06-06T07:28:00.000-04:00

Elim was very nervous. He was certain that when he and Cretal tried to save planet T-50323, they would both be killed. Elim was in the ship’s cafeteria. Cretal walked over to him. “Elim,” Cretal said, “I’d like a word with you, privately.” Cretal then winked, and Elim knew what he wanted to talk about.

Neither Cretal nor Elim had their own living quarters. They shared quarters with other crew members. The only place were they could talk alone was the rest rooms. Cretal and Elim went in the nearest one and checked to make sure no one was in it. After they found it to be empty, they began talking.

“They have the pack of wolves and the were wolf now in the prison. In two hours they will start to control their minds and make them invincible,” said Cretal.

“Do you plan to act now?” asked Elim.

“Of course,” answered Cretal. “No sense waiting till the last minute.”

Elim took a deep breath. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.” It was the policy of the alien government not to let the crew members carry laser guns. Only the commander and the first officercould carry the laser guns. The rest of the laser guns were kept locked up in a big safe, which only the commander, the first officer, and the second officer knew the combination to. Having no guns did not stop Cretal and Elim though. Besides, Elim had the gift of shooting fire.

Elim and Cretal walked quickly down the halls in the direction of the jail. Their plan was to take the key s from the jailer and free the were wolf and the wolf pack. As they were walking, an alien named Riton stopped them. “Cretal! Elim! How are you guys? I haven’t seen you two in weeks. Where have you been?” he exclaimed.

“Well it’s a big ship,” said Cretal. “It’s not hard to see why we haven’t run into each other. Listen Riton, what are your feelings about the way our government acts?”

“What brought this up?” asked Riton.

“I’m just taking a survey,” answered Cretal.

“Hmmm, well I guess those dang taxes are a little bit annoying,” said Riton.

“Okay,” said Cretal, pretending to write down the answer.. “How do you feel about the government’s policy to kill all intelligent life forms we find?”

“What kind of a survey is this?” asked Riton. “If I say I’m against the policy, I’ll get a laser through my head.”

“Oh no!” said Cretal. “This survey is confidential. Not even our government sees it.”

“Yeah right,” said Riton. “Who are you guys anyway? Secret government agents? I refuse to take this survey.”

“Okay then,” said Cretal in a relaxed voice. “No survey.” Cretal tore up the paper on which he had pretended to write down the answer. Riton was very nervous now and decided to change the subject.

“Did you guys see the new creature?” he asked.

“What new creature?” inquired Cretal.

“You haven’t heard?” said Riton. “The government just shipped him over to our ship today. We’re supposed to kill it using a special acid that we have onboard. If you hurry you might be able to see it before the science officer kills it. It’s the weirdest thing.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” said Cretal, trying to keep calm. “Come on Elim,” he said. “Let’s go see him.” Cretal and Elim walked quickly down the hall, towards the science lab. As soon as they were out of sight, they beginning running at full speed.

When they got to the science lab, they rushed in and were relieved to see that the creature had not been killed, but the science officer was about to pour the acid on it. “Stop!” yelled Cretal and Elim in unison. “We want to see the creature a minute before you kill it.”

The science officer looked up. “Well certainly boys,” he said. He chuckled as he took the creature out of the cage. “You two sure make it just in the nick of time.” The science officer brought the creature over. “Here he is.”

Cretal and Elim were both amazed. The creature looked like a rock. It had a face which looked very much like a human face, but its whole body was like a rock. The creature was about as big as a human head. “Amazing,” said Cretal. “How does it move?”

“Actually it doesn’t,” said the science officer. “It just sits in one place.”

“Then how does it survive?” asked Elim.

“Quite simple actually,” said the science officer. “The creature requires no nutrients. In other words, it doesn’t need to eat to survive.”

“Like a plant?” inquired Elim.

"No, no," said the science oneedser. "A plant nees nutrients from the soil, water, and sunlight. This creature needs nothing. It's like, well like a rock."

"Amazing," said Cretal. "What about predators?"

"Here, feel the creature," said the science officer as he put the creature into Cretal's hands. "Not only does it look like a rock, it feels like a rock. It would also taste like a rock if an animal tried to eat it. It also happens to be the only intelligent life form on its planet, so no intelligent life is around to kill it on purpose."

"So they don't die?" asked Cretal.

"I never said that," said the science officer. "They can die of disease or old age. They can also die from natural disasters, like if lightning hit them or a volcano erupted or a hurricane struck. Aaccidentallyanimal accidently knocked it off a cliff they could die that way too. Besides, us aliens can kill it with almost any of our weapons."

"How does it reproduce?" asked Elim.

"Oh, it reproducoursesexually of coure," answered the science officer.

"Earlier you referred to the creature as a he," said Cretal. "How do you know it is a male?"

"Actually the creature, and the rest of its species are of neither sex," said the science officer.

"The creature doesn't look too lively," observed Cretal.

"That's because he's asleep," said the science officer. "However I must wake him up before we kill him." The science officer, using an eye dropper, put a drop of acid on the creature. The creature's eyes opened immediately and it cried out in pain.

"If the creature can not move," said Elim, "I don't see how it could be a threat to our empire."

"What the creature lacks in physical capabilities it more than makes up for in its mental facilities," said the science officer.

"Even if the creature is exceedingly wise," said Cretal, "I don't see how it could do anything against us."

"Do not under estimate the creature," said the science officer. "It would find a way."

"But if the creature is so smart then wouldn't it know that it would be unwise to attack the empire?" asked Elim.

"I agree that the creature would not attack if it was not sure of victory, but if it found a way of defeating us it would be most wise of them to take aggressive action," the science officer answered.

Elim looked at Cretal. Cretal spoke. "We are going to free this creature," he said. "Are you going to help us?"

The science officer was stunned by these words. "You boys are crazy," he said.

"Are you going to help us?" repeated Cretal.

"Never," said the science officer coldly. The science officer ran to the shelf where all the chemicals were kept and took a beaker of very dangerous acid. Before he had a chance to throw the acid, Elim shot fire out of his eyes. He shot a straight line of fire which hit the science office's hands. The science officer dropped the acid beaker. The beaker broke and acid splattered all over, some of it landing on the science officer's legs. The science officer fell down in pain. Elim and Cretal rushed over to see if he was alright. When the science officer had fallen he had landed right by thkeptace where he kpet his chemicals. He grabbed another beaker of acid, a kind of special acid that is not found on earth, and waited for Cretal and Elim. Neither Cretal nor Elim had seen him grab the acid.

When Cretal and Elim reached the science officer, he threw the acid at them. Elim shot fire outinflamedyes and inflammed the acid in mid air. The acid was made of a very flammable material, and there was a fiery explosion. Everybody was knocked backwards. The room quickly caught on fire. Elim absorbed enough fire to make up for what he had turnedand Cretal tunred on the ceiling sprinklers. In seconds the fire was out.

"Is everyone alright?" asked Cretal.

"Everyone except the sansweredfficer," asnwered the creature. "In the explosion he was knocked against his acid shelf and several acids spilled on him."

"You speak the same language we do," said Cretal in astonishment.

"Well, actually it's not my native tongue," said the creature. "I picked it up while I was on your ship."

"But you've only been on our ship less than a day," said Cretal.

"Well, species to your speciies I'm a fast learner," said the creature. "Oh, by the way, I extremely appreciate the fact that you rescued me. The wisest plan of action would currently be to do some thing about the science officer."

"Of course," exclaimed Elim. "How is he?"

"He looks in serious condition," said the creature. "I think we can safely say that heconsciousnessgain conciousness for several hours."

"Perfect," said Cretal. "I'll take him to the ship's hospital and say he accidentally mixed two chemicals together that weren't supposed to be mixed and the explosion knocked him into his acid shelf."

"Okay," said Elim. "You do that and I'll keep every one out of this laboratory until you get back."

"Okay, see you then," said Cretal. Cretal put the science officer on a stretcher (the alien government made it a policy to keep a stretcher in every room in case of emergencies) and began dragging him toward the ship's hospital.

The Wolfclan: Chapter 8

2006-06-06T00:42:00.000-04:00

No sooner had Cretal walked outside of the laboratory, dragging the science officer behind on a stretcher, then he was surrounded by other aliens who wanted to know what had happened. Cretal always answered in the same way: "There is no time to explain, help me get this man to the hospital." Pretty soon, Cretal had five other aliens helping him carry the stretcher.

In a short time they reached the ship's hospital. The ship's doctor looked at the science officer and then exclaimed, "What happened to him?"

"He accidently mixed two chemicals together that weren't supposed to be mixed," answered Cretal. "The explosion knocked him into his acid shelf and several acid bottles spilled on him."

"Who are you?" asked the doctor.

"My name's Cretal," Cretal replied. "I'm a lieutenant."

"Indeed," the doctor said. "And who was in the laboratory when this happened?"

"Just me, the science officer, and Elim," answered Cretal.

"Okay then, everyone except Cretal and Elim leave," said the doctor.

"While everyone was leaving, Cretal spoke up. "Sir, Elim isn't here. He's back at the science lab."

"Indeed," said the doctor. "The I guess you'll have to do." The doctor called to his assistant. "Question him in the usual procedure." The doctor's assistant took Cretal to a small room adjoining the ship's hospital. The doctor, meanwhile, began to work on the science officer.

"Let's get started," said the assistant. "Who was present when this accident occured?"

"I've already answered this question," said Cretal. "Myself, Elim, and the science officer."

The assistant jotted Cretal's answer down in his note book. "Who are you?" asked the assistant.

"My name's Cretal, I'm a lieutenant, and I already answered this one too," replied Cretal.

"Just be patient," said the assistant as he wrote down the answer. "Who is Elim?"

"He's also a lieutenant," answered Cretal.

"Do you know what two chemicals the science officer mixed together to make such a big explosion?” asked the assistant.

“No, I don’t,” replied Cretal.

“Cretal,” said the assistant, “our science officer is one of the best all around scientists. I don’t think it would be like him to put two chemicals together that would cause an explosion.”

“Well he didn’t exactly mix them on purpose,” said Cretal. “He kinda, well you know, he sort of was carrying the two chemicals and he, um, dropped them and they fell to the ground and the beakers broke and the chemicals mixed with each other.”

The assistant looked suspiciously at Cretal, and then he wrote the answer down. “Thank you for answering these questions,” he said in a voice which made it clear he didn’t mean it. “I’ll be back in a moment.” The assistant went out of the room. Through the window, Cretal could see, but not hear, what the assistant was doing.

First the assistant went to the doctor, who was operating on the science officer, and tried to discuss the answers. The doctor brushed him away, obviously indicating that he was busy. The assistant then went to the intercom and the face of the first officer was displayed on the screen. The two exchanged some words and then the assistant headed back to the little room.

When the assistant returned, he sat down and looked at Cretal. “I understand that the science officer had a creature he was supposed to kill. Did he kill that creature?” asked the assistant.

“No sir, he did not,” Cretal replied. “But the explosion from the mixing of the chemicals smashed it to bits.”

“You’re quite sure he’s dead?” questioned the assistant.

“I’m positive,” said Cretal.

“Were either you are Elim hurt?” inquired the assistant.

“No sir,” answered Cretal.

“How do you account for the fact that the science officer was severely injured from this explosion, and the creature was killed, but neither you nor Elim were hurt?” the assistant asked.

“Both me and Elim were standing away from the explosion,” answered Cretal.

“Elim and I,” corrected the assistant as he wrote down the answer. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be back in a moment.”

Again the assistant went to the intercom where the first officer’s face was displayed. The two exchanged some words, and then the assistant headed back. “Please come with me,” he said to Cretal.

Cretal followed him out the door and down the halls. “Where are we going?” asked Cretal.

“We’re going to the science lab,” replied the assistant. “Once we get there, we will meet the first officer and inspect the room, find the remains of the creature, and then take Elim to be questioned.”

Cretal knew that if they inspected the room they would find that the creature was not dead, he and Elim would be put in prison, and the planet T-50323 would be destroyed. He had to do something. He thought about attacking the assistant now. In the time he would use to take care of the assistant, the first officer would get to the lab, and knowing the first officer, he would search the lab without waiting for the assistant. Of course Elim could take care of the first officer by himself, and it would be easier if the assistant was out of the way first. Elim decided now would be the best time to get rid of the assistant. Besides, there was no one in the hall, but there was always lots of guys by the science lab, and there were probably lots more after the terrible “accident.”

Cretal saw the storage room was up ahead. In the storage room were all sorts of stuff, including lots of rope (suitable for tying somebody up). Cretal waited until they were right next to the storage room, then, from the back, he grabbed the assistant around the neck and tried to move him in to the storage room. The assistant hit Cretal hard in the stomach with his elbow. Cretal stopped pushing the assistant toward the storage room, and moaned in pain. The assistant hit him with his elbow again. Cretal released his grip and the assistant ran two steps forward, then turned around. Cretal ran towards the assistant, but the assistant punched him in the face. Cretal staggered backwards, and before he knew what was happening, the assistant punched him in the stomach, and then the face, and then the face again. Cretal fell to the ground.

“I thought your story sounded suspicious,” said the assistant triumphantly. “So I brought along this.” The assistant pulled out a pair of handcuffs, and also a pair of leg cuffs. The leg cuffs were an invention by the aliens used to bind one’s ankles together. “I also anticipated some trouble getting you into them,” continued the assistant. “So I brought along this syringe, which hold medicine that will knock you out.” The assistant held the syringe in the air. “You have two choices my friend. Number one, surrender and let me put these cuffs on you, and I’ll make sure you are executed in the way you prefer. Number two, you can attempt to escape and force me to use this syringe on you. What’s your choice?”

“Does this answer your question?” asked Cretal as he grabbed the assistant’s leg and jerked it towards him, causing the assistant to fall. Cretal began to stand up, but the assistant was too quick for him. The assistant, with the syringe in his hand, lunged at Cretal. Cretal kicked the syringe out of the assistant’s hand. The syringe flew a ways down the hall. Both Cretal and the assistant ran for the syringe. Cretal dived to the floor and grabbed the syringe, then he smiled triumphantly. His smile came to an abrupt end when he heard a snapping sound and felt leg cuffs around his ankles. The assistant wasted no time. No sooner had he snapped on the leg cuffs then he jumped on Cretal’s back and grabbed the hand in which Cretal held the syringe. He twisted it back, being careful not to let Cretal inject the medicine in the syringe into him. Cretal let go of the syringe and the assistant let go of Cretal’s hand so he could pick the syringe up. As soon as the assistant let go of his hand, Cretal grabbed the assistant’s hand and flipped the assistant off of his back and onto the floor. Then Cretal began trying to stand up, but it was quite difficult with his ankles bound.

Cretal did manage to stand up however, by leaning against the wall and inching up. Cretal was also able to do this quite quickly, so he was up at the same time as the assistant. The assistant bowed his head and charged towards Cretal, hoping to thrust his horn into Cretal’s chest. Cretal jumped out of the way to avoid being killed, but he could not keep his balance after leaping aside. He fell backwards into the storage room.

Cretal had landed on his back. The assistant jumped on him and brought the syringe down swiftly. Indeed he would have injected Cretal, if Cretal had not been equally quick. Cretal grabbed the assistant’s wrist as the syringe was coming towards him. Then with his other hand Cretal punched the assistant’s face. Before the assistant could recover from that blow, Cretal hit his wrist with a karate like chop. The assistant dropped the syringe and Cretal picked it up. The assistant jumped off and stood up before Cretal could make use of the syringe. Then the assistant kicked the syringe out of Cretal’s hand. The syringe went flying behind some boxes but the assistant did not go after it. Instead he kicked Cretal again and again and again, and would have kicked him more yet had not Cretal caught the assistant off guard and swung his legs at the assistant’s feet, thus tripping him. The assistant fell and Cretal wasted no time in standing up, balancing himself against the boxes. The assistant also sprang to his feet.

Cretal looked at the assistant and realized that the odds did not favor him in the fight. He was hardly a match for the assistant with those leg cuffs on and the only way to get them off was to unlock them, but the assistant had the key. Cretal knew in order to win this fight he would have to make use of the objects in the room.

Cretal picked up one of the boxes he was leaning against, which was about five decimeters cubed, and hurled it at the assistant. The box simply bounced off of his opponent. The assistant bowed his head and charged forward hoping to ram his horn into Cretal. Now Cretal had been leaning against a row of boxes, each one about the same size. When he had thrown one at the assistant, it created a cavity in the row. The cavity was located right about his head. Cretal put his hands in the cavity and pulled the rest of his body up, just barely escaping the assistant’s horn. The assistant crashed into the boxes, making the whole row fall, including Cretal.

Cretal landed on the ground quite painfully, but no serious injuries. He looked up at the assistant, who had a box stuck on his horn. The assistant pulled the box off of his horn, and several of the boxes’ contents fell on him. The box held and alien fruits, which was very soft and squishy and splattered all over the assistant as soon as it touched him. Cretal got an idea. “I could throw this fruit at the assistant,” he thought.

Cretal stood up as quickly as he could without falling over, and hopped toward a bunch of boxes by the wall which held more alien fruit. The assistant saw what he was doing, and ran over to stop him. Cretal turned around to face the assistant and punched him in the face. The assistant staggered backward and Cretal punched him again in the stomach. Then Cretal punched the assistant once more in the face and sent him to the ground. Cretal hopped over to the boxes and tried to open them, but he could not. Cretal knew he would have to use some thing to get them open. Then Cretal saw what he was looking for, a crow bar. Cretal grabbed the crow bar and started to crack open the box. Then, all of a sudden, something clicked in Cretal. He realized he could use the crowbar as a weapon instead of using it to open the boxes.

Cretal was so intent in his work that he had not noticed the assistant, who had got up and retrieved the syringe. The assistant quietly moved to the right position and threw the syringe at Cretal. The needle buried itself in Cretal’s shoulder, but the medicine was not injected. The assistant ran up to inject the medicine. Cretal waited until the assistant was right behind him, then swung around and hit the assistant’s head with the crow bar. The assistant fell to the ground and lay motionless. Cretal did not know how injured the assistant was, but he figured he was hurt too bad to leave tied up in the storage room as he had originally planned. Instead he would have to leave him in the hallway. It wouldn’t be long before someone spotted him there and took him to the ship’s hospital. Cretal dragged the assistant into the hallway. He pulled the syringe out of his shoulder, and, because the thought it might be useful later on, put it in his pocket. He took the keys from the assistant’s pockets and unlocked his leg cuffs. Then, armed with the syringe and the crow bar, he ran down the hallway toward the science lab.

The Story of Giddo

2006-06-05T15:47:00.000-04:00

I guess this isn't so much as story as a game. I wrote one sentence, my little brother Kyle wrote another sentence, and we tried to make a story.
This is more or less a disaster. For one thing these kind of games never make good stories. Secondly Kyle was 5 years younger than me, and couldn't really follow my lead on a lot of stuff. You'll note it takes a whole paragraph before we even get a plot going.
I think I was in 7th grade. Kyle must have been in second grade. Jessica was in Kindergarten. I wrote the normal looking sentences. Kyle did the all caps, and Jessica did the bold faced.
There was a second chapter as well originally, but it got lost. Probably just as well.

Once there was a dog named Giddo, AND HE WANTED A DOGGY BONE. So he went to his friend spike and asked for a doggy bone AND HIS FRIEND GAVE HIM ONE. Giddo then went home with his bone, but he met another dog who also wanted a bone AND THEY SPLIT THE BONE AND ATE IT. But when they found out they got a posionious bone and they both got sick AND THEY WENT BACK TO THEIR OWNERS. Giddo's owner took him to the vet to see what was wrong with him. THE VET COULDN'T FIND OUT WHAT WAS WRONG. Giddo was still sick so his owner took him to another vet, BUT THIS VET ALSO COULDN'T FIND OUT WHAT WAS WRONG. Giddo got very sick and had to stay in bed all day long. HIS OWNER TOOK VERY GOOD CARE OF HIM. Then one day Giddo went mad. HE FOUGHT WITH ALL THE OTHER DOGS. He even bit his owner. SO HIS OWNER BROUGHT GIDDO BACK TO THE PET SHOP. Giddo didn't like the pet store and he bit the pet store owner. THE PET STORE OWNER DECIDED TO GET RIDE OF GIDDO. He sent him to the vet to have him put to sleep, but on the way to the vet Giddo got out of his cage. THEN GIDDO BIT THE PET STORE OWNER and ran into the woods. Giddo ran into a tree and became unconscious AND HE HAD A DREAM. He dreamt that his owner missed him and that he would take good care of him. When he woke up he was no longer mad, he was all better. HE RAN BACK TO HIS OWNER'S HOUSE. Then Giddo scratched at the door of his house so his owner would let him in. But his owner had moved away. SO GIDDO WANTED TO FIND HIS OWNER. Giddo began looking around the neighborhood for his owner, but the dog pound truck came. The dog pound truck captured Giddo and brought him to the pound. Giddo had no liscence because the pet store owner had taken it away. GIDDO WAS BROUGHT TO THE POUND CAGES, WERE ALL THE OTHER DOGS WERE CRYING. Unless someone adopted Giddo by Friday, Giddo would be put to sleep. THEN THREE BOYS CAME TO ADOPT DOGS, ONE OF THEM WANTED GIDDO. Giddo’s new owner was very nice, but Giddo wanted to be with his old owner. THEN ONE DAY GIDDO’S OLD OWNER CAME TO VISIT THE BOY, NOT KNOWING THAT THE BOY HAD HIS OLD DOG. But Giddo didn’t see his old owner, because he was at the vet for a check-up. GIDDO’S OLD OWNER BEGAN TALKING ABOUT GIDDO. “I have a dog just like your old dog,” said the boy. “COME AGAIN TOMORROW AND I’LL SHOW YOU MY NEW DOG.”

But that night, as the man was driving home, he was in a serious car accident. BUT THE BOY SAW THE ACCIDENT SO HE WENT OUT TO HELP GIDDO’S OLD OWNER. As the boy was running into the street he slipped on a curb and fell on his back. PRETTY SOON AN AMBULANCE CAME TO TAKE THEM BOTH TO THE HOSPITAL. Because of the terrible accident, everyone forgot about Giddo and he stayed at the vet’s all night. THE BOY’S MOTHER PICKED GIDDO UP THE NEXT MORNING. The boy got out of the hospital the next day, but Giddo’s old owner stayed in the hospital for a long time. Pretty soon school started for the boy, and Giddo was lonely most of the day. GIDDO SPENT MOST OF THE TIME PLAYING IN THE BOY’S BED. The boy’s mother didn’t like that so she locked the boy’s door while the boy was away. GIDDO SCRATCHED AT THE BOY’S BEDROOM DOOR, TRYING TO GET IN. GIDDO MADE LOTS OF SCRATCHES AT THE BOY’S DOOR. THE BOY’S MOTHER SAW GIDDO AND PUT HIM OUT SIDE. It was raining outside, and Giddo got cold and wet. GIDDO SCRATCHED ON THE DOOR, BUT IT WAS NO USE. THE BOY’S MOTHER WOULD NOT LET HIM IN. Giddo ran away looking for a dry place to go. THE ONLY PLACE GIDDO COULD FIND WAS A TREE IN THE BOY’S YARD. Giddo caught pneumonia from being out in the rain so long. WHEN THE BOY CAME HOME FROM SCHOOL, GIDDO WAS VERY SICK. The boy’s mother took Giddo to the vet. THE VET GAVE GIDDO A CHECK-UP. The vet gave the boy and his mother some medicine to give to Giddo. Giddo was very sick for a while, but then after 6 months he became all better. ON NIGHT, while Giddo was sleeping, three robbers came into the house to rob it. THEY ALSO KIDNAPED THE BOY. The boy tried to get away. Giddo woke up AND HE SAW THEM KIDNAP THE BOY. Giddo jumped on one of the robbers, and knocked him down. THE ROBBER WAS KNOCKED OUT. One of the robbers ran off to their car, taking the boy with him. The other robber took a club and began to swing it at Giddo. THE ROBBER HIT GIDDO IN THE HEAD, AND GIDDO WAS KNOCKED OUT. The robber than ran and got a glass of water, and splashed it on the other robber’s face to wake him up AND THE OTHER ROBBER WOKE UP. When the boy’s mother woke up, she looked for the boy, BUT SHE COULD NOT FIND HIM. She also noticed that several of her valuable possessions had been stolen. SHE WAS VERY SAD. She called the police and told them to come over. THE POLICE WREE ABLE TO FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENED. They began an immediate search for the kidnappers. FINALLY THEY FOUND THEM. Then they arrested the kidnappers and returned the boy to his mother. THE BOY’S MOTHER WAS REALLY HAPPY. Giddo was really happy too.

Help, I'm Trapped

2006-05-24T13:29:00.000-04:00

This was a creative writing essay for 7th grade English. The assignment was that we were trapped somewhere, and only had three things in our pocket.

I really got into this one. I decided that one of the "things" in my pocket was actually a little ten centimeter man, and went from there. As usual, the amount I wrote far exceeded the actual assignment. I stuck with this for a few days, but I wasn't getting any of the rest of my homework done so I eventually gave up on this, and just tacked on an ending half finished.

This is my first attempt at writing humor, and as you can see the results are mixed. The jokes are really run into the ground. I'd like to think that's just how 7th graders write humor, but maybe it's just me.

Nevertheless, I like this because it is the first piece of writing I have that shows any sense of pacing. Of not rushing on to finish the story, but simply taking my time and enjoying the scene for what it is.

I'm locked in the boy's bathroom. In my pockets are a ball of yarn, a phaser stuck on stun (how I got it is a long story) and a ten centimeter person named Jim.

Jim is a nice, short, good-looking sort of guy. He's a little on the weird side, but most of his midget friends (and me) are willing to overlook that. He has a T.V. show he never misses that's called, "If Midgets Ruled the World." He carries a jackknife everywhere he goes to combat large hungry spiders.

It was Saturday the 14th. Yesterday my friend David mysteriously disappeared after study hall. (For more on that, ask him to read his, "Help, I'm trapped in English class," essay to you.) Detectives had come to search the school for clues and I was one of the many people who came to watch the excitement. Just when everyone was leaving, I had to go to the bathroom. After I did, I found that some smart aleck had locked me in. I called for help, but everybody had left the school.

I leaned against the wall and wondered what jerk had done this to me. As I thought, Jim poked his head out and said in a mocking tone, "Clean your pockets. It stinks down here."

"If you don't like it you can get out," I said, picking him out of my pocket and tossing him up in the air. He landed in a toilet. There was a temptation to flush him down, but I didn't. Instead I helped him out and gave him a paper towel to dry off with.

"You threw me in the toilet on purpose," he angrily accused.

"No I didn't," I said. "I just threw you up in the air. I didn't know where you were going to land. Honest! No hard feelings I hope."

Jim shook himself. "No, I guess not," he replied. "I just wish people would flush this toilet once and a while. May I have another paper towel please?"

"Here, have two," I said as I handed him the paper towels. "We've got to find a way to get out of here."

"Good point," said Jim. "I'm missing my T.V. show."

"It's not for three more hours yet," I pointed out.

"That's how long it might take us to get out," Jim moaned.

"Well then, let's try and get out," I said. We both tried to think of a way to get out. I looked at my surroundings. Two toilets and two sinks were there, and a box of paper towels and a box of kleenexes. A window was three meters up, but even if you got up to it, it was too small to crawl through. I looked at the window, and I looked at Jim (who was still drying himself off) and suddenly a great idea hit me.

I explained it to Jim. "No way," exclaimed Jim as he backed away from me. "I hate heights and , and I could get hurt."

"Fine," I said. "Of course if we don't hurry up and get out, you might miss your T.V. show."

"Let's hurry up and get on with your plan," said Jim excitedly with a hint of reluctance in his voice.

I should explain that my plan is to tie one end of my ball of yarn to Jim's leg. Then throw Jim on the window sill, have him open the window and jump out. He will dangle by the piece of yarn. Then I will slowly lower him down. Once he gets down, he will cut the yarn off his leg and run to get help.

I just finished tying yarn to Jim's leg and was ready to proceed with the rest of my plan when Jim stopped me. "Don't you think we should test how good of a hold this rope has on me?" asked Jim.

"It's yarn Jim not rope," I said. "But I guess you're right about trying it out."

I held a bit of the yarn and let Jim dangle. "I guess it works pretty good," I said, no sooner had the words escaped my lips when Jim's leg slipped through the knot and Jim hit the floor. "Looks like we'll have to make that knot tighter," I said.

"Another sigh that we're dealing with pure brilliance," said Jim sarcastically.

"Listen, do you want to get out or not?" I asked. I finished re-tying the yarn around Jim's leg. "Besides that wasn't funny," I added.

"There, that knot's finished," I said. "Let's try it out." I let Jim dangle and once again the knot failed us and Jim met the floor. I tied the knot again. "There," I said proudly. "I'd like to see that come undone." It came undone. I tried again. "That definitely will hold," I said. "There's no way that will come undone." Guess what happened. I then tied the knot real tight.

"Ouch! Ouch! Stop that! You're cutting off my circulation," protested Jim. "Ouch!"

"Jim calm down," I said. "We got to get it tight or you'll slip right through the knot and hit the floor."

"That part I know," said Jim. "Ouch! Don't tie that stupid, dumb, idiotic knot so tight."

"Let's test this knot now!" I said.

"I hope this works, complained Jim. Call me cranky if you like, but I'm tired of falling into the hard floor."

We tested the yarn and it worked. Then Jim said, "I don't think I want to do this."

"What?" I exclaimed. "Don't tell me you're getting cold feet now."

"Well, all the tests were I slipped through the yarn made me think that I could slip through the yarn three meters up."

"You're being a wimp," I said.

"I don't care," said Jim. "I'm still not going to do it."

"I'll flush you down the toilet."

"I don't care."

"I'll never give you another piece of food."

"I don't care."

"I'll put you in my pocket and won't let any part of you out."

"I don't care."

"You'll miss your T.V. show."

"On second thought I'll take a risk and try your plan," said Jim, forcing a smile.

I picked Jim up and looked at the window. I took a deep breath and threw Jim at the window as hard as I could. I missed the window and Jim crashed against the wall, then fell down and hit the floor.

Jim sat up rubbing a bruise on his head. "If at first you don't succeed, try try again," I said.

"This stuff is pretty hard on me," complained Jim. "Isn't there a simpler way to do it?"

"Well," I said, "we could wait for school to start on Monday. Of course you would miss your T.V. show twice."

"Let's try again," said Jim. "We might make it this time."

This time, instead of throwing, I picked up the ball of yarn and twirled it over my head. Jim, tied to the other of the yarn, went flying around in circles.

Once I had enough speed I let go and Jim went flying towards the window.

"He's gonna make it," I thought. "He's gonna make..." Jim didn't make it. He crashed into the wall less than two inches short of the wall. He then fell down to the ground.

Dazed, Jim got up. "I don't think my T.V. show is that important," he said. "Besides it might be a repeat."

I paused, then realized that if Jim had given up on his TV show, it would be easy to change his mind. "What if its not a repeat and they never show it again? Of, if they repeat one of the great ones, like Nomes taking over the castle. Come on, let's try again," I said.

"Okay," said Jim. "I threw Jim at the window once more. The handle that opened the window was sticking out. Jim grabbed it. He then pulled himself up to the window sill.

He pushed against the handle and tried to open the window. He pushed against the handle so hard he fell off the window sill. I took my phaser and threw it at the window. The window broke and Jim was able to get out. (I had to throw him again).

He got help and I got out.

The True Story of Little Red Riding Hood

2006-05-23T10:00:00.001-04:00

This was in 6th grade. We had been studying legends and fairy tales, and our assignment was to re-write one of the standard fairy tales.

This version of "Little Red Riding Hood" I wrote was heavily influenced ( slash plaguerized) from the Musical "Into the Woods" which my mother had taken me to see earlier that year. But, aside from the idea of Little Red Riding Hood being a chubby candy eating glutten, I think there's enough of my own ideas in this to still call the story my own.

This story was voted the best by my classmates, and so we used it for our skit at the inter-scholastic "Legends and Fairy Tale Conference" (or something like that.) The teacher re-wrote it as a play, and my classmates drew pictures of this story to use as a slide show.

I am the "so-called" big bad wolf in the story of Little Red Riding Hood. Let me tell you the real story.

One day when I was feeling bored, a chubby little girl was skipping through the woods eating as she went. "Where are you going little girl?" I asked.

"I'm just going on a picnic," she said as she flung her red cape around her shoulders.

At this point I was so bored I was willing to do anything. "Can I go on the picnic?" I asked.

"Sure, the more the merrier," chimed the little girl. We went to a nice quiet river and began to chow down. The little girl must have had eyes bigger than her mouth because she packed enough food for days. She ate all the candy and nothing else. I ate nothing because it was all people food, and I just waited patiently for the picnic games.

After the girl polished off the last of the candy, she shook my paw, thanked me for coming, and started back to her house.

"Isn't your mother going to be mad when she sees all you ate was candy?" I called out.

She froze. "Your right," she said. "As long as I'm in the area, I'll drop the rest off at Grandmother's house."

"One more thing," I added. "Aren't we supposed to play games? I didn't come all this way just to watch you eat."

"If you're so big about games," she said, "then we'll play 'Who can get to Granny's house first'. I'll go this way, and you go that way, and the first one who gets to Granny's house wins."

It was a dumb game, but I was so bored I was willing to do anything. I ran like the wind, and would have won but on the way I saw three houses, a straw house, a stick house, and a brick house. I went to the straw house and...

...Well, that's another story altogether. Anyway, to sum it up, I ate two pigs, and almost got cooked myself after a narrow escape. The point is, because of this little detour I came to the house last.

Meanwhile Little Red Riding Hood had gotten to the house first and went inside. Her Grandmother had recently had plastic surgery done on her. But the surgeon was an amatuer, and he had equiptment problems, and the results were poor grandmother ended up looking very weird. Because of this she was not feeling well and was lying in bed trying to recover.

Little Red Riding Hood went into her grandmother's hut. "Oh, grandmother, what big hands you have," said Little Red Riding Hood.

"The better to hug you my dear," answered the grandmother.

"Oh, grandmother, what big eyes you have."

"The better to see you my dear."

"Oh, grandmother, what big ears you have."

"The better to hear you my dear."

"Oh grandmother, what a big mouth you have."

"The better to eat you my dear." Then they both laughed, because Grandmother had been joking.

Just about this time I arrived. When I walked through the door, Grandmother saw me and jumped out of bed in fright and ran around the room screaming. Little Red Riding Hood, upon seeing this, thought that maybe Granny had really lost it after all, and hadn't been joking about eating her.

A Woodsman heard the commotion, and ran into the house. Seeing everyone running around, he naturally assumed the wolf was to blame, and cut my stomach open. Two little pigs came running out of my stomach, and I blacked out.

Little Red Riding Hood thought I would be hungry now that my lunch had run out of my stomach, so she filled up my stomach with rocks so I wouldn't be hungry.

I awakened to see the woodsman with his axe standing over me, so I decided to play dead. Fortunately they bought it.

When Little Red Riding Hood got home, she ran to her mother and said, "You'll never guess what happened. I was bringing food to Granny's and--."

"I thought you were going on a picnic. You were bringing food to Grandmother's house? Why how sweet," her mother interupted.

"And I met this wolf after we went on a picnic--"

"Picnic?" Her mother asked.

"I mean after I met him he wanted to play a game, so he went one way and I went the other and I got there first, but Granny had turned into a wolf and I said, 'Grandmother, what a big mouth you have," and she said, 'The better to eat you my dear.' I thought she was kidding agt first but then..."
And she told the rest of the story.

Well, you know how mothers are. The mother drew her own conclusion from the story, and told all the rest of the mothers. And that's how the story you know came to be.

Fortunately

2006-05-21T15:25:00.000-04:00

This was an assignment for 4th grade. The teacher read a book to us, and then asked us to write a story in the same style, alternating between fortunate and unfortunate sentences.

It's hard to make a linear story when every second sentence has to be a disaster, but that's part of the fun as well. This was yet another story in which I far exceeded the required length, and spent a lot of time writing on this. Looking back it hardly seems very literary, but I was very proud of it at the time.

Fortunately the Lone Wolf found a mate.
Unfortunately a hunter came.

Fortunately the lone wolf got away.
Unfortunately his mate was shot.

Fortunately the lone wolf found a cave to hide from the hunter
Unfortunately the hunter found him

Fortunately the lone wolf dodged the hunter and ran out into the woods
Unfortunately he got caught in a bush and the hunter found him

Fortunately the hunter had run out of bullets for his gun
Unfortunately he had a knife which he grabbed from his pocket

Fortunately the lone wolf bit his hand and the knife fell into the bush and the lone wolf stood guard over it
Unfortunately the hunter pushed him aside and grabbed his knife

Fortunately when he did this he freed the lone wolf from the bush
Unfortunately the lone wolf ran in a cave and the bear who lived in the cave attacked the lone wolf

Fortunately the lone wolf ran out of the cave
Unfortunately the lone wolf stopped to rest and the hunter snuck up on him and grabbed him

Fortunately the lone wolf struggled free
Unfortunately the hunter threw his knife and gave the lone wolf a wound on his leg.

Fortunately the bear came out of his cave and scared the hunter away.
Unfortunately the bear attacked the lone wolf next

Fortunately another hunter came on the scene and shot the bear, and was going to help the lone wolf with his wound because he liked wolves.
Unfortunately he was attacked by a gang of robbers before he had a chance

Fortunately he killed one.
Unfortunately one killed him.

Fortunately the robbers were going to help the lone wolf with his wounds because they liked wolves too.
Unfortunately before they had a chance to, a bunch of police men arrested the robbers.

Fortunately the police men saw the wolf and were going to help him because they also liked wolves
Unfortunately the hunter was sneaking up on the limping wolf with his knife. (He had grabbed his knife as he ran away from the bear.)

Fortunately the police men saw him and told him not to kill the wolf.
Unfortunately he didn't listen to them

Fortunately a police man ran down and took the hunter's knife.
Unfortunately the hunter tackled the police man and took back his knife and killed the police man with it.

Fortunately the rest of the police men saw this and they arrested the hunter
Unfortunately while all of this was happening, the lone wolf had limped back into the forest.

Fortunately he wasn't hard to find and the police men found him and drove him to the vet
Unfortunately when they got there they learned that the vet had been killed

Fortunately a new vet came in ten minutes later
And fortunately he healed the wolf
And fortunately he returned the lone wolf to the wild.

Pirates (Prisoner of the Pirates)

2006-05-20T14:26:00.001-04:00

Explanation: I wrote this in 3rd grade. This was a story I thought up in my head one day while day dreaming. It was basically a pirate story, but one a 3rd grader imagines, filled with questions like, "If the Pirates shoot a hole in your sails, why don't you just sew it up and keep sailing?" Or "If the Pirates shoot cannon balls at you, why not just re-use their cannonballs and shoot them right back?"

I thought it was such a great story that afterwards I hurried to write it all down before I forgot it. Because I was trying to write it down fast, I stuck to a bare bones type of writing style, and even wrote it up like a play so I could use as little descriptive words as possible.

Later, when I was picked by my teacher to go to Calvin's "Young Author's Festival" I brought this story along with me. I needed a title, so I called it "Prisoner of the Pirates" even though no one actually gets taken prisoner in the story. When I realized how many of the kids actually had decent stories, I was a bit embarrassed about this one.

This is one of those stories that didn't transfer from the mind to the paper very well. In my mind it was primarily a story about two men, one (General Rotten) I pictured as the epitome of masculinity. Gruff, unshaven, hasn't bathed for weeks, old soldier type. The other was a gentleman, an actor, refined taste but helpless in battle, so General Rotten has to constantly save him. There was no back story in my mind, but on paper I had to invent one about a famous clown who travels to Baghdad to avoid a war.

The long battle scenes that were elaborate in my mind got stripped down to almost nothing on paper. Also in my mind I pictured most of this stuff going on at once: the battle in the Captain's cabin, the fighting on the masts, and General Rotten protecting his friends and then falling off the ship. I was unable to write it all at once though, and so a lot of the excitement got lost.

One day a famous clown was performing. He was very famous. He lived in England. His helper brought him a letter from Baghdad.

Helper: Here's a letter from Baghdad.

Clown: From Baghdad! Let me see!

He read the letter.

Clown: They want me to come over to Baghdad and perform there.

Helper: You can't ! The Devil Fish Pirates will get you. I sure.

The Devil Fish Pirates were a bunch of pirates who for some reason didn't let anyone cross the sea.

Clown: I'm not going.

Helper: Good

Ten days later the clown saw King Richard coming to see him.

Clown: Hi King Richard

King: You must go to Baghdad. If you don't, they are going to destroy England.

Clown: I must go then. But what if the Devil Fish Pirates catch me?

King: You are too good a clown for us to let that happen. Tell you what, I'll think of something to protect you, and in the morning I'll tell you what it is.

Clown: All right. See you tomorrow. Good night.

King: Good night.

That night the clown told his helper everything.

Clown: I met King Richard. He said I have to go to Baghdad or Baghdad will destroy England.

Helper: Oh No! Please don't go, even if it means the end of England.

Clown: I'm sorry but I must go.

Helper: Then let me go too.

Clown: You might be able to come.

Helper: Didn't King Richard find some way to protect you?

Clown: He's trying to think of one. He'll tell me tomorrow.

The next day, after the Clown show, the clown saw King Richard again.

Clown: Did you find a way to keep me safe?

King: Yes, the captain of my army has chosen 20 men of the army to fight the pirates. And the captain is going too.

Clown: Is the famous General Rotten among that 20?

King: I don't know. The captain didn't tell me who he picked.

Clown: General Rotten must be in that 20. By the way, my helper wants to go too. Can he?

King: We'll let the army captain decide that. Go get your helper. I want you to meet the army captain.

The Clown ran and got his helper and then all three of them went tot see the army captain.

Clown: Hello Captain

Captain: Hello

Then the captain turned his head to the helper.

Captain: Who is this?

Clown: My helper. He wants to go on the ship.

Before the captain could answer, King Richard said...

King: I must be leaving

...and then he left. The captain then said...

Captain: I'm not a fool. I have a man named Peter in case we get shoot in the sail. Peter will sew our sail back together again. Your helper can help Peter. What is your helper's name?

Helper: I don't know.

Captain: We will call you James. What's your name, Clown?

Clown: I don know either.

Captain: We'll just call you Clown Lets get on the boat.

They sailed many nights and many days. One day the look out spied a ship. The ship fired a cannon ball and made a hole in the sails. Everybody knew it was the Devil Fish Pirates. Peter and James climbed up and sewed the sails back together. As soon as they were done another shot hit the same part of the sail. Then the guns were aimed at the people. Just before they fired again the clown saw someone he knew: General Rotten. He went over to talk to him. Then the guns went off.

Rotten: Duck!

General Rotten pulled the clown down. Then the captain thought...

Captain (thinking): Why don't I use their cannon balls in our canon, and shoot their own canon balls back at them.

The captain was going to do this, but then someone said that the canon balls that the pirates had already used were broken. The captain decided to try it anyway. But before he could do a thing he was shot. He lay hurt. General Rotten and the clown took the captain and put him in a cabin. Then the clown said...

Clown: General Rotten, I don't know how to fight. What do I do?

Rotten: Then get down to the basement of the ship where the Pirates can get you

Clown: What? And let you get killed fighting by yourself?

Rotten: Get down there.

General Rotten pushed the clown down into the basement and locked the door. Then he went back out onto the deck. By this time the Pirate ship had caught up with their ship, and the Pirates ran onto their ship.

The strongest soldier, after killing 20 pirates at one time, went to fight the captain of the Pirates. But the pirate captain was no ordinary captain. He was also very strong. The strongest soldier went on the Pirate ship and in a cabin he found the Pirate captain. He fought him for a very long time. Finally he wounded the pirate captain. Then he put on the Pirate captain's hat and uniform, so that he looked exactly like the pirate captain. When he came out of the cabin, everyone was still fighting on the two ships and up in the mast and sails as well. This is what had happened:

General Rotten had gone to talk to his best friend (aside from the Clown). Then the friend's friend came along and pointed to a large group of pirates, and said...

Friend: I bet I can beat them all.

...and then left to fight. The pirates killed him quickly. Then General Rotten's friend tried it, and he found he couldn't beat the pirates and ran. The pirates ran after him and General Rotten came to save him, and then General Rotten began fighting that group of pirates. Then the ship hit a rock and jolted. Everyone fell forward. General Rotten fell off the ship. One pirate threw a sword at him. It missed, but everyone thought General Rotten had been killed.

Then for some reason everyone climbed up on the masts and the pirates followed them. Which brings us back to where we where.

The fake pirate captain ordered the pirates back on to the ship. As the pirates were retreating, James jumped off his perch on the mast and knocked one pirate off of the sails. James then stopped himself from falling by grabbing onto one of the sails and sliding down. Then he ran onto the pirate ship and went to attack the Pirate captain, not knowing he was a fake captain. In the struggle he knocked the fake beard off. When the Pirates realized it was fake, they stopped retreating and attacked James and the fake captain.

Peter rushed over to help. He slide down the sails, knocking several pirates over on the way down, and the three of them fought together.

Then the real Pirate captain emerged from the cabin. He was still severely wounded. He ordered the pirates back onto their own ship, but they thought it was another trick. They pulled on his beard to see if it was fake. The captain had been so severely wounded that even this small shock killed him.

At this point General Rotten came out of the water. The Pirates decided to carry out the last will of their dead captain, and sailed away. General Rotten let the clown out of the basement.

The injured army captain survived, and as soon as they got to Baghdad they found a Doctor for him. After that, no longer did the Devil Fish Pirates sail the seas.

The Three Little Giraffes

2006-05-17T11:28:00.000-04:00

This was a creative writing assignment in second grade. The worksheet said, "Once upon a time there were three little giraffes. The first giraffe built a home in a haystack. The second giraffe built a home in a __________. The third giraffe built a home in a __________________."

Our assignment was to fill in the blanks, and then write the rest of the story on the next page. For whatever reason, my imagination really took off on this one. I filled up the next page, and then had to ask for another piece of paper, and then another one, and then another one. Eventually I filled up eight pieces of paper, which was far and above the original assignment.

Once upon a time there were three little giraffes.

The first giraffe built a home in a haystack.

The second giraffe built a home in a leaf pile.

The third giraffe built a home in a wood pile.

But little did they know a bunch of pirates were looking for giraffe soup. They found the giraffes.

Then the first giraffe hit them on the head with a pan.

The next giraffe was strong and beat them up.

The third giraffe was too fast.

In the night the giraffes heard the pirates plan. In the morning they made their own plans and outwitted the pirates.

The next time the giraffes did the same thing, but this time the pirates heard the giraffes plan and outwitted the giraffes. But they forgot that the third giraffe was fast and as a result all the giraffes were able to get away.

That night the giraffes did not listen to the pirates plan but they knew that the pirates would listen to their plans, so they held their planning session at a different time.

The first giraffe said, "We will have to murder the pirates. They think that giraffes are not strong. So they do not think it is necessary to use their wea--"

"Don't say that word," said the second giraffe. "If the pirates somehow knew we are having our meeting at a different time, we could be giving them ideas to use their you know what. So don't say the word. Just say 'You know what.'"

They then asked the third giraffe if he knew what the "you know what" was, and he said no. So they huddled close together and they whispered, "It means their weapons."

"Anyway," continued the first giraffe, "they think of us as weakling giraffes. So they do not think it is necessary to use their 'you know what.' But when they find out how strong we really are they will use their 'you know what.' So we will have to murder them."

"I object," said the second giraffe. "When the pirates went to our houses we all got away some how. We must tell each other how we did it."

The first giraffe said, "I hit them on the head with my pan."

The second giraffe said, "I beat them up."

The third giraffe said, " I ran so fast they couldn't catch me. Now let's go to sleep."

"No," said the first giraffe. "We have to figure out what we are going to do."

"Well," said the second giraffe, "I could beat them all up, while you," he pointed to the first giraffe, "will sneak up to the captain and hit him on the head with your pan and kill him. Once their captain is dead, the pirates should give up. But if that isn't enough for the pirates, then the third giraffe can use his speed to rescue you from the rest of the pirates."

Well, it all worked out fine until the first giraffe had done his job. The pirates were furious, but the third giraffe didn't notice at first and so the first giraffe jumped into the river to escape.

The second giraffe noticed and he stopped fighting to yell a warning to the third giraffe. Then he gasped, "They're using their weapons."

By now the first giraffe had been picked up by the current and was being swept away. The third giraffe was running alongside the river trying to help him. Then the third giraffe was shot by a pirate gun and fell to the ground dead.

The second giraffe saw what happened, but he couldn't run as fast as the third giraffe, so he couldn't get away from the pirates he was fighting. So the first giraffe got washed away.

That night it was hard for the second giraffe to sleep. Meanwhile the first giraffe was swimming for his life. Then he saw a whirlpool ahead. He began to swim with all his might against the current. When he saw it was no use, he began to yell for help. Then a storm began. Lightening hit a tree and it fell into the river. The first giraffe grabbed the tree and pulled himself to the shore and slept there.

The next day the first giraffe woke up and saw a forest. And he saw a lion. He ran away and the lion ran after him. As they ran, more and more lions joined the chase. Soon the first giraffe was surrounded by lions. From the trees a monkey reached down and pulled the first giraffe up to safety. Then the monkey stuck his tongue out at the lions. Then the monkey said, "Hello."

And the first giraffe said, "Hello," back.

Then the monkey said, "Let's go have some tea."

And the first giraffe said, "Let's". So they went to have some tea.

Meanwhile the second giraffe was having a terrible time fighting the pirates. Since he started fighting that morning, he had only killed nine pirates. There were still 10,027 pirates left.

All of a sudden they all charged him at once. And from behind one of them grabbed him around his neck and held a knife to his throat. A voice then came and it said, " We only have one giraffe for our soup. You will be the next. Walk or you will die."

The second giraffe was brought into the pirates boat. The pirates led him down the stairs, down a a long hallway, and then they jumped down a hole. Then another long hall and down another hole. The pirates left by jumping out, and they left the second giraffe in the hole.

The walls started closing in and the second giraffe couldn't jump as high as the pirates. But he was strong. He held back the walls and climbed up to the top. Then he ran back to his house.

Meanwhile the monkey and the first giraffe were having tea. The first giraffe told the monkey his story. "To get back," the monkey said, "all you have to do is follow the stream back to your house. I will come with you."

So they went to follow the stream and they went all the way back to the second giraffe's house. Then all three went to fight the pirates. The monkey went up into the trees and threw coconuts at the pirates. The pirates couldn't climb the trees, so they were beaten by the Monkey.

The End

Rescue of the Animals

2006-05-16T15:59:00.001-04:00

Once upon a time

The mother cow got stuck in the river. And the baby leaned down to take one drink and she got her drink, and then she fell into the river. The mother cow held onto her and they both got out.
They got back to the farmyard. The horse was sitting down and got up and ran out to meet them, when a lion came.

Then some people came up to the river to catch some fish but they didn catch any.

The farmer ran out with one bear. And the bear got loose and the sheep came running after him with one horse and one dog and one rooster. And the bear stopped running and sat down on a cool spot under a tree. The sheep caught up to the bear and the bear bit him. Then the baby calf chased them back to the forest. And the farmer sat down and got his baseball shoes on and went out to the baseball field. But the baseball game was all over and the other people had gone home.

And the farmed stayed up all night worrying: if one of my farm animals died, the other animals would be all right, but that one would be dead.

But none of the farm animals died. They just slept in the night. But the farmer died. And the other animals never died, even without the farmer to take care of them.

Then some wicked people came out. All the animals never died by themselves but the horse died when the wicked people came out. But the little horse, who had come running with the sheep to catch the bear, grew up and now there was a new horse in the farmyard. But the wicked people even shot that one. Then they shot all the other farmyard animals except the sheep.

And the sheep got really angry. The next time the wicked people came to kill the sheep, the sheep ran after them. But the wicked people didn just stand there, they ran away from the sheep. And the sheep just ran after them saying, "I'm the meanest animal in the farmyard and I can catch those wicked people." And then sheep caught up with the wicked people just as they were sitting down resting and the sheep shot those wicked people with his special gun and then ran out to the bear and all the other farm animals and made alive again with his magic wand, for the sheep was also a fairy. Then he came to the farmer and did the same thing. And the farmer ran away from those wicked people, until the sheep told them he had already shot the wicked people with his gun.

And then the horse started running away off the rock and told the sheep that there was danger. And the sheep went to find out what kind of danger there was. But what kind of danger did the sheep find there? He found a lion.

And he ran away, turning his head and told the horse that it was a lion.

Meanwhile the mother cow and the baby calf sat on a nice warm rock looking at that tree, the apple tree that the wicked hunters had planted. Then the horse got stuck in a net which some other wicked people had used to catch animals to eat. The bear took his sharp teeth and tore the net open. Then the horse got away by running.

Now the baby calf wasn't watching for danger and she was walking down a jungle path. And while she was doing this, a fierce lion came after her. And the mother cow told her that the jungle was dangerous. And the baby ran away from the jungle though the woods and back to the farmyard.

Then an airplane flew and landed in the farmyard. And the door flew open and out ran three horses. And then the airplane flew to a grassy field to get some more oil and fly over the farmyard. But it didn stay there. It started up the propellers again and flew over the farmyard. But it didn get far because it didn have any gas in the gas container. So the pilot put new gas in the gas container, but before he could start flying again another person caught him.

This was written when I was 4 or 5. Like "My Big Book About Raining" I dictated the story and my mom wrote it down for me.

This was one of those childhood items that was always getting lost, refound, and put into storage for years. I remember whenever I dug it out of storage, it would never be quite like I remembered it from last time.

When I first wrote this I took it quite seriously, and for a long time after considered this the child's equivalent of "The Great American Novel". Then in 3rd grade my mom took it out of storage and read it to me again, and it was suddenly not only bad, but hilariously bad. I laughed and laughed and thought I had unintentionally written the funniest thing ever.

Now when I look at it, it seems to me neither exceptionally good nor exceptionally bad. Just typical of something a child that age would write.

My Big Book About Raining

2006-05-15T15:38:00.000-04:00

I don't remember this one at all, but it was saved in my art portfolio with all my childhood artwork, and dated November 27, 1982 (when I would have been 4 years old). I dictated the story to my mother, who wrote it down on blank pages, and then I illustrated it (which turned out just to be just paint splotches).

There was beautiful sunshine, beautiful clouds

Bambi liked it that way. So he woke up.

Suddenly it started to do rain clouds. That happened just when Bambi woke up.

So Bambi did not go out to play. Neither did Thumper nor Flower.

It became nighttime and they went to sleep.

And outside it rained and rained.

Until the skies tumbled down to the ground.

The wind washed the clouds back up into the sky

And then the clouds fell down again

And then the water went right to the clouds and the clouds fell down to the bottom of the sea
Then the clouds washed up and tumbled down into the sea again.

Then the clouds pushed together and the rain stopped and the sun came out

And then Bambi and Flower and Thumper woke back up

Then all of a sudden it started raining again.

And then it stopped and it never, never rained again that day

So Thumper and Flower and Bambi played all day until night time.

The Lost Works

2006-04-30T05:35:00.000-04:00

While I was never exceptionally prolific, like some people are in childhood, I did write a lot more than what is represented on this blog. Like many people, most of my childhood writing did not survive through the years. It got lost or thrown away for one reason or another. “Smart Wolves” I remember specifically throwing away myself, much to my later regret. The rest I’m not sure what happened, but I suspect they fell victim to my mother’s cleaning at some point.

I’m sure this is of interest to no one except me, but I retain an author’s fondness for all of my projects, even the ones that I no longer have. And so I thought I would at least write them up on this blog.

Smart Wolves

2006-04-27T05:35:00.000-04:00

From the title alone, I suppose I don’t even need to say this was done during my “Wolf-phase”. From about 3rd grade through 8th grade everything I wrote had to deal with Wolves in one form or another. This particular story I worked on for a couple of years (which seemed like an epic amount of time back then) from about 4th or 5th grade through 6th grade.

It all started out as a picture in National Geographic of two wolves running on the snow beneath the shadow of a plane. Presumably the shadow was just from the plane that was used to take the picture, but to my imagination the wolves were running away from hunters (or “wolfers”, as I once read these illegal wolf poachers were called.)

I cut the picture out, pasted it onto a piece of paper, and started to write a story about what would happen to these two wolves, who I named Snow Wolf and Slet. Like most of my childhood stories, I had no idea what would happen after I began, and some of the bizarre turns this story takes can be explained by keeping in mind I was simply making it up as I went along.

About the name Slet: I should clarify that in the naivety of childhood innocence I was blissfully unaware of how closely this name resembled a derogatory term for a sexually loose woman. It just sounded cool at the time, sort of like “sleet” but shorter. My mother brought it to my attention when I attempted to give a toy wolf the same name, but I was already several chapters into my story by that time, so I was stuck with it. (Remember this was back in the days when everything was hand written out on paper before the easy editing of word processors.)

Anyway, Snow Wolf and his female mate Slet are running, and they get caught by these poachers. Only instead of being killed for their pelts, they’re shot with tranquilizer darts, and handed over to a private scientist.

The scientist is named Jonathon Angle. He is demonstrating his new invention to his friend, professor Brown.

Although I don’t think I described it very well on paper, in my mind Jonathon Angle and professor Brown were very similar to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Jonathon Angle was the young brilliant scientist with the skinny angular body (as the name implies) and professor Brown was his more skeptical sidekick with a stockier build and a bowler hat.

Anyway, Jonathon Angle is demonstrating his new machine, which has the power to give human intelligence to animals and inanimate objects. He demonstrates it first on Snow Wolf and Slet, and then on a piano. Finally Jonathon Angle turns the machine on itself to give it intelligence as well.

The machine, by the way, is named JAM for Jonathon Angle’s Machine (seemed like a snappy acronym at the time). I envisioned it as this huge robot on wheels with an opening for pianos and wolves to pass under and be given the intelligence treatment. As the story progresses, it turns out JAM has a lot more neat Robot tricks as well.

Where was I? So, Snow Wolf, Slet, the Piano, and JAM all have had their intelligence increased, and can talk and reason now and participate in the conversation and all that stuff. Professor Brown says he’s sorry he ever doubted Jonathon Angle’s abilities. Jonathon Angle accepts the apology, and then says that the experiment was just for demonstration purposes, and for ethical reasons he now has to reverse the process and turn everything back to its original state.

The Piano however is horrified at the idea of loosing the gift of life, and runs out of the room. (Or zoomed rather. I think I had envisioned a piano on wheels). Everybody runs after the piano and tries to stop it. The piano zooms out of the house and is rolling down a hill when everybody is struck by lightening and disappears.

Everyone reappears in the middle of a cave and a small elf-like creature appears. It is at this point that we learn the lightening was not a natural phenomenon, but rather a ray of magic which had transported everyone to the cave.

I forget exactly what name I used for the cave creatures. They resembled elves with pointed ears and about half the height of a human, and although they are descended from the world of fantasy, I chose to give them a different name and species.

At any rate, the name of the creature who greets them is called Fown. Fown apologies to them for the inconvenience, and explains that they were experimenting with their transportation magic when they had an accidentally discharge which had enveloped Jonathon Angle, Professor Brown, JAM, the Piano, Snow Wolf and Slet and transported them to the cave.

Fown, by means of a magical portal, is able to show everyone his story. It began 1,000 years ago, when he and his race were ambushed by the Goblins. Fown, at that time just a young child, has to run for safety with the rest of his village. In the course of the flight, first his mother and then his father are killed by Goblin attacks. Finally everyone runs into a cave, at which point a rock slide permanently closes up the entrance, protecting them from the Goblins but also trapping them inside the cave forever.

Although Fown and his race are vulnerable to death from sickness or fatal wounds, if kept free from harm they have a potentially infinite life span. Thus Fown and his friends have spent the last 1000 years in the cave, mostly trying to find a way out. At last, through various experiments, they have found a way to transport themselves not only out of the cave, but back in time so that they can prevent the Goblin ambush in the first place.

Fown apologies, but now that the accident has already occurred, there will not be any extra energy to transport Jonathon Angle and his friends back out of the cave. The only option to get out will be to accompany Fown and his friends back in time.

They travel back in time where they are able to prevent the Goblin ambush. JAM, it turns out, has a laser attached to his machinery, and is able to take part in the fighting.

I was, at this time, greatly influenced by Tolkien, or at least the Rankin-Bass animated interpretation of his work. And, like many young fantasy fans before or since, I was unsure what was Tolkien’s invention and what was from traditional folklore. Therefore, in accordance with the animated version of the Hobbit, I had the Goblins riding on wolves. Of course at this stage in my life it went against everything I believed in to have the wolves as the bad guy, and so I interjected a scene in which JAM captures one of the Goblins’ wolves and analyzes it. JAM is able to discover that the wolves are under mind control by the Goblins’ magic. Since there is no cure, the only humane solution is to kill the wolves to put them out of their misery. And with that moral problem solved, Snow Wolf and the rest are free to enter the fight against the Goblins and their wolves.

Fown succeeds in saving his father and mother as well as his five year old self. With both the past and the future Fown now in the same story, the older Fown volunteers to rename himself Fown II in order to prevent any confusion.

The Goblin army is driven back, but the Goblin General vows revenge. Several minor attacks follow. During the middle of the night two Goblins on Wolves raid the house and carry off the younger Fown. Snow Wolf and Slet give chase, and manage to rescue young Fown, but Slet is stabbed in the chest during the fight and dies.

In the course of the story, for reasons I don’t remember, two other wolves join the good-guys team. I don’t remember what their names were, and I don’t remember the exact chronology either. They might have joined before Slet died. In fact, I think they did, because I remember having four wolves on the team.

While the skirmishes continue, the Goblin army is recruited to join in the fight between the Witches and the Warlocks. The Goblins, it turns out, are vassals of the Witches, and thus recruited to join in the fight. The Goblin leader keeps wanting to send out expedition forces to capture Fown and his family. At present the Goblin army has a force of 100 Goblins sent out to capture Fown; an extremely small fraction of the whole Goblin forces. But the head Witch eventually says even that is too much, so she sends another Witch out to bring back the 100 Goblins.

Meanwhile fighting continues. At one point Fown II is surrounded by Goblins and their wolves, and is able to fight only by his quick reflexes and guarding his neck from the wolves’ teeth. He is saved by the Piano who rushes in and uses his wooden frame to bowl the Goblins over. The Piano knocks the Goblins over several times, and, because he has no vital organs, is unhurt by the Goblin arrows. Until the Goblins use flaming arrows, and then the Piano catches on fire. In a last heroic effort the Piano uses itself as a flaming wreck to ram into the Goblins one last time before it burns away to nothing.

At this point the witch flying on a broomstick appears to recall the Goblins, and she also attacks the good-guys. JAM shoots the witch with his laser gun. The witch falls to the ground and screams out her death agonies. In her last minutes before Death, she manages to deliver the curse of the five rings.

This doesn’t really make a lot of sense, but at this point I realized the story wasn’t really going anywhere and so, like any fantasy writer who doesn’t know what to do next, I decided to come up with a quest to set my characters on. They have to find the five Golden Rings within a year, or they will all die. (Fown II explains this to the other characters. I think he might even have given some sort of short back story about what these five Rings are and how they came to be cursed as well, but I don’t really remember).

At this point, the team splits up in search of the different Golden rings. I don’t remember how many teams they split into, or who was in which group. Each group, however, encountered different adventures and gradually added new friends to their ranks. I fell into the trap, common to many fantasy writers, of wanting to find excuses to incorporate every single mythical creature into my story.

As the story branches out into many different directions, it is at this point especially that I start to forget the details. There was one part when Fown II and his group entered a strange city and got drawn into some sort of fight. A new character (a dwarf or an elf I think) had his arm completely cut off at the shoulder by an axe, and Fown II and the others nurse him back to health, at which point he joins the quest. (I remember having a conversation with my mother about someone’s chances of surviving this kind of wound. I had already devised a tourniquet to stop the blood in my story, but once my mother mentioned shock was also a problem I added that Fown II had used some of his magic to stop the shock.)

Another group is crossing a steep mountain trail. The Young Fown is, out of childlike curiosity, wandering dangerously close to the edge and singing a song. His mother yells at him to get away from the edge, but actually her sharp voice has the unintended effect of frightening Young Fown and causing him to fall over the edge. He is saved by a landing on a ledge below, but the ledge is starting to crack. Jonathon Angle instructs JAM to manufacture a rope (apparently another one of JAM’s powers), but JAM takes too long in doing it, and the ledge breaks and Young Fown falls off.

(I remember this was one of the first scenes in which I tried to build some tension in my writing. “JAM, we need that rope now.” “Almost finished.” “Hurry, the ledge is breaking.” “Almost finished.” Etc.)

He is saved by a fairy and her flying Unicorn. (I don’t remember their names, but they were pretty standard Fairy/ Unicorn names, like Rainbow or Moon Beam). After introductions are made, the fairy and the unicorn also join in the quest.

Another thing I remember near the end is an attempt to use the Smart Wolves story as an epic framework within which I could insert some of my other stories. I wanted to combine the characters from my “Three Giraffes” story into the Smart Wolves story. I figured since I was already writing in the Fantasy realm, the addition of talking Monkeys and Giraffes wasn’t a big problem. What was a problem was the addition of guns, which struck me as an anachronism in my fantasy world. So I re-wrote the “Three Giraffes” and gave the pirates bows and arrows instead of guns. It did seem a little strange to me to have pirates shooting arrows, but I figured this was a change I had to make in order to incorporate the two stories.
I had plans for incorporating the two stories together, but as far as I remember I never actually got far enough to when the characters from each story met up with each other.

I don’t remember much more of the details, and the story pretty much fades out after this point. I had plans for a huge dramatic conclusion (don’t I always) but eventually I lost interest in this story and just let it sit. Eventually I started working on other things.

This story is unique among the Lost Works in that I am guilty of deliberately and consciously throwing it out. Everything else just got lost under mysterious circumstances as time went on (personally I suspect my Mom’s cleaning). But this one I remember throwing out myself. It feel victim to my own cleaning.

I’m a bit of a messy person, and this is a habit I’ve had from childhood. And like most messy people, I tend to go throw long periods of mess and then strange bursts of cleaning. During one of those bursts, I decided I was never going to finish this story anyway, so I threw it out.

I have a lot of regrets in my short life, but this decision is right up there. Not because this was a great work of art, but because it was something I worked hard on for a while, and it shows my writing and my mind in transition. As it is now, I have almost nothing to show in between “Prisoner of the Pirates” and “The Wolf Clan”.

The reason I threw it out was because I was undergoing a transition in the length of my writing. Everything before this I had worked on for a couple days, and finished usually in a night, or a week tops. This was something I had worked on for months with no end in sight, and I thought that an unfinished story was no good hanging onto. Little did I know that everything I wrote after this would be an unfinished story, until I finally was able to bring “The New Era” storyline to a conclusion of sorts.

Influence on Other Works
This was my first serious foray into the World of Fantasy, and I decided I enjoyed it. I would return later with the Wolf Clan and the world of Fabulae.

I quite like the idea of household furniture becoming characters (like the Piano) and also having a past and present version of a character together on the same quest (Young Fown and Fown II). I’ve never re-used any of these concepts again, but I might some day.

Junky Funky

2006-04-27T02:07:00.000-04:00

The last I heard about this, it was in the possession of one of my friends whom I lost touch with. It may turn out someday that it is still in his possession, and has not actually become a lost work. If that ever happens, I’ll have to transcribe the whole thing up on this blog, but until then I’m going to have to assume it is lost.

This was a collaborative work done around 5th grade by me and my friends Matt, Josh, and David. It was Matt’s idea if I recall correctly. He said he thought it would be cool if we started writing a story and every night one of us would write a different part of it. The rest of us all said that we had often thought of the same idea at one point or another, and had just been waiting for someone else to suggest it. (This is probably one of those things that occurs to every child at one point or another as a cool idea).

Somehow for reasons I don’t remember, I ended up being the one who was given the job of starting it off. The only instructions were I was to write one page only, and then leave the story for others to continue after that. No other caveats were given, and I was free to take the story in any direction I chose. In the end, I chose a bit of a bizarre tale which was meant half as a joke, but which the others agreed to follow willing enough.

Actually, the first installment ended up being two pages, because of some confusion. I was in the habit of skipping every other line when writing on lined paper because this made my appalling penmanship look slightly less messy. So I made an appeal, and was told if I skipped every other line, I could use two pages. There was a bit of a miscommunication however as to whether this was one side, or two pages front and back. I turned in two pages front and back, which wasn’t what Matt had wanted, but we ended up deciding that the first installment could be a bit longer because you need time to set the plot.

Junky Funky was the name of the hero, largely just because that was the first name that came into my head, and it was half as a joke. It’s the kind of name only a 5th grader would think of. But after we had been writing about him for a while, we actually got used to the name and it didn’t seem so funny.

I think Junky Funky was a forest ranger, or a zoologist, or some sort of animal related job. Somehow he stumbles across a plot by the bad guys, who plan to exterminate all the wolves in the world. And I think something involving time travel as well. There is a bit of a fight, Junky Funky is knocked unconscious, and then he has to go back in time to chase the bad guys and stop their evil plan.

At this point in my life, I felt like I had to write something with wolves in it. I had a reputation to keep up. The other guys were expecting it of me.
Actually we all had our own animals that we liked, and we always incorporated our favorite animals into all of our stories and games. David liked gorillas, Josh liked Duck-billed Platypuses, and Matt…Damn, for some reason I’m drawing a blank on what Matt used to like. Koalas, maybe. I’m going to have to look him up one of these days and refresh my memory.

Anyway, all of our favorite animals were incorporated into the story. The bad guys were expanded to be against all of our favorite animals, not just wolves. Junky Funky had to save all these animals, and at various points was helped by them as well. (I seem to remember something about Junky Funky being in a Nasa like control room run by talking gorillas, which must mean at some point we decide to give some of these animals more human like attributes.)

As to the bad guys…I’m not sure really why they wanted to kill off all animals. I don’t think we ever delved seriously into their motivations. I suppose this is a serious literary flaw, but if you look at the Saturday morning cartoons we were brought up on, is it any wonder we had bad guys who were bad just for the sake of badness?

I think in Matt’s next installment, Junky Funky goes back in time, is able to briefly foil the bad guys plan, returns to modern day, and the story continues in the present, where it is just one long battle between Junky Funky and the bad guys, filled with all the standard narrow escapes and rescues and battle scenes. My mind forgets the chronology, and I remember the story only in fragments.

Josh, at one point, had the bad guys actually take over our school, and then wrote himself in as the kid who saved the school. This was of course every kids fantasy to save the school from terrorists, but Josh was the only one of us with the ego to actually write it down on paper and then submit it to the rest of us. Matt was half genuinely disgusted, and half amused at this, but he took it as another opportunity to mock Josh.

I followed Josh in the circulation order, so I continued the story from there. I was doubly intrigued, both by the concept of writing oneself into one’s own story, and also by the humor of Matt’s disgust with Josh, so I tried to continue the theme in my next chapter to increase the humor.

Josh had not explicitly named the rest of us in his chapter (he had said something like “Josh and his friends”) so I proceeded to name David, Matt, and myself as Josh’s collaborators. My first act was to kill off myself, because the last thing I wanted was to be accused of Josh-like egotism. The bad guys had all of us at gun-point, I attempted a brash escape, and was promptly shot. That left David, Matt and Josh as Junky Funky’s remaining side kicks.

Matt and David were not pleased about being written into the story, nor with the fact that I was continuing to emphasize Josh’s character. Josh went along with it for a while, but as the story continued even he began to tire of the gag. Every time the chapter came around to me again, I would find some excuse to bring back Josh into the story. Sometimes David and Matt as well, but always Josh.

The rest of them were at times upset about this, but they put up with it. Only once did Matt (who followed me in the rotation) resort to using the “Junky Funky woke up, and realized the proceeding chapter had all been a dream” tactic on me, and that was when I genuinely had gone to far.

It started, as usual, with Josh going to far. Josh wrote in Samus Aran (sp?), the hero from then popular Metroid video game, into the story. Samus Aran crashes through the wall, rescues Junky Funky from the bad guys, and tells Junky Funky, “call me Samus Aran, for I will never tell you my true name.” (If memory serves, this was before it was common knowledge that Samus Aran was actually a girl, this being only revealed at the end of the Metroid game. I think he was a masculine character in our story).

Matt was again appalled at Josh’s chapter, and I once again took the ball and ran with it. In my chapter Samus Aran turns to Junky Funky and said something like “Oh you know what, I’ll tell you my real name anyway. It’s Josh. Want to know another secret? I don’t have a brain”. (In those days, we used to tease Josh by saying he didn’t have a brain. Somehow it seemed like the height of repartee at the time.)

Anyway, everyone agreed this had gone too far, and Matt erased the previous two chapters with the dream sequence.

After that last outrage, I made an effort to be more conciliatory. I didn’t kill off Matt and David, but I gave them a nice send off where they part company from Junky Funky, and ride off into the proverbial sunset. I kept using the Josh character, but I made an effort to use him more seriously, and eventually everyone came around to accepting Josh as Junky Funky’s sidekick.

By the start of 6th grade, Matt had transferred schools, and Josh, David, and myself took it upon our selves to bring the Junky Funky story around to an end. But of course it had to be an all out climatic end, pulling out all the stops. We decided that the one page rule was to be ended. The only goal was to build up as much action as humanely possible before handing the story off to the next person. (I think this was mainly Josh and I at this point. For some reason I don’t remember David writing too much of these end parts, but I could be wrong.)

For the climatic final, we also agreed to bring back all the characters that Junky Funky had thus far interacted with, which meant especially Josh. In theory that also met David and Matt come back to make another appearance, although I don’t remember if that was the plan or the reality. I only remember writing about Junky Funky and Josh near the end.

At one point, either Junky Funky or Josh (I think it was Junky Funky) gets his arm cut off in a fight, and it is later replaced by a super strong robotic arm. I don’t remember which arm was lost, but I remember writing scenes in which Junky Funky uses his arm to cut down trees, or punches all the way through the chest of a bad guy. (I think both of those scenes were part of a 6-page long blow-by-blow fight scene between Junky Funky and Josh against a bunch of bad guys. I wrote it up, then it got lost and I wasn’t sure what happened to it. I accused the real Josh of loosing it after I handed it off to him, but later I found it in my folder. By that point, however, we had already written ahead with the story, so I guess it never got to technically be cannon status.)

Eventually we brought it to some sort of conclusion, although I don’t remember what that was. At that point we decided our story was epic enough that we wanted to give it a proper write up, so we gave it to a classmate who had a type writer and knew how to use it (this was in the days before word processors were common) and paid her something like $5 to type the whole thing up. I don’t remember ever seeing the finished product after that. Last I heard it was residing in the house of Matt, where it is either still there today, or one day went out with the garbage.

Josh's recollections:
I e-mailed Josh, the only one I'm still semi in touch with, about his memories. He's not near as verbose as me, but he did send me a couple paragraphs:

Junky Funky. I haven't thought of that in a long time. didn't matt end up with the transcript we paid jenny to type up? Wasn't that the story that ended up with terrorists in ada christian, time travel and the continent of animal comming into play somehow?

I feel like you might have killed your own character off in a bathroom collapse. Other than that, my memory is very shaky.

Influence on Other Works
Because I had a lot of fun writing this with my friends, “The Story of Giddo” was an attempt to replicate this within my family. It didn’t work out so well, mostly because my siblings were too young to write whole pages on their own, and we had to trade off sentence by sentence

Spaceship Wars

2006-04-25T05:39:00.000-04:00

Truth be told I’m not entirely sure that I remember the title of this accurately, but it was some generic Space opera title.

I wrote this around 3rd grade/ 4th grade. All of it in a single night as well as I can remember. It was inspired by repeated re-watching of “Star Wars” but I was also in the period of my life when I had to incorporate Wolves into everything I wrote.

The story starts out with an Alien named Jot, who is a citizen of one of those standard intergalactic evil empires, but escapes to start a new life on Earth.

Jot lives out in the countryside in peace. His alien race has a special way with animals, and Jot is able to communicate with a wolf, who becomes his pet and is given the name of Jotted. (I remember my mom used to complain about the similarity in names when I gave this to her to read, but it seemed natural to me that the Alien should give his pet wolf some variation of his own name. I don’t know why).

Two boys, Mike and Tom (or some generic names like that) run away from the orphanage one day and are also taken in by Jot.

The four of them are living quite happily until the evil galactic empire returns. At which point Jot is captured and taken as a prisoner back to the space ship.

Mike, and Tom find one of Jot’s spare spaceships and decide to go on a rescue mission. They take the wolf Jotted with them as well. Also somehow a girl named Judy gets mixed up in all this as well. (I’m really sketchy on all the details).

The main action of this story was inspired by Star Wars, in that almost all the action took place inside the big space ship with everyone running around the ship having laser gun battles. The heroes were captured several times, and escaped several times. I don’t remember any of the details, except that at one point Jot escapes by grabbing the arm of his guard and throwing him over his back (a move I saw a lot in action movies in those days, but I’m not entirely sure if it makes sense).
In another instance, the boys are climbing up a rope ladder to escape into a shuttlecraft, when laser fire cuts the ladder in two and they fall back onto the ship.

And that’s all I remember. I assume everyone managed to escape in the end and the good guys were victorious, all that stuff.

My most vivid memory associated with this work is when my 4th grade teacher allowed us to bring in stories we wrote and read them to the class. I brought this one in, but while I was up in front of everyone I discovered I could barely read my own handwriting (something that happened to me a lot in the days before my parents bought a word processor). I could make it out if I looked at it hard enough, but it was painful for everyone involved in listening. Eventually the teacher cut me off and told me I could finish reading it another time, but she never mentioned it again, and neither did I.

Influences on Later Works
When I was creating a Wolf Character for my Fabulae story, I gave him the name Jot in memory of the wolf in this story (even though in this story it was the Alien who was named Jot, and the wolf was Jotted).

Battle of the Frogs

2006-04-20T05:42:00.000-04:00

This is another example of a title that I’m not really sure about. It was something cheesy like that though.

Our final project for 8th grade English was to write a novel. I had known this was coming ever since 7th grade, and given my love for writing, this was something I looked forward to for a long time. However very few of my school assignments ever turned out to be very good.

The best kind of story idea is the kind that comes to you out of the blue one afternoon on the walk home from school, and then is promptly written up that night or the day following. The worst ones are the ones thought up under pressure. “I’ve got to think of something for a story in English class…Okay, what about this….”.

Perhaps because it was the spring, and the frogs were coming out of their winter hiding places, I had the image in my mind of a battle between the frogs and the snakes. Gradually a story began to take shape. There was a pond in the woods where the forest creatures lived. The snakes always tried to catch a frog and eat it if they could, but both sides accepted this as the pattern of nature. Then, the snakes started acting strangely. Instead of simply eating the occasional frog, they started engaging in a coordinated extermination effort. The frogs had to band together and defend themselves.

I was, however, at the stage in my life when I regarded it as a moral principle that every story of mine had to include wolves somehow. The frogs initially wait to ask the wolves for help because they are too proud. Eventually they give into their pride and ask the wolves for assistance, and the wolves kill all the snakes. The moral: sometimes it’s okay to ask for help.

I should mention that my 8th grade teacher had us all make an outline of our stories before we began which included a title, plot outline, character descriptions, and a thread. Although I understand now that he was just trying to give us tools to experiment with, I wish he would have made clearer that this is just an example and that not all stories have to be plotted out this strictly.

I was not in the habit of having themes in my stories, and I even asked in class if all stories needed to have themes. “All superior stories do”, he answered. So I tried to shoehorn a kind of moral into the story about the frogs asking for help.

Also, despite my teacher’s attempts at explanation, I really had no idea what the hell a thread was. I eventually wrote in my outline that the thread was after every killing, the snail Jake shows up to mutter some mysterious words of advice to the frogs.

My best friend Josh, who saw my outline, was absolutely appalled. “Not everything has to include wolves, you know,” he said. “You had a really cool idea going until you changed the whole plot to include wolves. And that moral really sucks.”

I knew he was right, but probably would have gone ahead with it anyway if I hadn’t gotten another idea.

In art class we were making our final clay projects. Usually these were carefully supervised constructed projects, but the final year we were allowed to either make a clay pot, or some sort of structure. Because art was one of those subjects were I could never do anything right, I decided to keep it simple and just make a pot. However I soon got bored with it, and added fingers at the bottom. The art teacher wasn’t terribly happy about this turn of events, but I thought it was fun to imagine a hand was emerging from the bottom of the pot. Why a hand was coming out of the pot I couldn’t say. It just seemed cool.

As I continued to work on the pot, I began to imagine its back story, and think of a way to incorporate it somehow into my frog story.

The hero of our story, young Jumpy, is hopping around the banks of the pond when he sees a discarded pot lying on the ground. Suddenly a hand begins to emerge from the pot. And then gradually a whole body, vaguely human in shape, but covered with snake like hairs. It’s none other than the dreaded snake devil, and under his leadership the snakes begin their diabolical plan to kill all the frogs in the pond.

If you’ve spent your whole life in Christian schools, as I had, you get to the point where you begin to see religious parallels in everything. Now that I had a snake devil character, it seemed that the story practically rewrote itself as a parallel story. The snakes were demons, the snake devil was Satan, the frogs were humans, the wolves were angels, and the Alpha Wolf was God/Jesus.

The frogs (humans) are of course incapable of defeating the snakes (demons) on their own. But if they can only bring themselves to ask for help from the wolves (angels) the wolves will come in and save them.

The alpha male off course takes on the snake demon in a dramatic fight. The alpha male kills the snake devil, but appears to die himself as a result of wounds from the fight. And of course is later resurrected. You know how these kind of stories work as well as I do.

A classic example of how things go wrong when you’ve got a good story, and you are looking for some way to force a theme into it (I think my English teacher was full of crap). But I was pretty proud of how clever I was at the time.

And now that I had my outline finally completed, I was ready to start on the actual story itself.

Of which I only got a couple pages written before the end of school. The English teacher ended up just grading us on our outlines, and didn’t actually demand a finished novel.

Since I was in love with my own cleverness at the time, I planned to finish this on my own time, but my enthusiasm quickly faded out.

Influence on Later Works
This actually marked a thrice-fold transition in my writing.
1). The rebuke of my friend must have made an impression. Maybe an unconscious one, because I don’t remember making an outward decision, but this was the last of my wolf stories. I did use Jot as a minor character in my Fabulae story, but he died pretty early on.

2). For a while afterwards I thought it was cool to write stories centering around frogs. I had a lot of ideas about frog stories, none of which ever got beyond the outline phase (see “Invasion of the Frogs”)

3). For about a year after this time I accepted my 8th grade teachers outline formula as gospel. “Invasion of the Frogs” and “Dishon” were both designed according to this formula. After I got bored with the outline in my Dishon story, and decided I had more fun writing when I didn’t know what was coming next, I ditched the structured outline. However I continued to be nagged by the feeling that all superior writing must have a theme or a moral. This is one of the reasons why parts of Fabulae became so preachy. Subtlety is not one of the strengths of a 15 year old.

Jungle Farm/ Battle of the Animals

2006-04-15T05:49:00.000-04:00

These are two different ideas that got merged into one. Both are the kind of ideas that only make sense to the mind of a child, and in order to understand them you have to try and enter that mindset.

The first idea was that a farmer moves his farm into the jungle. Initially he did it just for the challenge, but in later versions he was fleeing a troubled past back home, and the jungle was the only place he could start a new life.

Again, this needs to be understood through the lense of a child, where both the idea of a farm and that of a jungle represent clearly defined images from cartoons and picture books. A farm has a barn, a guy in a farmer’s hat, cows, horses, chickens, sheep, and all the usual barnyard animals, no more no less. The jungle is a wild place where tigers and alligators are lurking behind every corner. Can the farmer and his farm animals defend themselves against all the wild beasts? Lots of adventures are sure to follow.

The second idea was also based on the childhood image of a farm. In this case the animals revolt against the farmer and fight for their freedom. In the first version the farmer was an evil tyrant. In later versions the farmer is not a bad guy, and the story would be sympathetic to both the farmer and the animals. I was at the age where I thought it would be cool to write a war epic with no good guys or bad guys. Around this time I had started several such stories, but very few of them ever got beyond the idea phase.

Eventually these two ideas got combined. The farmer goes out to the jungle, and against all odds he makes his farm prosper. The first animals to try and drive him out are an alligator and a tiger, who attack him together. It is a long bloody battle, but eventually the farmer is victorious. He then nurses the wounded Alligator and Tiger back to health, and comes to earn their respect, after which the Alligator and the Tiger join the animals on the farm.

After the reader has admired the farmer through all this struggle, when the battle between the animals and the farmer finally breaks out, the reader does not know who to support. Do you support the animals in their battle for freedom, or the farmer who has sacrificed so much to get the farm started?

The first versions of this story appeared during 3rd grade. I had come up with the idea for my own writing, but tried to incorporate it into a writing assignment at one point. (My 3rd grade teacher was less than enthused).

The story was in the back of my mind for a long time after that, on and off the back burner. I would sometimes start writing a version of it, then get discouraged and go onto something else.

When my parents bought their first computer and word processor, this was the first story I started writing on it (circa 6th or 7th grade). As is often the case, my imagination was running way ahead of my writing ability. As I struggled to write the first few chapters, I had already envisioned a whole series. After the epic battle, the farmer and the animals work out a power sharing agreement, and go on to have many more adventures in the jungle.

It was around this time that my fascination with comic books was beginning, so I envisioned this as my own comic book (without the pictures). Every animal on the farm would be named and indexed on another sheet of paper, and they would all have their own separate adventures as well as over arching plot lines that would incorporate all of the farm. I could sell issues to members of my family (I didn’t envision much more of an audience) and even invite them to write in their own animal characters and adventures if they wanted.

I began writing the first story, which concerned the back-story of the farmer. It turns out he is a prince and heir to the thrown, but his brother wants the kingdom instead and tries to kill him. They have a fight in which the farmer wins, but not caring for riches or power, gives up the throne to his brother anyway. He then leaves together with his best friend to pursue their joint dream of starting a farm in the jungle.

(In all previous drafts, the farmer had simply been known as Farmer Jones, which I had stuck somewhere in my mind as the standard name for all farmers. I must have gotten it from a children’s book or a fischer price toy somewhere along the line. When I started creating a list of all the characters around 6th grade, I decided it would be cool to use only names from the Bible, so I changed the farmer’s name to Timothy. I don’t remember any of the other character’s names).

After writing the first chapter, I started to print off several copies on the printer to sell to the rest of the family. My mother stopped me because it was a waste of ink. She volunteered to use the copy machine at work, and I gave it to her on the promise that she wouldn’t read it first. She returned it to me the next day and said, “I noticed there are a lot of typos in here. Why don’t you fix those before we start making copies?”

You can never trust parents. Woe to any child who doesn’t learn this quickly on. We had a debate about whether she had broken her promise, and she justified herself by saying she shouldn’t have had to make that promise in the first place, and as my mother she had a right to read everything I wrote without having to pay for it.

I never did get the copies made, and the quarrel left a bad taste in my mouth. I lost enthusiasm for this project shortly after that. (Although given my track record, that probably would have happened regardless).

Influence on Other Works
The idea of taking names straight from the Bible, which I had initially used here just because I had to think of a lot of names for all the animals, was one I continued in several other stories, incorporating both Biblical and classical names as the main source for my stories.

The idea of a comic-book type serial was one I used again in Fabulae.

The Bad Monkey

2006-04-10T05:51:00.000-04:00

This was a play script that my best friend TJ and I came up with around 1st or 2nd grade. We performed it in front of my mother.

Basically there is a monkey who insults these two dogs all the time. The dogs plan to get revenge on the monkey. They get the shark to help them. Then they lure the monkey into the water (I think they do something like get the monkey to chase them, run up to the edge of the water, and then step aside at the last minute as the Monkey runs past them.) At which point the shark eats the monkey.

In retrospect, this seems a little harsh for a monkey who was only guilty of insults. I’m not exactly sure why my youngest stories tend to be my most violent. But then again, if you look at the fairy tales and bible stories I grew up on, it’s probably no wonder.

There was a sequel as well that I wrote over the following summer. The two dogs meet a monkey who looks sad. They ask him what is wrong. He tells them his brother was just killed by two dogs. The dogs either confess, or the monkey figures it out, and there is a fight. The monkey swears revenge, and there is another plan devised to kill the second monkey. (It was slightly more elaborate, but I think the end might have also involved being eaten by a shark).