As Paul Harvey would say “And now, the rest of the story!” I had always thought I was a typical teenage kid, nothing special, but now I had problems. Serious problems. Mine started yesterday on the way to school. It will be a day I shall never forget, for it was the day that I ran into (literally) Mighty Max. Angela Whitmer (AKA Mighty Max) is a senior. She stands 5’8” and is 125 lbs of pure attitude. I can confirm for the record that no self-respecting freshman would EVER want to get in her way on purpose. Mighty Max controlled everything on the school bus. She decided who sat with whom and what we could or couldn’t do. She terrorized the bus and yesterday I, of all people, bumped into her. Why, oh why, did I have to do that? She asked me to follow her to the back of the bus. Actually, it was more liked she drugged me to the back of the bus. After a short, one sided conversation I decided to be nice. Real nice. I generously gave her my lunch money. After all, she needed it more than I did (I know this to be fact because she very emphatically explained it to me during our heart-to-heart meeting). Alas, that was only the beginning of a bad bad day. When I and the other 10 neighborhood kids got off bus at the bus stop, I decided to check our metal, barn shaped mailbox for mail that was beside a grey plastic one with really big letters on it that read “Renee Garber”. Just as I pulled open the door, out flew the Tori’s (our neighbor) cat! Its hair was standing on end and it didn’t appear to appreciate being stuck inside the hot container. I was so startled that I danced in place! Talk about embarrassing. EVERYONE saw me and EVERYONE pointed and laughed, especially my best friend Barbara Arnold. She just couldn’t stop laughing. I turned to go into my house, and much to my delight I saw my mom (Wendy Beer) through the window cooking. Boy, oh, boy was I hungry. I hated missing lunch. I ran into the house and stopped almost as fast as I had started to run. The smell of cooking liver was more than I could stand. Later in the evening, I decided to go play outside. I always enjoyed playing in the woods behind my house. I started off by following a path that I had made but after a short time decided I wanted to do some exploring, so off the trail I went. Every so often I would stop and climb a tree (or in some cases, try to climb a tree). After climbing one particularly big tree, I saw what the beginning of many strange sights. Up ahead, not more than 20 feet stood Big Foot! What an amazing creature! He stood 7 feet tall and was hairier than my dad’s back! He introduced himself as Ethan and said he was lost. I assured him I would try to help in any way possible. We started walking to see if we could find something that was familiar to him so he could find his way back home. We walked for 2 hours and couldn’t find anything that he recognized. At one point, we crossed a stream. Just as we got to the other side a platypus named Sam jumped up on the bank. After greeting us, and scaring the tarnation out of us, he asked what we were doing. I quickly explained how Ethan was lost and I was trying to help him. Sam smiled and yelled for his daughter Crystal. He asked her what we should do and she suggested that we climb the nearest tree. According to her, this should give us a much better vantage point. Up we went. Higher and higher. At the tip top, Ethan screamed “I know that area half a mile to my right”! In his excitement he pulled the highest leaf off the tree. Down the tree we came, but only a quarter of the way. A fairy dwarf couple was sitting on a limb prohibiting us from passing. I asked their names to which they responded Ben and Jen. They further explained how they were trapped between this and another dimension by evil space aliens that were high on rocket fuel they stole from NASA. The aliens were extremely mad and had intended to capture the whole planet due to NASA dissecting a friend of theirs, but they only had the capability to capture the two fairies. As Ben finished his explanation Jen let out a scream “Oh, Ben” and started laughing….out loud. She told us that Ben had been pulling our leg and that they had climbed the tree just to find a place they could rest for a moment. We all chuckled at the story Ben had made up. He is pretty funny. The fairies moved over and down Ethan and I continued. When we reached the ground we said our goodbyes and off he went in the direction of familiar territory. As I headed toward home, I realized I myself had become lost and now it was getting dark. I walked for hours and hours. I finally sat down and rested for a bit while munching on a candy bar that had been in my pocket. Once rested, I walked again for a very long time. I realized I had been doing big circles when I came upon my candy bar wrapper that had fallen out of my pocket. I sat down again. I was tired, I was frustrated, and I was nearly in tears. A frog jumped up on the log I was on. He introduced himself as Dan. He said he had a plan. If I would lie down and try to rest, it would be much easier to see in the morning and I wouldn’t keep going in circles. So, that is what I did. Morning came and off I went. I hadn’t gone more than a few steps when I heard a noise behind me. I looked back and froze in fear. A rampaging lion was charging at me and I didn’t have a place to hide. I turn to run, but tripped over a rotting tree stump that closely resembled a catchers mitt. It reminded me of when Tom, Maureen, and I would throw a baseball around….but why am I thinking about that right now??? I jumped up just as the roaring lion backed me up into a tree. Sweat broke out on my forehead. The lion screamed “Me hungry, you breakfast!” I tried to argue saying that I would make a terrible meal, but my argument was no match for the lion’s empty stomach. I went with a different tactic. If I could distract him, maybe he wouldn’t think about his hunger and would forget to eat me. “What is your name, Mr. Lion?”, I said coolly. “Todd” was the single word reply as he moved within feet of me. I could now smell his awful breathe. My glasses became steamed every time he exhaled. This was it. I am but a dead man. The lion opened his huge jaws to take his first bite of breakfast when everything started to blur. I chuckled to myself “I didn’t think the end would be like this”. The blurrier things got the darker they appeared. It was at this point I started hearing a groan. The blurrier and darker things became the louder the groan became. It was almost deafening now. I could see nothing. My eyes popped open. I was laying on the ground. The morning sun was shining down on my face. Was I in heaven? Where was the lion? What’s going on? As I tried to sit up, I hurt EVERYWHERE. I noticed a big tree limb to my right. It became clear. I had fallen from the tree and hit my head. All the talking animals and fairies had been in my head. Whew, what a relief. I finished getting up and decided I had better get home to my parents who were probably super worried by now. I whistled as I walked. I came out onto the road not far from my house. Words cannot express the relief I felt when I saw the street lamp beside Russ Street. Nor can words express the joy I felt when I saw our house that is surrounded by a wood fence. I smiled as I whizzed a rock right at the…… About this time our neighbor to the left side of our house came outside. Margie screamed at me “Hey, right at the what?” “RICHARD, Dont leave me hangin.” “WHAT are you doing?” “R I C H A R D, you threw the rock at the what?????”
Posted on: Thu, 16 Oct 2014 12:55:51 +0000
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