Story Time with Jimbo

Story Time with Jimbo1

Prologue2

All the kids of the neighborhood gathered restlessly on the floor of the little nursery situated in the Haytyu’s tree house. Breathlessly they anticipated the special occasion best known as story time, an ancient ritual implemented by the legendary hero Jon. It was after dinner, the table had just been cleared of its deep dish Italian pizza and wiped down with a clean rag. Scented candles shed their light and soothing fragrance over the peaceful scene as Jon rose creakily from the chair that threatened to engulf his body mass and selected a heavy book from the wooden shelf. Heavenly bliss was here; it was time for Jim to read a selection of his latest New York Times Bestseller book to the little toddlers.3

Marie came in and handed out heaping bowls of popcorn to the kids and; as she passed Jon, she whispered, “Oh Jim, you’re just great with these kids!”4

Jim smiled his big dimpled smile and looked proud enough to burst. With a gruff cough that exuded manliness by its perfect execution, he opened the book and hurriedly ruffled through the crisp pages until he found his spot. He removed the red and black strip of ribbon that served as bookmark and with a fresh breath of air, began his story.5

The book which Jim endeavored to read from was called They Love Me Because I’m So Great! Penned in the same homey atmosphere they were now basking in, it had rapidly shot through the ranks of shabby excuses for books to become world famous.6

Well, we could start this story with a “Once upon a time” and end it with an “and they all lived happily ever after”; but that wouldn’t quite fit this story, so I’ll start it with this. “And so we shall join a story already in progress and see where it takes us now.”7

Chapter one8

“Uh-oh, oh crap! Oof! Ahh! Urgh!” 9

“No Denny it’s not the… is it?” came the anxious voice of Alexis Haytyu, a black-furred Raccoon. Little tufts of hair were slicked upward in an obvious attempt to create a Mohawk. His left paw firmly gripped a cordless Guitar Hero guitar which he had stopped pretending to play the minute Denny’s voice had broken the early dawn air. The final sustained note he had been humming faded awkwardly upward.10

“Yes, Alexis I’m afraid the time has come.” 11

“What should I do? Do you want me to run and go get help?” The tension was obvious in Alexis’s voice.12

“It’s too late, it’s on the way already and I don’t hav...ahh, ow!” 13

Ka plop!14

Something brown tumbled down from the tree branch above that Denny was sitting on. In case you find it unusual that Denny is sitting in a tree, let me take the time now to clarify and explain to you that Denny is a monkey. Light brown patches of fur covered his entire body, and longer blonde strands of hair crowned his humorous looking face.15

Alexis looked up from the mushy pile of brown that had just thudded to the ground to the monkey sitting in the tree above, enthusiastically wagging his tail, and then lowered his eyes back down to the darkened blob.16

With a sudden explosion of dirt and dust, Denny’s feet impacted the forest floor right beside his horrid creation.17

“Look Alexis, see what I made!”18

Alexis slightly raised his eyebrow at the brown monkey emphatically pointing to the ground. 19

“Uh, Denny? What exactly do you think that is?”20

Without hesitation, Denny shot back in a voice filled with excitement. “Chocolate Alexis, chocolate! I made it myself! How did I do that?”21

“No Denny don’t eat that, it’s not chocolate!” Alexis hurriedly smacked the mud-like substance Denny was fingering out of his hands so that it flew several hundred feet into the air above the treetops before falling back to the earth with all the speed of a freight train freed from its track.22

A resounding “Kerplop!” sounded somewhere in the distance followed by several words that shouldn’t be chronicled in a kid-friendly book like this is intended to be.23

All traces of a smile vanished from Denny’s face. “It’s not?”24

The words spoke of massive waves of disappointment. Alexis reached out a reassuring arm to comfort Denny. “Sorry kiddo, but that would’ve tasted nothing like chocolate”25

“Oh, well then, thank you. So, where’re we off to now?”26

“To our tree house, it’s almost dinner time”27

And with that, Alexis and Denny walked arm in arm out of the woods and into the clearing that led to the copse of trees that composed their family’s home.28