I’m delighted to offer up another short story from my youth to mark this week’s Throwback Thursday (#TBT). I remember being particularly proud of this story because it was the first A+ I had ever received on a creative writing assignment. Yep, I was proud as a peacock – so much so that I even wrote a second story featuring the same characters in a new adventure.  I’ll save the second ‘chapter’ for next week’s #TBT. Happy reading!

The Great Goo

Bright Eyes was bathing in her pool.  Ever since she had been a young sea lion she had loved bathing in her pool. KLUNK! KLUNK! CRACK! Tubby had been walking on what used to be a diving board.  Tubby as the fattest tiger in all the land.  Wobbles came stomping out to see what was the matter.  Wobbles was a very sentimental elephant.

“Oh my poor Tubby!” said Wobbles.

“What do you mean, ‘my poor Tubby’? I’m the one he landed on,” complained Bright Eyes.

“Hmph! Bring the first aid kit, Cuddles,” Wobbles said in a panic.

Since Cuddles was a bear, she walked very slowly, but whenever Cuddles got mad she moved like an express train.

“Whoa!” Cuddles had slipped on some water.

Patches burst out onto the deck with the first aid kit.  Patches was the only gibbon who wanted to be a doctor.

“Make way!” yelled Patches.

As Patches was running he tripped over his tail. When Patches was a baby, he tripped, banged, and smashed into everything and everyone.  He always had to be bandaged up.  His parents thought that Bandages would be a more suitable nickname for a mummy, so they decided to call him Patches.  All his relatives and friends agreed.

As Cuddles lay in agony, Patches stood up and tied his tail to his ears. He walked cautiously towards Cuddles.  Patches collapsed beside Cuddles.  His tail was still tied to his ears.  Patches opened his kit.  He pulled out a pair of scissors. All Patches really wanted was a lock of Cuddles’ soft, cuddly fur.  Patches had always wanted a piece of her fur.  It was so soft and cuddly.  SNIP!  SNIP! He had it!

Patches stood up and observed the piece of fur.  The fur was pink and sticky.  Cuddles’ fur was gray, not pink.  Patches tried to throw away the pink goo.  He yanked and struggled.  Finally, he pulled it off, but just as Tubby was struggling out of the pool, the wad of goo stuck to the tip of Tubby’s tail.

Tubby ran around the deck chasing his plump tail.  Cuddles stood up, wobbling back and forth.  She noticed her fur was cut off. She started to get red, almost like a beet.

“Who did this!!!!” Cuddles yelled so hard she shook some of the apples off the trees in the orchard.  The commotion stopped.

Tubby stopped running around and instead he said calmly, “Will you take the piece of goo off me, Cuddles?”

Cuddles walked slowly over to Tubby.  She yanked off the goo and stuck it back on her fur.

“That was mine,” said Cuddles briefly.

“Well, what was it?” Bright Eyes asked curiously.

“Gum,” answered Cuddles.

“All that because of gum?! There’s a moral to this… but I’m not sure what it is?” said Patches.

“Don’t play with gum, Patches!” they all scolded.

To this day Patches has never touched gum in his life.

– THE END –

M. xo

Author’s note:  Once again, life seems to imitate art.  A few years before writing this story, one of my brothers and I decided it would be neat if we made headbands out of gum.  My Mom did not think it was so ‘neat’.  She did, however, learn the trick to removing gum from hair – peanut butter.  While she did manage to get most of the gum out of our hair without having to cut too much off, she did clip off some blond locks matted with pink goo to keep as a reminder.  Judging from the preceding story, I think the lesson ‘stuck’.