Christmas Memories

I woke up on Christmas morning, looked out the window and saw a lot of snow in the front yard. There was so much snow that one of the trees in my backyard was bent over in half! The snow was so deep a bunny running on the icy wall slipped and fell in the snow and couldn’t get up. I ran out the door in just my pajamas and picked up the bunny and brought him inside. When I got back in the house my pajama bottoms were soaking wet from all the snow. I gave the bunny a carrot and wrapped him in a warm blanket. When my dad came downstairs he asked “why is there a bunny on the couch?” I told him the whole story, but he said bunnies have fur and made me put him back outside.
My mom came downstairs with my sister Erin and brother Michael and we all opened Christmas presents. My favorite present was a radio-controlled snow mobile. I also got a snow shovel to help my dad clean the sidewalk and driveway.
After opening presents, my dad and I got dressed so we could shovel the front driveway. As we were shoveling, I was having so much fun I flung some snow over my head and “accidently” hit my dad. That gave me the idea to have a snowball fight with my friends.
I asked my mom if I could call Ghoulie and Scilla and see if they could come over and play. My brother Michael joined us and we made a tunnel under the fence that separated the front yard from the back yard and took all the snow that we dug out of the tunnel to make snow forts. Ghoulie and I were a team while Scilla and Michael were the other team. For the next hour we had a snowball fight, hiding in our snow fort and behind cars in the neighborhood. When we were cold and soaking wet, we came in the house, took off all our wet clothes and my mom gave us hot chocolate and we sat in front of the fireplace to warm up. As we sipped our chocolate, Ghoulie, Scilla and I talked about our next adventure…

Back again

Allright! Allright! So I've been gone awhile. I've been busy! Have you read all 3 episodes in my Star-Fighter series, yet? If you have, then you know that things can get pretty wild on, above and below Murphy Street. In the 3rd episode we (that's us star-fighter guys) were nearly sucked up like a bottle of soda by a giant spider! I think it even had a straw! Stuff like that can really take it out of a guy.

I could tell you that getting a glass eye installed is why I've been away so long. Hey, it's not that far from the truth! Actually, it was my personal biographer (otherwise known as my author) who had the eye problem. He's wearing an eye patch these days, like a pirate. Frankly, I think he's gettin' too much into the part. He keeps runnin' around and sayin' "Arggh!" all the time. It's embarrasing! I can't say for sure, but I may be running into some of those pirate guys in a later episode.

The weirdest people live on my street (not including me, Ghoolie and Scilla, of course)--weirder than pirates, even. Like there's a house down at the end of Murphy Street that looks like it was dragged here from ancient Egypt. So who knows what kind of people live there? That would be people with a "p" not mummy with an "m" since, as everybody knows, mummy's can't really come back to life. No way--that's ridiculous. Ha! Ha! . . . Uh . . . Ha?

There's another house that has--I mean, talk about ridiculous--a forest on the roof! Why would anyone want a forest over their head? I mean, at the very least, a forest has to weigh a lot. What's to keep it from cavin' in on the house?

Gotta go now. I hear some racket in the attic. That's where the famous, humongous, MacIntyre web is. See ya' later.

A Day in the Toilet

Did I ever tell you about the day my life nearly went down the toilet—for real? The guy who wrote my story in that book There's Spaceship in My Tree talked about it there. But I know all the juicy stuff.

Ya' see, I was alone in the school restroom when the door opened and I heard somebody laugh. I recognized the laugh right away. It belonged to a guy named Jared who didn't like me and happened to be the middle school version of a matter-disintegrator. The heroic dreamer in me wanted to stand up to the guy. Hey, I wasn't half bad for a seventh-grader! The non-dreamer part of me, though, wasn't that stupid. He was an eighth-grader and had me by six inches and about thirty pounds. That's not including the fact that there were three of them and only one of me! One heartbeat later, I was hiding in the handicap stall, perched on top of the toilet seat.

“My nose is bleedin’!” I heard the big guy yelp. “Jeffries, get me some toilet paper, quick!”

Jared's clone bolted for one of the stalls. Ya' might know it would be the one where I was hidin'. It’s amazing how many things can go through your mind when you’re a split second away from total annihilation. I saw the latch turn but there was no place to go! I figured that I was about to become history. But then it occurred to me that I wasn’t old enough for history—the evening paper, maybe. It’d be kind of a short obituary. I was hoping that my mom wouldn’t give them my sixth-grade picture. The toilet—what a way to go.

At the last second I leaped onto the door coat hook. He punched the door open and it slammed into the stall wall, smushing me flat like a piece of cheese between steel buns. Jeffries ripped off the paper in a flash and was back outside, never noticing me hanging there like a side of beef. I finally gasped a world-class breath into my flattened lungs as the door swung closed.

Thinkin' I had dodged the bullet I staggered back onto the seat, but then superjerk told him to "get some more and put some cold water on it.” With my heart thumpin' like a punching bag, I leaped back on the coat hook and took a deep breath.

“No, you twerp!” Jared ordered, “a paper towel this time. That other stuff falls apart.”

The footsteps changed direction. I heard a towel ripped out of the dispenser and then water runnin' from a faucet.

Finally the big cheese asked his goon squad if he'd gotten all the blood off his face. Why he didn't just look in the mirror, I don't know. Maybe he needed one of 'em to play periscope and look up his nose. Major yech!

“Pretty good,” his witless sidekick said, “I think the bleedin's stopped.”

“Ya think so?” Jared flared. “I don’t need thinking. I don’t want nobody to think somebody got to me. Come on,” he said to his minions. He tossed the crumpled paper towel over his shoulder and walked out. You might know that the now reddish paper wad would arch over the stall door and end up bouncing off my head. When I finally heard the door shut, I let my breath out and slid to the floor like melting candle wax.

I bet none of you guys ever had as close a call as that, did ya'?