Just a quick and silly little story that's been in my head for a couple of months, waiting to be written down ^.^ Riolu, I seriously tried to put you in this one, to thank you for writing about me, but just couldn't make the change of characters work! Next time, you'll be in it!
The House of Sticks
It was a warm, sunny afternoon, and Zee-Zee the squirrel was in MJ Bear’s back yard, showing the little blue bear cub the best way to dig for buried treasure in the sandbox. “See, you do it like this!” he chirped, scrabbling with his paws and quickly digging a deep hole. “But you gotta make sure your tail doesn’t get in the way, and you gotta practice lots before you get as good as me...”
MJ wagged his little tail experimentally. “I don’t think my tail’s gonna get in the way,” he said, thoughtfully. He looked across the yard to see what the other cubs visiting him that day were doing. Lig and Yosh had picked up twigs that had fallen from the tree, and Lig was encouraging Yosh to pretend to sword-fight an invisible enemy. Probably the potty again, MJ thought with a giggle. “I’m gonna go play with sticks like them!” he announced, climbing out of the sandbox.
“Me too!” Zee-Zee agreed. He hopped to his feet and followed after MJ, but his foot fell down the little hole he’d just dug, he started to topple backwards and had to reach out and support himself by leaning against the side of MJ’s house. He stood up again with a giggle, but a look of concentration on his face. MJ’s house didn’t make the same noise as Zee-Zee’s house when you bumped into it. He tapped the wall again, just to make sure.
“Are you coming?” MJ asked, seeing what he thought of as Zee-Zee’s ‘clever’ expression, and wondering what he was thinking of this time. I hope it’s a new kind of fun game, the bear cub thought to himself.
“Uh-huh, I’m coming,” Zee-Zee giggled, and followed MJ across the yard, still looking distracted. Something was nagging at his mind, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Oh well, he thought, he’d work it out later. Meanwhile, they were gonna play with sticks... Wait. Sticks? Sticks! He looked back at the house to make sure he was right, but there was no doubt about it. “Oh no!” he squeaked, stopping dead and putting his paw to his mouth in a horrified expression.
MJ turned back and hurried over to his friend. He’d seen that expression before when they were playing and just after Zee-Zee had started to look thoughtful. “Did you wet your pull-up?” he asked, sympathetically. “I’ll get Mommy.”
“No!” said Zee-Zee with a firm shake of his head. “Not that! I just noticed! Your house is made out of sticks!”
MJ looked back at his house and tilted his head to the side, wondering what Zee-Zee was talking about. “Uh-uh, no it’s not,” he said. “It’s made of wood. White wood!” He walked over to the white-painted wall and patted it.
“Sticks and wood are the same thing!” Zee-Zee said. “They both come from trees! My Mommy showed me a book all about it! They cut down trees and make planks!”
MJ nodded. That was news to him, but Zee-Zee knew a lot of things like that, and he was usually right. But why was he getting so panicky, even if the house was made of sticks?
Zee-Zee explained as patiently as he could, swishing his tail and pacing to and fro. “You gotta make houses out of bricks, not sticks!” he announced. “If you make them out of sticks, the big bad wolf can blow them down! Like in the story! And then he’ll eat you up!”
MJ thought about it. He knew that story, about those poor little piggies who built the wrong kinds of house, and he knew Zee-Zee was right that bricks were the way to go. But surely he couldn’t be right to say that MJ’s house was vulnerable to big bad wolves? Everybody knew that story, after all, and his parents wouldn’t have built a house (he assumed that grown-ups all built the houses they lived in) out of sticks, would they? “We gotta ask Mommy,” he said, trying not to get too worried about this. “I think you musta got it wrong about wood...”
The two cubs ran into the living room to find MJ’s mommy. “Mrs MJ’s Mommy!” Zee-Zee gasped, bursting into the room first and realising that he couldn’t remember what MJ’s mommy had asked him to call her. “Mrs MJ’s Mommy Bear! It’s terrible! I was in the yard and I remembered about the house and what if the big bad wolf comes and...”
“Mommy, Mommy, sticks isn’t wood, is it?” MJ asked at the same time, tugging on his mother’s skirt.
The grown-up bear looked at the two agitated cubs and bent down to pat Zee-Zee’s head. “Calm down, boys,” she said. “What’s wrong? Did you have a little accident, Zee-Zee?”
“No!” Zee-Zee snapped, with a little pout. Why did everybody keep assuming that? “I’m a big squirrel!”
“Mommy,” said MJ, looking up at his mother and trying to get the conversation back on track, “Zee-Zee says our house is made of trees and not bricks! Is it?”
“That’s right, sweetie,” MJ’s mommy said with a smile. “Some houses, like Zee-Zee’s, are made of bricks, but some, like ours, are made of wood. And wood comes from trees. You’re a clever little squirrel to know that.”
Zee-Zee didn’t even hang around to hear how clever he is. “We gotta tell Lig and Yosh!” he squealed, running back out of the room at full speed, with MJ following after him, leaving the bemused adult behind them to smile and shake her head at whatever game the cubs were playing.
Back out in the yard, Lig had grown tired of trying to explain the rather complicated make-believe game in his head to Yosh. It seemed quite simple to the little liger – the evil Potty Overlord was trying to take away everyone’s diapers and the heroes had to pretend to be travelling on a quest to find him and put an end to his plans, fighting potty-training-monsters along the way. But Yosh wouldn’t wait to hear the whole story and kept grabbing his stick sword and running away to swish it at flowers, trees and bushes, saying “I’m fighting the Potty Over-thing and winning!” And every adventurer liger knew that you had to go on a quest before you got to fight the Overlord. He looked around to see where the others had gone, and was surprised to find the yard empty.
“Where’s Zee-Zee and MJ?” he asked. “I thought they were gonna play with us?”
“I heard Zee-Zee say ‘oh no!’” said Yosh with a smile.
“Oh, potty accident,” Lig giggled with a shake of his head. Zee-Zee was a very clever squirrel, but Lig would never understand why he always had to go running into the house in the middle of a game, holding the front of his shorts and looking uncomfortable, when he could just let a diaper take care of everything. And even when the ‘big squirrel’ did wet himself, he wouldn’t wait till a grown-up came to change him, he had to go and get a new pull-up straight away. It was a very strange way to behave, Lig thought. But just as he was thinking it, he saw the squirrel and bear hurrying back over to them, and both of them looked unusually agitated.
“Lig! Yosh!” Zee-Zee squeaked. “MJ lives in a house of sticks! We gotta do something!”
Lig frowned with confusion, but Yosh leapt up in the air and gasped “Kazootles! What if the big bad wolf comes?”
“Exactly!” yelled Zee-Zee. “He needs bricks! Not sticks! And quick!”
“Heehee, that rhymes!” Lig giggled. Then he realised what the others were talking about. “Ohh, like the three little pigs? That’s bad! But what can we do?”
Everyone turned expectantly to Zee-Zee, waiting for a plan. “Um...” he said, thinking hard. “Ooh, I know! MJ! Get your legos and bring them out here! We’ll build a brick house around your stick house, so the wolf won’t be able to blow it! And we’ll split up and look for bricks in case there’s any in the yard! Quick! Let’s go!”
The four cubs split up, running in different directions on their missions, and regrouped by the sandbox five minutes later. MJ sat down with a tired gasp, having dragged his big plastic box full of duplo bricks all the way outside. “I got duplo!” he panted. “And Lincoln logs too! They’re bricks, right?”
Zee-Zee shook his head. “Uh-uh, logs are sticks, too. We can’t use those.” He turned to Lig and Yosh. “Did you find any bricks? I tried to make some outta sand and dirt, but it didn’t work. I don’t quite remember what bricks are made out of...”
“I found a big giant rock!” Lig grinned, happily, pointing to a large stone at his feet. “That’s kind of a brick, right?”
Zee-Zee thought hard about it. He wished his mommy had read him a book about bricks too, because he was having to be an authority on them without actually knowing anything about the subject. He nodded. “Uh-huh, I think rocks are the same as bricks. They’re made outta the same thing. Good work, Lig!”
Yosh shuffled his feet and looked down unhappily. “I didn’t find anything. And I looked real hard! But there was only this pretty feather...” He held up a white feather and looked at Zee-Zee hopefully.
“Well... it’s not really a brick,” Zee-Zee said, trying to sound gentle. “But we can put it on top of the brick house and it’ll look good!” Yosh smiled widely at the thought of that as Zee-Zee continued. “Okay, come on! We gotta make a brick house big enough to fit MJ’s house inside it, and we gotta do it before nap time!”
The four cubs set to work quickly, fitting the duplo bricks together to build a wall. MJ was the first one to notice that the box of bricks was emptying quickly and the wall wasn’t getting very high or wide. “I don’t think we’ve got enough legos... “ he said.
“And it’s kinda wobbly...” Lig said, watching their wall sway in the breeze.
“I know the story says bricks are better than sticks, but it kinda looks like a big bad wolf could blow this wall down...” Yosh agreed.
Zee-Zee frowned. He had to admit that the others were right. Perhaps this was one of those times when his first plan wasn’t going to work, and he needed to think of something new. He stepped away from the brick wall, just as it was blown by a gust of wind and fell down, breaking into pieces. “Um, maybe...” he began, trying to think of a good plan B.
“Maybe you should build your lego house inside, where there’s no wind?” came a suggestion. The four cubs looked up to see MJ’s mommy, carrying a tray of drinks and smiling down at the little ones.
“Good idea!” Zee-Zee chirped, taking his sippy cup and drinking quickly. MJ’s mommy might have built her house from the wrong materials, but at least she had some sense. “Let’s go inside! And quick, before the wolf comes!”
“Oh, is that what you’re hurrying for?” MJ’s mommy smiled, looking at her watch. “He’ll be here in about fifteen minutes, you’ll need to be quick if you want your house to be finished when he arrives!”
The four cubs looked at her with expressions of horror, panic and amazement. They all knew grown-ups often completely failed to understand the really important things in life, but how could anyone, even a grown-up, not realise what a serious matter the big bad wolf was? Without saying a word, they grabbed the box of duplo and ran to MJ’s room as fast as their little legs could carry them!
In the room, they feverishly got to work, sticking the big colourful bricks together in a square shape, directed by Zee-Zee. “We’ll make a little tiny house and all stand in it!” he explained, breathlessly. “Then when the wolf blows down the big house, we’ll still be safe and he’ll go away!”
“What about Mommy? She won’t fit!” worried MJ.
“Nah, the big bad wolf only eats little cubs,” Lig reassured him. “He never tried to eat the mommy piggie, remember?”
A lot of frantic building later, the house of bricks was complete. It was more of a chimney than a house, just big enough for the four cubs to stand up in if they squeezed together, and just a little bit taller than their heads. Lig stretched up to put the last brick on top of the wall, and Yosh carefully balanced his feather on top. The four of them, squished together inside the house, looked at each other. “We did it!” MJ smiled.
Everyone nodded happily, except Zee-Zee, who had an anxious look on his face. “Oh no...” he gasped, quietly.
“Did you wet your...” Lig started to ask.
“NO!” Zee-Zee shouted. He blushed and tried to wriggle his legs in the cramped brick house. “But I gotta go potty,” he whined. “Really bad! And we forgot to build a potty in the house!”
“Actually, it kind of smells like...” Yosh mused, thoughtfully stroking his bill.
“Heh, I kind of already went potty,” Lig admitted with a smile.
“I can’t wait! I’m gonna get out and run to the potty and back before the wolf gets here!” Zee-Zee said, squirming and trying to get his arms free so he could at least grab the front of his shorts to help him hold on. But MJ on one side and Yosh on the other were pinning his arms to his sides. “Someone help me get out of the house!” he squeaked.
“Eep! I can’t move!” Yosh gasped, struggling to squeeze himself loose.
“Hey, we forgotted to build a door, too!” Mj observed. “We’re stuck!”
The four cubs looked at each other, assessed the situation and nodded. “HEEEEEELP!” they all chorused.
“I’ll help you!” came a cheerful voice from outside. There was a creaking noise as the duplo bricks at the bottom of the house separated from the base, and the whole tower-like structure lifted slowly up over the trapped cubs’ heads and fell down to the floor. “Big tuff puppy saves the day!” sang their saviour, delightedly.
“Dee!” they chorused, and ran to hug the little black wolf cub who’d rescued them. “What are you doing here?” they all asked.
“Huh?” Dee yipped, confused, as he greeted his friends with a lick and cuddle. “I thought you knew I was coming! Your mommy just said she told you I was gonna be here soon, and you were all waiting for me!”
“Ohhhhhhh...” Zee-Zee said, realising the misunderstanding. “We thought she meant the big bad wolf!”
“I am a big wolf!” Dee protested. “But I’mma good wolf!”
“Hey, wait a minute,” MJ said, pointing to the ruins of their house of bricks. “How did you knock down that house? I thought wolves couldn’t knock down bricks!”
“That’s right!” Yosh agreed, pointing to the walls of MJ’s bedroom. “You can only blow down walls like that!”
“Naw, you musta got mixed up,” Dee giggled. “I could never knock down those walls. They’re wood! It’s big and strong! But lego bricks are easy! Only I’d never knock down your walls if you didn’t need help, because I’m a good boy!”
The four cubs looked at each other. Lig summed everything up succinctly. “Wolves are nice, sticks are good, bricks are bad. That whole story was wrong!”
Zee-Zee sighed. “I guess it was one of those stories that don’t work in real life. Mommy and Daddy told me some stories are tricky like that. I bet it was grown-ups who wrote it,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Let’s go pick up the legos...” he said, turning to the scattered duplo and bending down to pick up a brick. Suddenly he froze, and gasped “Oh no!”
The other cubs looked at him in surprise. “What’s wrong?” MJ asked.
Zee-Zee blushed, and hid his face behind his tail. “I wet my pull-up,” he confessed.
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Sat May 09, 2009 5:36 pm
