Dear Ellie,
It’s only fitting that you call Poppy your girlfriend as you
guys hang out so much (he watches you sometimes when I have to go to work). Poppy doesn’t always follow
conventional parenting methods though… for instance, last week when we were on
our way out the door to get you to preschool, you looked at me with a sly grin,
your fist in a ball, and a twinkle in your eye and said, “You want some of
this?!” I was so shocked, I
responded, “huh?” as you hit my leg (gently I may add). I asked where in the world you learned
that and of course you replied, “My Poppy taught me!” Even after a car ride long conversation of when and where we
can do things like that, I thought for sure I would be getting a call from your
teacher that day but low and behold, you learn fast. A few days later when Poppy asked you jokingly if you “wanted
a piece of this” in Panera, you answered, “You can’t do that here.” I’m so glad that you have some wisdom
of appropriate behavior and I’m so glad that you and your Poppy can share so
many special and funny moments together!
And now here is our final story (with many chapters to
write!) for you.
So as for our weekly guidelines: I write a piece one week in
regular font, and then your Mimi will write a piece in italics the next
week. The only things your Mimi
and I agreed on were the characters- Ellie and a magic teapot and the setting
(an aquarium). Anything else is
fair game and will make our adventure a new tale. We also need to figure out an illustration to go with our
part. Our goal Ellie is to have a
beloved bedtime story for you and future generations. And so we will continue our fourth piece of fiction.
Ellie and the Magic
Teapot: Off to the Aquarium- Part 6
Ellie and Lion swam
upwards toward the bow of the ship.
Collywobbles had told them that before dawn someone had stripped the cardboard
pirate prop of its clothing and accessories. And whoever it was, was obviously still at the Helm because
they were singing the wrong words and very much off key to some famous pirate
song. Not wanting to make whoever
it was scared and swim off, Ellie and Lion hugged the starboard side of the
ship as they inched their way forward. As the tune got louder and the lyrics more piercing,
the duo knew they were almost at the toes of the thief.
“Yo Ho.... ho, ho, ho,
A pirate I shall be.
Scary, not hairy
And mean so be wary
A pirate I shall be…
Shall be, shall be.”
Ellie whispered into
her breathing apparatus for Lion to circle around to the Port side and wait for
her signal (five floating bubbles) before moving in to grab the perpetrators
fins, gills or whatever it had that was grabbable!
As soon as Ellie released
the signal, Lion swam in, “I got him Ellie, I got him by the, the, the… wooden
stick???”
“Huh? Can you repeat that?” Ellie asked.
“Ahhhhhh, I
guess. I got him by his wooden
stick!” Lion answered in a perplexed tone.
“I thought that is
what you said. What kind of a fish has a wooden stick
for a body part? Hold on, I will
be right there,” and Ellie glided over to Lion’s side. Carefully she gazed over the guilty
fish from, sure enough, his wooden stick to the tippy-top point of his skull
and bones black hat. “Who are you
and what are you doing wearing all this pirate garb?” she asked suspiciously.
“Do you like it?” he
chirped. “I scavenged it from the
pirate prop. Scavenged it, I did I
did! I had a hard time getting the
black and white striped shirt over my head with my short pectoral fins you see,
but I did it, yes I did! I inched and squeezed and then inched into it some
more till this ole pirate’s shirt covered my gills. Covered my gills I say. And do you like the charcoal black eye patch I am sporting
over my right eye? Pretty cool,
huh? Cool, cool, cool! Goes with my skull and bones pirate
hat! Makes me look pretty dapper. Yep, dapper, dapper, dapper!” he
bragged.
Lion, who was still
holding on to the wooden stick, looked up at the fish and interrupted him,
“Excuse me sir, may I ask you what this is?”
“Why yes you may. If I am going to look like the real
deal, a pirate I mean, then I had to take the stick and attach it to my pelvic
fin to make it look like a wooden leg… wooden leg. So what do you think of my costume? Do I look like a scary pirate? Do I? Do I? Do I?” he
repeated.
Lion hesitated, “Well,
kind of, I guess.” But his real thought
(the one he wouldn’t share because it probably would be hurtful,) was that this
silly fish looked just that.
Silly.
“Whoa,” commented
Ellie as she shot the fish an accusatory glance. “First of all, you still haven’t told us who you are.”
“Oh. My apologies. Why I am Pete the Parrotfish. But all my friends call me Re-Pete. Pete or Re-Pete, Re-Pete or Pete… I
know it shouldn’t bother me, but sometimes it does. Why sometimes I find it hurtful. Hurtful, hurtful, hurtful I say. But enough of that.
Who are you… and you?”
“Well, I am Ellie and
this here is my friend Lion,” she stated.
“Are you new to the
Aquarium?” Pete asked. “I haven’t seen you around here
before. Nope, can’t say I have. I definitely have not.”
“Nooooooo. We are not new to the Aquarium. Lion and I visit here all the time with
my mom, but we are usually on the outside looking in… not the inside looking
out! It looks like today though
the Aquarium needed some help in solving the crime where…”
Before Ellie could finish
her sentence Pete blurted out, “Huuuuuh?
What crime?”
Ellie decided not to
‘beat around the bush’ or rather the ‘shipwreck’ and got right to the
point. ”The new exhibit’s missing
treasure chest. Did you steal the
pirates treasure Re-Pete… I mean Pete?”
“Oh my, my, my
NO! Why would you think I did?”
Pete squawked.
“Ahhhhhhhhhh…it is
kind of obvious that something ‘fishy’ is going on here. And maybe it’s because you ARE wearing
the pirate’s clothes that you took without asking. Am I correct?” accused Lion.
“Oh no, no, no! I would never. No never, never, never steal! Why I was just borrowing all this
stuff. Borrowing I say. Oh you couldn’t possible
understand. Nope, no understanding
for you,” Pete sighed and then started to cry.
Lion felt like a
brute, “Please don’t cry Pete. I
am sorry. Ellie, help me out!” he
pleaded.
“Pete… I apologize for
my partner and me, but you do understand why we thought it was you who
committed the crime,” she confessed as she eyed his attire from head to stick.
“Yes, yes, yes and I
don’t blame you. But you
must let me explain. You see, when
my friends call me Re-Pete I think they are treating me like a guppy and aren’t
taking me seriously. So I got to
thinking, thinking is what I got to.
When the Treasure Exhibit was placed in the tank with the fake pirate
prop, well… the prop looked really cool and scary to me even though it was
fake. Fake, scary and cool. So I got this cool, yep, cool idea in
my head that maybe if I borrowed the 3-in-1 (fake, scary and cool) pirate prop
that maybe, just maybe my friends would see me differently; maybe as a
grownup,” he reasoned sadly.
Lion looked at Ellie
with his Lion-cub eyes and begged her to do something. She understood immediately and dug into
her pocket to fish around for something that would help Pete out. “Ahhhhh, I think I may have found
something that might just do the trick!”
Pete looked at Lion
blankly. And Lion looked at Ellie
with awe. He knew that once she
started rummaging around in those pockets of hers, something cool was going to
appear. And sure enough she pulled
out a white box, which she placed on the ship’s deck. She then tapped it twice with her left foot and the box
extended outward about two feet while four legs popped out, one on each
corner. Lion smiled because there
standing in front of the three of them was a little craft table with two
drawers. Ellie reached into the
right drawer first and pulled out a bag of white cotton balls, a bottle of glue
and some string. While Pete and
Lion looked on, Ellie formed a triangle while gluing one cotton ball in the
first row, two in the second row, three in the third row and so on and so on
and so on. When she got to the tenth
row Ellie weaved the twine through all ten cotton balls leaving extra string on
each side. She then reached into the left drawer
and pulled out some paint. Very
carefully Ellie painted each cotton ball black. Once she was satisfied with her work Ellie picked up her
masterpiece and brought it over to Pete the Parrotfish.
“OK Pete, this is for
you. A pirate won’t be taken
seriously not unless he has a scary black beard. So turn around and let Lion tie this on you while I go and
wash my hands,” she smiled.
Now it was Pete who
was in awe. “You and Lion would do
that for me? For me you and Lion
would do that?” he asked incredulously.
Honored to wear her talented creation, he turned around. Lion was all too happy to help
tie the beard on to Pete as Ellie stepped back and watched. Just then Lion remembered that he too
could give Pete a surprise.
Fishing into his own pocket, which was hidden inside his bathing trunks,
Lion pulled out something small.
“Pete, turn back
around because I have something for you too,” Lion said proudly. So Pete did. Lion continued, “ I wasn’t sure if you
knew that every REAL pirate has a gold tooth, so I want to give you this.” And he handed over to Pete the small
object he was holding in his hand.
It was a bright yellow square Chicklet. “If you stick this on your tooth, you will look like the
REAL DEAL, a real pirate I mean!
Just so you know though it’s gum, so don’t chew it or it will lose all
of its yellow coloring and turn gummy!” he whispered.
“Thank you Ellie and
Lion for your help and for believing in me too. Is there any way that I could repay you Mateys?” Pete
giggled.
“Wellllllll… actually
there is. Every time we think that
we’ve found the guilty fish that took the treasure chest, we find out they are
innocent. Pete… do you have any
idea who may have taken it?” Ellie questioned.
“As a matter of fact I
do. And a fact is a fact is a
fact. While I was squeezing into
the pirate shirt earlier something whirled and twirled past me. I didn’t actually get to see who or
what it was because some of the sand that got kicked up from it landed in my
eye. I wish I could be of more
help, but that is all I know and I know that is all,” Pete repeated.
“Hmmmmmmmm… that’s
some interesting information, don’t you think Ellie?” Lion tried to reason.
“It sure is Lion. It sure is. Come on and follow me.
I think I know where to go next,” Ellie answered with a knowledgeable
wink.
Until next week Ellie
Bean!
Love,
Mimi
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