Dear Spaghetti,
So now that you had time to digest the news of us moving back east (or
rather trying to understand what that means), you’ve been quite a funny
challenge. You overheard your Dad
and I talking about how to take Joe, the cat, with us and had a meltdown about
wanting to go with Joe on a plane.
And every time that I get the living room ready for a showing, you beg
to take out toys and proceed to dump them everywhere. I must say that through all of my stress with this big
adjustment, you make me smile Bean (especially in these recent days that you
insist on wearing socks over your footie pj’s!).
And now here is our yearlong bedtime story/stories (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
(a forest with trolls). 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 third piece of fiction.
Ellie and the Magic
Teapot: Into the Secret Forest Part 9
As Ellie and Lion continued on their forest journey skipping
hand-in-hand, they were not nearly as nervous as they were before. After all, these trolls were a bit
strange but they definitely wouldn’t consider them scary (and Ellie could even
see a few of them becoming her friends).
In fact, they were anxious to see the next personality to greet
them.
“Lion, I don’t think we need help from our protector friends
this round,” Ellie said referring to Owl, Toad, and Snake, “I mean, they are so
kind and I love to see their smiling faces but I think we are prepared.”
Lion agreed, waving to them in the air. At that moment, the wind seemed to pick
up and the blue sky turned grey. A
thin, tall ogre popped out from behind a skinny tree that resembled the Eifel
Tower. On his green head, he wore
a blue beret and had a thin mustache above his upper lip. Tied around his neck was a thin,
checkered scarf. Ellie loved his
sense of style and was about to remark on his chic outfit but it was the troll
spoke first, “Arrete!”
Ellie and Lion looked at each other and shrugged as the
Troll rolled his eyes, “Parlez vous francaise?” Ellie and Lion’s confused face gave the Troll his answer. They obviously didn’t speak French.
“Je m’appelle French Troll…. My name is Frenchy Troll and
it’s time to get you both to Trudy,” he added enunciated the last part very
slowly and very loudly.
Ellie smiled and curtsied. She had always wanted to go to France, especially after her
mother told Ellie numerous and very glamorous stories of her time there. Ellie sighed in wishful longing just at
the thought. Lion nudged her,
bringing her back to attention.
“Oh right,” Ellie stammered as she began, “My name is Ellie and this is
my friend Lion. We aren’t ready to
meet Trudy quite yet and we were wondering if we could make you a deal. If you give us a riddle and we solve
it, you will let us go to the next troll… otherwise if we can’t solve it, you
can bring us to Trudy.”
Frenchy smiled a sneaky grin, “You will have one question
only and three minutes to answer it.”
“Deal!” Lion and Ellie answered in unison.
“You shouldn’t have agreed so quickly without going over the
rules!” Frenchy spat in a thick accent, “because the riddle is going to be in
French!” He chuckled to himself as
Lion looked worriedly at Ellie.
Ellie seemed unfazed.
“On me trouve à Paris, mais pas en France!”
Frenchy said deviously. “Your time
begins now!” He said as he started
a stopwatch that was around his wrist.
He then walked back next to the tree and that’s where Ellie and Lion
noticed a small round iron table.
There was a loaf of fresh bread and brie cheese spread in the
middle. Frenchy started to spread
the cheese on a hunk of the bread that he had already sliced. Lion and Ellie realized they must have
interrupted his snack time when they came upon him.
Ellie didn’t want to seem uncultured so she held up her
right hand asking Lion not to speak (she knew he was panicked) while she dug
into her pocket with her left hand. She rifled around for awhile (and Frenchy seemed entertained,
as he took his first bite, at the thought of Ellie’s seemingly small pocket that
was obviously endless!). Ellie
finally pulled out a grey object that looked like a calculator but on the top
it said, “French to English Translator.”
Luckily for Ellie she had a great memory and could recite anything back
so she typed in what she thought she heard Frenchy say.
“You can find me in Paris but not in France,” Ellie mused
allowed to share the riddle with Lion.
Lion was worried, “Are you sure you typed it in right? That doesn’t make any sense! It just isn’t possible.”
Frenchy studied them, wondering if they could solve his
crafted puzzle, as he dabbed his lips with his napkin in between bites, “One
minute left!” he reminded them.
“I’m sure I typed it in right. It sounded like he said Paris so that’s why I typed
P-A-R-I-S and I know he said France so I typed in F-R-A-N-C-E.” It was then that Ellie understood the
riddle.
Just as Frenchy was counting down from 5 seconds, Ellie
shouted out, “I! The letter I!”
Frenchy banged his fist on the table causing the fresh bread
to fall on the ground, “You clever fille!” And with that, he stuck his nose up in the air, shooed them
forward with a flick of his hand, and refused to give them any more of his
time.
“Merci beaucoup!
Au revoir!” Ellie said gently to Frenchy, despite his indifference.
Lion looked curiously at her. “It means thank you very much and goodbye,” Ellie
translated.
It was only then that Tad, Oliver, and Sebastian appeared on
a rock near where they stood. “I
know you didn’t call us… Riddit…. But we wanted you to know how proud we are of
you both,” Tad started.
“And we are here, Whoooo, to warn you,” Oliver continued.
“The next troll is very clever but also a sssssss…sore
loser, BEWARE!” Sebastian finished.
And with that, the three protector animals vanished.
Ellie and Lion looked at each other wide-eyed uneasily as
they marched forward.
We love you Ellie Bean!
Love,
Mom & Mimi
No comments:
Post a Comment