A Bedtime Story

Scene:  Our house, bedtime.  Lights were out.  Books had been read.  We'd settled in for the bedtime story.

Matt asked Mark what he'd like to hear a story about.  Mark said:  Animals.  Rabbits, squirrels, and birds maybe.  Ok, Matt said.  Then he began.  This is the story he came up with, off the top of his head, without any hesitations or delays before or during the story.

Once upon a time, there was a tree.  Squirrels lived in the trunk of the tree, rabbits lived in a hole under the tree, and birds lived in the branches.  They all lived happily, playing together. 

Then one day, the squirrels decided they didn't want to share their tree anymore.  They ran down to the hole under the tree and chased out the rabbits.  Then they ran up to the branches of the tree and chased out the birds.  Then they ran up and down the tree trunk all day, playing in the branches and even the hole underneath.  It was really fun... at first.  But after a while they started to get bored.  When they wanted to play a new game, they only had squirrel games to play and only squirrel ideas of what might be fun.  They started wishing the birds and rabbits would come back.

"But how will we get them to come back?" a squirrel asked.  "I know," said another squirrel, "we can write a message on some acorns, and throw those acorns out into the woods.  Then the rabbits will see the message and come back."  "Great idea," said the first squirrel. 

So they wrote a message on the acorns, threw them out into the woods, and waited.  After a little while a rabbit picked up one of the acorns, saw the message, and said to one of his rabbit friends (in a low voice, with a New York cabbie-ish accent):  "Hey did you see this note from the squirrels?  They want us to come back to the tree!"  So the rabbits talked about it and decided to move back to the tree.

The squirrels were happy to see them, and they started running around and playing in the tree together.  But they all still missed the birds.  So the squirrels left the tree and went far, far away from the tree and even the whole forest.  They went to a place where they could rent a small airplane capable of skywriting.  (An aside:  Mark, do you know what skywriting is?  And a brief explanation).

The squirrels went up in the airplane and wrote a message to the birds, in the sky.  It said:  DEAR BIRDS:  PLEASE COME HOME TO THE TREE.  WE MISS YOU.  WE ARE SORRY WE MADE YOU LEAVE.  LOVE, THE SQUIRRELS.

It didn't take long before one of the birds saw the message in the sky.  He said to his bird friend:  (whistling).  And they his bird friend replied:  (whistling).  So they flew off toward the tree.

When they got there, the squirrels said:  "We're so sorry for being mean to you and making you leave the tree."  And the birds replied:  (more whistling).  And then the birds moved back in.

So then the birds, rabbits, and squirrels all played and played in the tree.  Sometimes they played squirrel games, sometimes they played rabbit games, and sometimes they played bird games.  And everyone was happy.  The End.