Why do you want to turn me into a lion? asked Posey. I know what a lion is—-it’s a creature that everyone lied about and then it becomes a lion. And it’s a very sad creature, it’s very sad to see it walk around because it doesn’t realize how wrong it looks. That’s what a lion is. Why do you want Posey to be a lion? It’s not fair. It’s not fair to turn anyone into a lion, even for a game.
-
Zipper’s Story
Zipper is a go-od bo-oy-oy,
Loudly sing hurray!
Even if I eat a grape I’ll ne-ver-ver-ver die!
This is the song that woke two of the three Brindle sisters as they sat crumpled over in front of their bay window. The three of them made a habit of sitting there to watch the bird houses that hung from the eaves of their small silver house. They liked to think that they had done a good job since many birds had moved in over the past few months and now there was even a small bat who seemed to be turning it over in his head.
The first and second Brindles looked around their living room, rubbing their eyes and noses and stretching their legs. Both knocked over the cups of carrot juice they had left sitting on the floor. The third Brindle knocked hers over too as she swatted at something in her sleep. Through the bay window and past the rabbit’s foot clover lawn (no hard things or stones were allowed below the bird houses in case anyone fell out) there was a thin white puppy in a pointed yellow hat approaching the house. By now he had run out of lyrics so he hummed with his mouth wide open and bent his legs like two bows being strung.
That is one of the children who lives on the other side of the false strawberry hill, isn’t it? asked the second Brindle of the first one.
Yes, yes, said the first. Why don’t you get our gloves?
He is mean, said the second. I’d believe he could shoot out arrows from those bowwy legs and take down our birdhouses.
No, no, he’s only a child, the first reassured her.
The Brindle sisters themselves were really only children as well.
The second Brindle stood up and took down three pairs of oatmeal colored gloves that hung on a pink piece of yarn nailed to the wall. She handed one pair to the first Brindle and put one pair on her own paws but the third Brindle would not wake up and take her gloves no matter how much gentle shoving, prodding, biting and scratching the other Brindles gave her so the second Brindle decided to mop up the spilled carrot juice with the third pair of gloves before throwing it over her sleeping sister.
Children like to be waved at, thought the two Brindles as they sat up straight got ready to greet Zipper.
Zipper stood in front of the small silver house and looked into the window brimming with warm golden light and saw one long flat lump flanked by two frantically waving upright lumps. There were tassels on the gloves and it made it look like their paws were vibrating. He stepped closer and the Brindles waved even harder. He stood on their lawn and they each began to wave with both paws but then he bent down, ripping up an armful of rabbit’s foot clover the size of a lamb and the Brindles screamed with their noses up against the glass. He threw it up into the air and was delighted.
Oh! How rude! Rude, rude, rude boy! We know where you live! shouted the two Brindles as they ran out the front door. When they got to the spot where Zipper had stood, all that was left was a pile of green and white fluff.
He must be underneath! they hissed as they dug through the shreds of their lawn. But all they found was a small turd. They drew back their paws and heard the third Brindle laughing at them from her spot in the window.
Far away at the beach, Zipper was hopping from rock to rock and shouting, I did it! I did it! It was good to be able to escape at will. Everything was made of rocks and water here. Even the grains of sand were only shrunken versions of the big round rocks. And the sky was greyed out and heavy so that everything was held in close together. He kept jumping, here on a grey rock, a rust one, three rose ones, a black one. There was an emerald one which was so slippery he fell off and cut his foot on a broken conch shell.
It isn’t too bad, it isn’t so bad, he said as he crawled up the beach to bury his hurt foot in the sand. He took off his hat and pressed it into the sand too. Then he made a pile of sand on his left side and one on his right side and crowned each with a mollusk shell.
Now you two will be my brothers and keep watch and wave at any crabs and cormorants that come, he told the piles. And I will lie between you so we will be two big lumps with a long lump in the middle. I don’t have anything to bring back to show my siblings so maybe they won’t believe me. I will just tell them I left something.
He laid down and slept for a while.
-
EGGY’s S
-What’s this?
-Oh that, Eggy squinted at me, that is my S!
-What do you mean?
-My letter, explained Eggy, the first letter of my name. I’m supposed to get them on my birthdays.
-I thought your name was Eggy.
-For the time being it is. Maybe technically it is S. Eggy. But my very own name will come together over time, after they’ve given me all the letters. You don’t do that?
-No, we picked our names while we were in the womb. My brothers and sisters and I, we discussed what we wanted.
-Oh, how strange!
The S reminded me of my mother’s pocket watch. It was a frail little red string lying protected under a thin glass dome. I tried to smell the S but there was another thick glass case covering the whole thing. Maybe it had a bad smell, I thought.
-Is it okay to take it out? I mean, can I hold it?
-Oh? Yes, yes! One second.
Eggy lifted the outer case and put aside. Now, in it’s new position, it looked like a cassarole dish and I think that’s probably what it originally was. I stood still waiting for Eggy to handle the S first, but as I stood my nose rushed to read the new smells. I made a list in my head that I would try to write down later.- Smoke, grass, sunblock, but those were all obvious since they must be from the birthday party.
- A type of air that smells different from here, a little mildew, what was this?
-Here Tulie! Tulie! Here you can hold it if you like.
-Oh.
It felt very light and hollow in my paw. I was not really holding the S itself, only the jewelry surrounding it. I wanted to get past the domed glass and the gold and touch and smell the stringy little S itself and I found myself kind of wanting to smash it open. What would the air trapped inside smell like? It didn’t seem like the S should be old, since Eggy isn’t old, but somehow it looked dim and oily and aged, like it had been handled a lot.
-Eggy, you haven’t had a birthday in a long time, have you?
-Hm, what? I would have invited you, if that’s what you’re saying! I never have parties without Tulie. I never would.
-No, no! It’s just that I thought there would be more letters by now. You’re not just one year old, right?
Eggy looked out the window and started peeling the dead skin off her lips.
-Did you know that that S was given to me by my Grandeggs? Grandeggyma wrapped it in a sweater for me. She made the sweater herself. And Grandeggypa hid cinnamon sticks in one of the pockets. They live in the mountains far away because they are giants.
-Giants? But your parents aren’t giants.
-No, Eggydaddy told me that each generation gets smaller.
-Oh, is that bad?
-I don’t know. I like being small though. How would we play if I was too big? Eggymama tries to feed me too much sometimes so I can get bigger. She says it would be nice if I could at least be the same size as her and Eggydaddy.
I wasn’t sure what to think about this.
-Tulie? Here! Look!Eggy brought me a large photo of herself wearing the S.
-This is me on my birthday. See, it’s worn like this on your sweater or shirt for special occasions.
-Oh, it is lovely Eggy.
-You can take it if you like. We have more copies of this.
It was getting dark outside so I thought I should head home. I said goodbye and brought home the photo of Eggy and her S to show to my siblings. -
Song 3.
Is it I forsake my birthday?
(sing to the tune of Sumer is icumen in.) -
Sing a song of cakes!
If they say to you, there is no cake storm coming, ignore them!
Everyone should have a dream of cake storms. But then again, don’t be too greedy. If your main goal is to gather the highest possible quantity of cake, then you are wishing for the wrong reasons.
This depiction of a puppy comet colliding with a kitty comet was sent here by Kris Mukai (a cat child? maybe?) It has been embellished a bit by me. -
lion
-
ugly car
Every Sunday there is a meeting of the horse-car coalition in the yard that belongs to the dog brothers Franz and Claus. The coalition is designed to bring horses together with their mechanical brothers. Unfortunately there are no horses in Puppyland.
A large silver car named Captain Alice told a story at the latest meeting. I was there and I heard it and recorded it by paw. This is how it went more or less.
There was an ugly car whose paint was falling off but he had a man who loved him. The man was poor and could not afford any of the human falderal, the soapy washings, the waxes, the coatings nor the education that was heaped upon luckier cars such as my brother and myself but the man did what he could. He polished the car with an old pair of underwear and kept at this for hours on end. The car grew to believe that he was beautiful above all others and he developed terrible highwinded manners.
My brother Beesley is a sweet, modest little car. One day, as he was playing splash with some other cars, the ugly car drove past. The ugly car kept his headlights forward and wouldn’t even look at the cars playing. If you pass close by a game of splash then of course, you know, you get splashed and there’s no harm done really and you just move on. When the ugly car was inevitably splashed he let out a loud scream.
Just look what you’ve done to me, he shouted. I’m a mess! You’ve hurt me! You hurt me!
The other cars stopped and watched as he drove up to a store window to look at his reflection. Of course, when he looked at the glass he saw his own ugly, rusty body, just as it always had been. The ugly car got it into his head that this was the work of the water that had gotten on him. He cried even louder.
Look! You’ve made me ugly!
But you were always ugly, said a little car.
The ugly car ran home, weeping the whole way. We didn’t see him around after that. Beesley tells me that sometimes the ugly car comes to play with him but then runs away if he hears anyone else coming.
Recorded by Tulip. -
Shh! Listen! It’s time for Franz and Claus.
This is the song the young puppy girl Posey heard as she approached the big red brick wall with the white plasticine horses. Those horses sag a little in the heat and sometimes get messed up by other animals so they must be regularly touched up.
Franz and Claus are twin dog brothers. It is said that at birth they came out holding each other’s paws.“They are older than my older siblings but younger than my parents,” Posey thought.
Franz is the white one (you can remember this because it sounds like “froth” which is usually some white stuff) and Claus is the black one (his name has the same hard “c” sounds as the word “black.”)
When Posey reached the opening framed by the plasticine horses she could see Claus washing the leaves of the goldenrods on one side while Franz prepared some sugar water to feed the goldenrods on the opposite side. They only do this once a week though so usually when you pass by you will see them working on the stables next to the house. They love horses despite the fact that they’ve never seen any in person and their dream is to take care of horses. Unfortunately, no one has ever seen any horses in Puppyland. That doesn’t excuse you from practicing and preparing though.
The house was behind Posey now but she turned around when she heard screaming. Franz and Claus ran towards her frantically with tongues dragging in the wind and wide eyes. She froze there, terrified that she had offended them somehow but the brothers were really just shocked and disappointed with themselves for ignoring a guest. They apologized, holding back tears and handed Posey several pamphlets and kits describing the various tours and services they had available. She brought these home with her to show her siblings.
(I had forgotten, who is there in the top window? I don’t remember clearly.
-Posey’s note.) -
Ghost Bun
It was a very warm and bright day and a very young rabbit sat on a hill amongst the false strawberries. The whole place seemed golden after the grass had been baking and burning in the sun for so long. The rabbit seemed to be having trouble keeping his eyes open and he could only squint at the almost white sky surrounding him. He could make out a round, white shape bounding across the field at the bottom of his hill and figured that it must be one of the puppies who lived near his cousin Gwen, since they were the only ones he had ever met. The rabbit let out a sad sounding wheeze. He hadn’t moved for the past month and the thought of another creature moving along so fast and well made him sadder.
“It’s very hard to move at all anymore,” he said as his feet sunk into the dirt. He became aware that his whole body was now steadily sinking into the ground and he became anxious. Although his body had become mostly still during the past month, his mind was always frantic. He began to think back to when he used to dig and run everyday for hours without resting and wanted to return to that. He thought more about digging as he sank deeper.
“The thing about digging,” he thought, ” is that the ground goes on forever in every direction.”
The puppy was now very close to the hill. The rabbit was right; it was one of the puppies who lived near his cousin Gwen. Her name was Cake and she was hurrying home after finishing some errands. She looked up at the little rabbit head popping out of the hilltop.
“What a lazy sack,” she said to herself as she ran on but she felt a little bad after she saw what might have been a tear glittering in the rabbit’s eye. She looked back again but the rabbit was gone. When she got the top of the hill she found only a lump of old, icy snow (the kind that forms after snow has been melting and freezing again and again) and a limp, brown, fur pelt. The first of these flashed brightly before melting into the dirt and the second she took home with her.
-
Greetings! Greebun is an animal term for any very delicious food (from “agreeable bun.”) It can also be a term of affection. Greebunerel is very festive toast which is especially appropriate for Christmas dinners. Here is an array of fantastic, yet sober greebuns to put in your snack wallet!
-
Songs 1 and 2.
Good Boy and Gold Sheep.
