Story of the Night: The Magic Bunny

I tell my kids stories every night before bed, nearly always based on a two topics that they request. (When I get three kids making requests — that's going to get really tricky.) I forget what they requested for the night I told this story, but this is the story they got. Deborah says it's the same plot as a Pixar short. Pooh. I wasn't thinking of that when I told the story, and Deborah likes my version better, anyway. So there.

The Magic Bunny

Once upon a time, there was a magician, and he lived in the circus and he loved to go out and do tricks in front of the audience, and make them laugh, and make them cry in astonishment.

But the magician wasn't magic.

His hat wasn't magic. His wand wasn't magic. The thing that was magic was his bunny!

Truth is, it was the bunny doing all the tricks. The magician would reach in his hat and pull out a bunny and the audience would applaud. He could make it appear out of thin air or show up in a balloon. Or pull it out of his coat sleeves. But the magician got tired of not really doing the tricks and he got lazy. The last straw came when he forgot to buy carrots for the bunny.

The magician went out on stage and he flashed his biggest smile and waved his shiny wand and his shiny hat around. He wiggled his fingers dramatically and plunged it into his hat. SNAP! A rat trap snapped aorund his fingers. Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow! The magician hopped around holding his hand in pain and grinned sheepishly at the audience as if to say, "Now that shouldn't have happened." The audience howled with laughter. The magician, with some apprehension, wiggled his fingers again and stuck them in his hat again. Eeeeeewww! He just stuck his hand into a pile of dirty underpants! As he pulled them out, the audience said "Eww!" too and they laughed and laughed and laughed. The magician was very downhearted but he tried to put his best face on it. He grinned painfully at the audience and very carefully stuck just one finger into the hat. The rabbit bit him on the finger. The magician was so discrouraged and sad that he ran off the stage.

"What are you doing?" roared the magician. And the rabbit said, "I'm the one doing all the tricks! Why don't you take care of me and spend time with me any more? You even forgot to feed me today!" The magician realized he was right, and he was very sad and sorry.

The magician walked out on stage carrying his hat, carrying his wand and carrying his rabbit. He put the rabbit down on the little table and he said, "My lovely audience! I would like to show you the real secret of my magic. It's not my hat! It's not my wand! It's not my special sleeves!" — the audience gasped — "It's my bunny!" And with that he gave the wand to the rabbit, and put his top hat on the rabbit, and the bunny wiggled his nose, and the magician disappeared! The audience leaped to their feet. They applauded and they whooped and hollered. They threw money and roses. And the curtain came down on what had been the best show ever.

The End.

Then Aiden asked, "Where did the magician go?"
The storyteller said, "The rabbit sent him to the store to buy carrots."

Tell a story, Daddy!

Every night, I tell the kids a story once I've tucked them into bed. The fun part is, I do it the hard way: I take requests.

Requests typically involve things that we've been doing; games we've played, books we've read, floods we've paddled down the street in, cheeses we've bought at the store. To make things more interesting yet, I try to take into account what both kids have asked for.

Last night, we did (1) Everybody in the whole world going to the moon; and (2) pie. (Why, the story just writes itself!)

The story of Pie on the Moon

Once upon a time, maybe a few days ago, Mommy made some pie. [She did, by the way; it was yummy.] This time, though, she experimented with the recipe, and added just a little touch of something special. Little did we know, that that something special made the pie come alive. This pie could walk and talk, and it climbed out of the fridge where it was cooling, and wandered out of the house into the back yard. "Hey, wow, look at all this!" the pie said, "there are trees, and sky, and a wagon, and... IS THAT A SPACESHIP?

Well, it was. It was the very spaceship that Daddy had built out of a dryer, two rakes, and a few parts he borrowed from the old car, and that Fiona and Aiden had flown to the moon so many times. "Cool!" said the pie, "I always wanted to go to the moon!" So, it climbed in, and somehow worked the controls, and it blasted off from the back yard, flying up, up, up, through the blue sky, until the sky turned black and the stars twinkled and shone brightly all around.

On and on the pie traveled, for three whole days. Then, it got to the moon, and gently touched down. It didn't need a spacesuit like the kids did — it was just a pie — so it got out and started walking around, tasting bits of cheese from the various boulders of colby, cheddar, and havarti. "Hey, look, it's an old camera!" said the pie, and switched it on. Moments later, every television on earth showed a picture of a PIE... on the MOON. [The kids were howling with laughter at this point. It's a wonderful sound.] "Hello everyone!" said the pie, "I'm a pie, and I am on the moon!" And everyone on earth looked at each other, and said, "There is a PIE, and it is on the MOON. Let's go see."

So they all got into their rocket ships, and all blasted off to the moon. Three days later, they all landed — all six billion of them! — and started looking for the pie. "Is it an ALIEN in a flying saucer?" some demanded. "Can we EAT it?" others asked. "Can we get its autograph?" asked still more.

But the problem is, six billion people weigh a lot. That made the moon very heavy, and that also made the Earth a lot lighter. And that was very bad, because one started speeding up, and the other started slowing down! All the scientists started running around, yelling and waving their arms! "Oh no!" they cied, "Now, instead of a month, we'll have mon, and instead of a week, we'll have a wee, and instead of a day, we'll have a d! Oh, no!!!

So everyone jumped back in their spaceships, and went back to earth. And the world went back to its normal speed.

Well, everyone went back, that is, except two little kids. They stayed on the moon, and went and found the pie. "Hello," they said, "you look a lot like the pies that Mommy makes. Would you like to come home with us?" The pie said "Sure!" and they all climbed into their little spaceship, and sailed across the starry sky, down into the dark blue of the upper atmosphere, down into the blue of the sky, and down, down down, until they touched down gently into the back yard. They carried the pie inside. "Oh, there's that pie! Where was it? I've been looking all over for it," said Mommy. The kids just giggled to themselves, and then Daddy came, and he picked them up, and tucked them into bed, and told them a story. And then, he gave them a hug and a kiss, and he said, "I love you! Good night! ....the end."

*  *  *

While I was doing just that, Aiden piped up in the darkness. "What did they do with the pie?"

I paused for a moment. Eat it? No, I can't say that... better go with what the kids know. "I don't know, Aiden, what do you think they did with it?"

"They put it in the fridge." Ah, of course.

"And that's exactly what they did."

Fiona piped up next while I was giving her the requisite hug. "Hey Daddy, tomorrow, tell a story of a HUNDRED pies, and everybody on the planet going to the moon."

"OK, but that — is a different story, for a different day."

Good night!

Nothing Like a Good Story...

It could be because my sisters and I grew up having stories read to us. (Thanks, Dad.) Or, it could be that, with my head so immersed in right-brain stuff at work, my left brain needs something to do, lest it chatter away to my distraction. Whatever it is, there's nothing like a good story to help me sit down and keep plugging away at whatever I'm doing.

Now, obviously, I can't go reading books while I'm correcting manuscripts or retouching photos, but I have found that I can listen to them... and that, rather than distract me from what I'm doing, it keeps me planted. My feet don't wander when I want to know what happens next, and I don't think of a dozen things I'd like to say when someone else is reading.

The real trick has been finding good stuff to listen to. I've listened to the Harry Potter audiobooks (Jim Dale is an incredible narrator), and discovered the Septimus Heap and His Dark Materials books, but the talking books selection at the library has largely been hit-and-miss. While I keep trying books there, I have found a few reliable sources for stories done right:

Podiobooks.com
There's a pretty wide variety here, and I've yet to find a story that wasn't worth finishing — which I find remarkable, given that most of the stories are done by the authors themselves in home studios.

Escape Pod
All sci-fi, all the time, with many new and notable names of the genre, reading half-hour to hour-long stand-alone stories. Sci-fi is a fairly broad genre, but this keeps close to traditional sci-fi while also linking to other, often-mingled genre stories in the form of Pseudopod (horror) and Podcastle (fantasy) if those are more your cup of tea. The presenter (and often-as-not narrator) Steve Eley throws out many thought-provoking bits in his intros and (as the neologism goes) out-tros.

The Secrets of Harry Potter
Not stories, per se, but commentary on stories, specifically the Harry Potter series. Although this claims to be a Catholic podcast, but there's really not much that a Protestant should take offense to. Production and content vary from episode to episode, but for the most part, it's worth wading through some of the awkward bits to get the nuggets of insight into the mythological and theological symbolism that J.K. Rowling's books are drenched in.