Grammy Ronni opened her door only to find Jonathon and Mr.
Piddles!
“What are you two doing here? I thought your dad wasn’t
dropping you off until this evening?” Grammy Ronni had been working on a new
scarf for her neighbor when she had heard a knock at the door.
“Well, we decided we wanted to come earlier! I have some homework
I need to work on and a new coloring book that Mr. Piddles and I want to break
in.” Jonathon had his favorite, large stuffed polar bear tightly wrapped in his
arms.
“Oh, well, come on in! I just need to move my yarn out of the
way and the dining room table is all yours.” Grammy Ronni had been storing her
large basket of yarn supplies on top of the table to make sure she didn’t accidentally lose any. She quickly picked up the basket and moved it to beside
her couch. “There you go, boys! Let me know if you two need anything!” Grammy
Ronni had grown accustomed to just hearing Jonathon’s side of conversations,
but knew that Mr. Piddles was very real to her grandson.
“Thanks, Grammy!” Jonathon took off his backpack and sat Mr.
Piddles in the chair next to him. “Okay, Mr. Piddles, now we can start working on
our math homework. The worksheet Ms. Hawkins gave us is pretty tricky.”
Jonathon began to pull out papers and pencils.
“Um, I think you mean your math homework. Polar bears do not
need math skills. We rely on instinct!” Mr. Piddles crossed his arms and
snorted towards the worksheet.
“Well, I have to get these multiplication charts down and I
could use your instincts! So, what is 4 times 6?” Jonathon turned towards his
pal. Grammy Ronni waited to see what the boy wrote down, fully knowing it would
not be 24.
“Well… My nose tells me it must be 43! And my nose is never
wrong.” Mr. Piddles grinned, proud of his intellect.
“Oh, well, that makes perfect sense!” Jonathon eagerly wrote
down the answer provided and continued to work on the worksheet for another
hour with Mr. Piddles as Grammy Ronni continued to work on her knitting, all while
listening to her grandson irrationally pluck numbers out of thin air for his
math homework.
Soon it was evening and Grammy Ronni decided she should go collect her mail.
Soon it was evening and Grammy Ronni decided she should go collect her mail.
“Jonathon, why don’t you and Mr. Piddles come walk with me
to get my mail? You could play outside for a bit too. It seems to be nice
weather!” Grammy Ronni was a large proponent of children getting lots of
outdoor playtime.
“Okay, we just finished coloring a picture for you!”
Jonathon tore out the picture of a big brown bear from his coloring book. “Here,
you can hang it up on the fridge!” Jonathon picked up the picture and Mr.
Piddles and walked towards the front door. Grammy Ronni collected the picture
and hung it up at the top of her fridge, front and center.
Jonathon and Grammy Ronni walked outside and noticed some
other children playing outside.
“Grammy, Mr. Piddles and I are going to go play with them!
Is that okay?” Jonathon turned towards his grandmother and waited for an
answer.
“Sure, just stay in sight of my house, okay?” Grammy Ronni
was glad that Jonathon could make some new friends.
“Thanks!” Jonathon ran over with Mr. Piddles in his arms. “Hi!
My name is Jonathon, and this is Mr. Piddles, my stuffed polar bear.” The
children turned to face them and immediately stared at Mr. Piddles.
“Can we touch your polar bear?” The kids all ran towards
Jonathon to try and grab Mr. Piddles.
“NO! He doesn’t like to be touched by strangers!” Jonathon quickly
pulled Mr. Piddles in towards his body.
“Hey, Jonathon, I think we should leave. These kids don’t seem
very nice…” Mr. Piddles turned his face up towards Jonathon and tried to bury
his eyes.
“It’s okay, Mr. Piddles, we just need to get to know them
better. If we treat them with love and respect, they will treat us the same way. But I think we have done enough for today.” Jonathon ran back to Grammy
Ronni as she was walking back towards her house.
“Hey, Grammy, the kids didn’t seem very nice so we’re going
to wait until we can meet them individually. Mr. Piddles didn’t feel safe
around all of them.” Jonathon opened the door for his grandmother and quickly
shut it behind them.
“Oh, okay. Next time you come over maybe we can invite one
of them over for you to meet?” Grammy Ronni had forgotten how shy her grandson
could be. As well as how attached he was to his stuffed polar bear.
“I like that idea ,Jonathon. We could handle them two on one.”
Mr. Piddles snarled to show that he wasn’t afraid.
“Yeah! Mr. Piddles and I think that would be great!”
Jonathon sat back down at the dining table and began to color a chameleon.
Grammy Ronni returned to her knitting and wondered what they would do for
dinner.
 |
| The Two Pigs |
Author's Note:
I read the Jataka Tales written by Noor Inayat this week and was inspired by one story in particular, The Two Pigs. In the story a woman takes in two baby pigs she finds outside her home, much like Grammy Ronni taking in Jonathon and Mr. Piddles. The two pigs grow up and eventually the townspeople want to eat one. The woman tells them no until they get her drunk and then she tells them that they can have one of the the two. However, the two pigs realize they are in danger and the pig that was chosen to be eaten is saved by the king asking for them to be his advisors due to the older pig's wisdom in the situation. I wanted to put a twist on the story by having Jonathon and Mr. Piddles be the two pigs and playing with children be their situation with the villagers. I liked having them interact with the neighborhood this week, and may try to explore that further.
The dynamic of Jonathon having an "imaginary" friend in Mr. Piddles is really interesting. I've read several of your stories and I don't recall seeing an adult's perspective of Jonathon, so it was interesting to see what Grammy thought about Mr. Piddles. It's obvious how well they get along. You've done a good job of showing that. I'd really like to know what would happen if Jonathon and Mr. Piddles didn't get along so well with the other kids in the future.
ReplyDeleteGreat story. I love that you continue the characters emotions so well throughout the story. I was a bit confused on how come the grandmother never fixed her grandson on his multiplication table. I love the idea that the bear can only talk to Johnathon. This provides how Johnathon thinks internally and externally. I see the resemblance to the original story although I haven't read the story yet. There weren't and grammatical errors in the reading. The transition was great. There was paragraph cuts in the right places. Keep up the good work and continuation with the polar bear and boy tales. These readings are easy to understand and the dialogue keeps it interesting. Only thing I would suggest, is adding a comment to the picture that way we can see how the picture relates to the story you chose to write. Author's Note was filled with detail and explanation which is what it is supposed to do.
ReplyDeleteExcellent job here. I really like the dynamic you've set up and it's awesome to see how you've incorporated your characters into new worlds with each and every piece. It's been really fun to follow along and see the various hijinks that go on. So well done. I think it's easy to see how you've really redone the piece and yet I think you've still done a great job of staying true to the source material without deviating massively. It's a very interesting technique and your style works very well here to maintain the form and tone of the piece. If you do end up deciding to go back and revising this one I would consider adding more concrete details that really center the reader in the world you've created so that they can see exactly what you want them to. Otherwise great job here and good luck with any and all revisions!
ReplyDeleteIt's been a while since I have read one of your stories. I really like how cute your stories are tho, with Mr. Piddles. I like how you use Mr. Piddles to communicate Jonathon's feelings, too. I think that's very clever. I feel like having a portfolio where each story builds on the other, much like a story book, would be much harder. I applaud you for taking on that challenge. I only caught one typo:
ReplyDelete"Jonathon teared out the picture of a big brown bear from his coloring book." You should use "tore" instead of "teared".
I loved this story, great job!
Back again because I wanted to see the changes you've made with the piece. Overall, I think you've made some pretty minor changes but they've definitely added quite a bit more content to the story so that the reader has a much clearer picture to work with now. I still very much like the idea of your collection of stories and I think you probably could have done a storybook and it would have worked out as well if not better than just doing the portfolio but I know the portfolio can be more attractive because the pieces don't have to inherently be connected. Overall, I think you've done a great job with this and I really look forward to seeing what else you end up doing with these characters for the rest of the semester. Good luck with it and I hope you have a good rest of the semester!
ReplyDeleteOnce again, I love this story! I think that your overall theme for your story book was such a great idea! I love that we are seeing so many of Jonathan and Mr. Piddles adventures! I also love how you put that twist on the original story. I didn't read "The Two Pigs", however I got a very good sense of what happened through your author's note so it was easy to see how you made the story your own. Great job!
ReplyDelete