Grandpa’s Story

“Tell us a story, Grandpa,” Tony said.

“What kind of story?” Grandpa asked.

“One with pirates,” Tony said.

“And bunnies,” Sophie said.

“And battles,” Arthur said. “Lots of battles.”

“All right,” Grandpa said. “Just try not to interrupt.”

“Why not?” Sophie asked.

“Because it’s rude,” Arthur said.

“And then Grandpa might not finish our story,” Tony said.

“Okay,” Sophie said. “You can start now Grandpa.”

Grandpa laughed. “Can I? I suppose I will then. Let’s see.   Once upon a time, there was a pirate whose ship was overrun by a shipment of cute bunnies that he’d stolen, thinking that it was something valuable. Unfortunately, the bunnies escaped their shipping crates and ate all the ship’s food. So they needed to steal more.”

“They could eat the bunnies,” Tony said.

“Bunnies are too fast to catch. You couldn’t even catch the one at the petting zoo, and it was really fat,” Sophie said.

“They could make bunny traps,” Arthur said.

“Maybe they’re stupid pirates,” Sophie said.   “They did steal bunnies without checking to see what they were.”

“Good point,” Arthur said. “I’m sorry we interrupted, Grandpa.”

“It’s fine,” Grandpa said. “Now where were we? Hmmm.   Well, the queen attacked them with a frying pan and they escaped in their hot air balloons. However, the pilot of one of the balloons wasn’t fast enough. When she threw the cast iron pan at his balloon, it hit the burner. While the crew was scrambling to right it without damaging anything, they didn’t notice that the pan had also damaged one of the vents, making the balloon more difficult to maneuver. So, they drifted off-course.”

“Why was there a queen there?” Sophie asked.

“Maybe the pirates attacked her ship to steal food,” Tony said.

“I hope she saved all the cute bunnies,” Sophie said.   “Oh. Sorry for interrupting Grandpa.”

Grandpa sighed. “It’s all right, Sophie. Now, um, hmmmm. Let’s see. Inside the cave, there was a dinosaur. It roared and they could see that it had three rows of sharp teeth inside its giant jaws. They ran away screaming, but only half of them made it out of the cave.   They climbed into the trees and hoped that the dinosaur wouldn’t decide to chase them. One swipe of its tail could probably knock down all the trees.   ‘What do we do?’ One of them asked. ‘Perhaps the nightingale can sing and put it back to sleep,’ another replied.”

“Where did the cave come from? And the nightingale?   I thought they were escaping the queen in balloons,” Tony said.

“Stop talking,” Arthur said. “The story keeps changing too much when we interrupt.”

“Oh! So that’s what happens,” Sophie said.

“Sorry, Grandpa,” Tony said.

“No problem,” Grandpa said. “So where were we? Um, luckily they were still in communication with the underground base.   They were able to send out a helicopter to pick them up from the top of the mountain before the lightning storm came.   Unfortunately, the rough winds tossed around the helicopter. The crew was all strapped in, but the map was whipped away by the wind. When they returned to base, they had to reconstruct it from memory. They didn’t get everything right…”

“This is a really weird story,” Sophie whispered.   Her brothers nodded. “I like it.” They all grinned.