Friday Story Share Winner!

We have a winner for this week’s Story Share! Thank you to everyone who participated. I hope the story inspires you to share one next week! (See next week’s topic here)

This week’s Friday Story share topic was:
Write a story in which the character can only eat one type of food.

And the winner is…
Stephen Spuler!
(dictated and edited by Mommy) Good job, Stephen! Thanks for sharing your story this week.

Allie the Monkey and the Boy Tobin
Once upon a time there was a zoo in The City of Lewis. In this zoo there were lions, zebras, giraffes, other animals, and monkeys.

One morning, a little monkey named Allie woke up to discover that the zoo was open for the Spring. She saw people looking at the lions, people looking at the zebras, and people looking at the giraffes. Soon, a few people came to look at the monkeys too. When she saw someone carrying an unfamiliar food, she got down from her branch in the tree to investigate. She wished she could try it. The man who was holding it gave it to a boy, who thought that the monkeys might like those peanuts. Since the boy was five years old, he couldn’t read the sign that said, “Don’t feed the monkeys.”

He threw some peanuts into the monkey house. Allie ran over to them, picked one up, and started to eat it. It seemed crunchy to her because she didn’t know you aren’t supposed to eat the shell. Then she got to the nut part and ate it up. She thought it was so delicious that she didn’t want to eat any other kind of food ever again.

When the zookeeper came to the monkey house that day, all Allie could think about was getting more of those delicious nuts. As he was leaving, he left the door open. Allie saw her chance to get more nuts and ran out the door as fast as she could to follow the little boy.

Later that night, after supper, the boy, whose name was Tobin, noticed the monkey under the table! He wondered why a monkey was in the house. Then he remembered the monkey at the zoo and how much she liked peanuts. “This must be the same monkey!” he thought.

Now the boy, whose name was Tobin, wasn’t quite sure what to do. His grandfather had been a heart patient in the hospital several weeks before, and his mother had told him not to surprise him or make him work too hard. The fact that there was a monkey under the table was quite a surprise and might give grandfather another heart attack.

Trying to keep the monkey quiet, he waved one of the peanuts in the monkey’s face. Allie grunted excitedly. “Shhhhh,” said Tobin. “He’ll hear you.”

“What was that, my boy?” asked his grandfather without looking.

“Nothing!” said Tobin. He quietly led Allie to the garage and closed the door, forgetting about the giant bag of peanuts sitting on the floor by the car.

The peanuts were for his cousin’s party. She was having a barbecue birthday party the next day.

Alone in the dark, Allie smelled the peanuts. She walked over to the bag and started tugging it. When she realized what was inside, she grunted and danced. She had never been so happy in her life.

Meanwhile, Tobin and Grandfather finished cleaning up the kitchen and waited for Grandmother to come back from the store. Tobin hoped that he would be able to tell her about the monkey. He didn’t realize that she was planning to be out late.

Tobin tried not to think about the monkey. He tried not to think about her while he played cards with Grandfather. He tried not to think about her when he brushed his teeth and got his pajamas on. When the clock struck 8:00, he tried not to think about what would happen if Grandmother came home after he was in bed. But at 8:30, she still wasn’t home, and Tobin, only five years old, nodded off to sleep during story-time.

When Grandmother finally came home, she opened the garage door to pull her car into the spot next to Grandfather’s car. When she got out of her car, she met a great surprise. She screamed in shock. Grandfather raced out to the garage to find Grandmother, her hands full of grocery bags, standing over a sleeping monkey who had crashed on a huge mound of peanuts. Allie the monkey opened one eye sleepily and woke with a start, then held her stomach in agony. Oh, how it hurt! Why had she eaten so many peanuts!?

“I think it’s sick!” said Grandfather.

“It doesn’t look too good,” said Grandmother.

Then Grandfather said, “Doesn’t that monkey look familiar? I think Tobin fed it peanuts today at the zoo.”

“Well,” said Grandmother, “I guess it liked peanuts well enough. But what do we do now?”
“I suppose the zoo is closed now. Let’s let the poor thing sleep and we’ll call first thing in the morning.”

So first thing in the morning, the careless zookeeper stumbled into the garage, looking tired and cross. He had been in big trouble with his boss for leaving the door open and now he was so relieved to see Allie, that he gave her a big hug.

Allie was happy to see the zookeeper and told him in grunts and little “oo-oo”s that she had enjoyed her fill of peanuts and was ready to go home.

Tobin, meanwhile, slept the whole night and woke up to the doorbell ring. He found that grandparents had indeed been quite surprised while he was asleep, but were in perfect health. The bag of peanuts was donated to the zoo for treats for the monkeys.

Anytime the zoo served the monkey the peanuts, Allie politely shook her head and grabbed a banana instead, except when Tobin came to visit, when she ate one little peanut and danced and grunted happily because she was so happy to see him.

The End