Little Johnny had just moved with his Mom and Dad to this wonderful house that bordered a great forested woodland. Before, Johnny’s family lived in the heart of the city. He had a lot of friends there, mostly school buddies, but it was noisy and there really wasn’t much room to play in the open. And there was the traffic too. A girl down the street had been hit by a car and although she wasn’t hurt enough to spend the night in the hospital, Johnny’s parents sought the refuge of the suburbs and “more natural and “safer” surroundings” as Johnny’s father had said.
Johnny had his own room and there was an additional “bonus” room, they called it, which Johnny used to keep all his many toys.
Johnny liked all the new stuff at their new home but mainly what he liked was the woods.
Johnny was brave for his eleven years, and even though he thought that the woods was the greatest part about his new home he did have to admit that it was pretty dark even in daytime and looked a tiny bit…well…scary.
After scouting the edge of the woods and seeing nothing unusual about the place Johnnie, one bright spring afternoon pushed through the brambles at the edge of the woods closest to his house and after twenty or so feet broke through to a clearing.The bluebirds were busy flying about and he saw three squirrels digging in the ground under a tree. He guessed they were looking for nuts or seeds or whatever squirrels eat and then suddenly Johnny froze! Not moving, not breathing, not blinking…there, not 15 feet ahead of him was a…can you believe…a baby elephant!
Johnny had seen pictures of baby elephants before and oh yeah, even live ones at the circus and the zoo, but here was a real one…five yards away!
The elephant didn’t seem to notice him or if it did, didn’t seem to care that he was there. “I wonder where its mother is. That baby seems too small to be out in the open all by itself.”
Just then the elephant turned its head backward and raised its trunk and blew a loud trumpeting. After but a few seconds, two tiny duplicates of the small elephant ran out from under a bush and huddled under the belly of the original elephant.
What? These “elephants?” seemed to be tiny little toys rather than actual living animals. Johnny rubbed his eyes, looked away and then back again, but they were still just as miniature as ever.
Johnny was sure he was not dreaming but maybe he was being fooled by someone or something. Then as he was looking around the unfamiliar woods, he spotted a six inch tall giraffe. WHAT?
What was happening? Johnny thought about running back to his house but was too intrigued to stop staring at these tiny perfect miniatures of real animals. Then something crawled across his foot. As he looked down he saw the biggest worm that he had ever seen or could even imagine! It was a foot long and thick too. It wasn’t a snake…it had that brown band around it and it dove into a hole in the ground and disappeared.
What was going on?” Johnny wondered. Just then a rhinoceros about 10 inches high sniffed at Johnny’s shoes, where the enormous worm had just crawled and then lumbered over to the worm hole and started digging into the ground with his horn.
All of a sudden there was this extremely loud buzzing that seemed to be getting closer and closer and then, whoosh…the hugest bumble bee that Johnny could have ever imagined, flew by his ear missing his earlobe by less than an inch!
Johnny then noticed the Baby, well, Mother elephant, gather up her two “babies” and hurry them off into the brush, as humongous three feet tall black ants marched through in a straight line, not looking left or right, and headed for the largest tree in the woods.
Johnny couldn’t believe his own eyes, and even ears, at what he was seeing and hearing. If he had been sleeping this would definitely qualify for a nightmare.
The odd thing, well other than all of these wrong sized animals, was that none of them seemed to even notice that he was there!
Johnny felt a little less scared when he realized that, but then thought “What if these creatures decide to notice me?”
So Johnny slowly edged toward the brambles where he had originally entered the woods. He got through safely without even a scratch and happily walked through his back garden and into the house.
“Time to wash up for dinner Johnny, your Dad will be home any minute.”
“OK Mom.” Johnny went to wash his hands and heard his Dad come in the door.
At dinner Johnny’s Dad told about a big sale that he had made and he then asked Johnny’s Mom how she liked living in their new home. She said that she was so happy living there that she didn’t even mind the house cleaning. Then his father asked Johnny…”How was your first day at our new home?”
“Oh…it was OK….would you please pass the salt Dad!”