Goobles the Storyteller: A Peabodi Tale By: Honey Moser Goobles was walking along the riverside outside of the Peabodi Village. She liked to make up stories while she walked there. today she was imagining that a huge long-bodied creature came out of the forest and came up to her and threatened to eat all the peabodis in the village. Goobles imagined that she went up to the creature and held its mouth shout. She had a good talk with that creature and she found out that it was scared that the peabodis would destroy its forest home. But Goobles, the heroine in most of her stories, explained that the peabodis would never destroy the forest. From then on the forest creature lived in peace, never disturbing the peabodis and never afraid it would lose its home. Suddenly Goobles noticed that it was getting dark so she ran home for supper. On the way she thought up a story to explain why she was late getting home from the river. “Where have you been, Goobles?” asked her mother as Goobles scrambled up the kitchen tree to meet her family for dinner. “Well,” began Goobles, “I was coming home on time when suddenly this huge fish in the river jumped up and grabbed my hand, and...” “Wait a minute,” interrupted Goobles’ father, “I know that story isn’t true and you know that story isn’t true. So why don’t you tell us what really happened to make you late for supper.” “Nothing,” said Goobles unhappily, “nothing happened. I was imagining a story about a creature from the forest and I forgot what time it was.” “Thank you, Goobles, but next time be more aware of the time.” said Goobles’ mother. Goobles sighed and ate her supper. The truth was always so boring! All she was doing was trying to spice up her life. She thought that others should like her stories and didn’t understand why they got annoyed at her. The next morning it was Goobles’ turn to weed in the food-trees and to bring home food for the day. When she got there she noticed that some of her neighbors were already at work. She went down a row and noticed there was a new peabodi who she never saw before. so she went to weed by the newcomer and say hi. “Hello, my name is Goobles.” she said. “Well, hi. My name is Bubbles,” “Hi Bubbles. Are you here to visit our village?” said Goobles. “Nope, I’m here to stay. I came from a city far away to live with the family right across the river from here.” said Bubbles. “Oh cool!” said Goobles, “Then we’ll see a lot of eachother because I visit Sunny all the time. I think you’ll have fun in Peabodi village. Why just the other day Sunny and I had an adventure in the forest.” “Really?” said Bubbles, “What happened?” Goobles was pretty excited that someone actually wanted to hear her stories. “Well,” began Goobles, “two weeks ago Sunny and I were walking through a path in the forest, looking for pretty flowers. We heard a strange little noise, kind of like birds when they chatter to eachother. But it wasn’t birds, it was coming from the ground. So we bent down to the base of a tree to see if we could find out what was making the noise and boy did we get a surprise! The base of the tree had several holes in it. But not rotted out holes like in dead trees, but carved out holes, and the tree was alive. And you won’t believe what we saw walking around those holes. It was little peabodis! They looked just like us except that they are only about as big as our hands. And the most unbelievable thing was that each of them that I saw looked exactly like someone here in this village!” By this time Bubbles was spellbound. She had quit pulling weeds and was sitting on the ground gazing up at Goobles as she told the story. “Wow!!” exclaimed Bubbles. “That is amazing! I think it’s going to be much more exciting to live out here than in the city. Can you take me to see the little forest peabodis tomorrow?” “Um, sure,” said Goobles. “We can go after school. But I better get back home now, my family is waiting for me!” “Ok,” said Bubbles, “I’ll see you tomorrow at school!” ........................ The next day Goobles skipped lightly to school, ahead of her brothers and sisters, since she was excited to see her new friend, Bubbles. However, when she arrived and sat down by her friends they all looked at her and turned away, talking amongst themselves about what they were going to play during recess that day. Bubbles looked up from the group and gave a confused look to Goobles, and then went back to talking with Sunny and her friends. Goobles spent an unhappy morning wondering why her friends were not speaking to her and when it was time for recess she found a low tree and climbed up in the branches to be by herself. She imagined that it was a huge tree and that she was on top of the world, away from everyone, since they did not care to hear her stories. In a few minutes Goobles heard the leaves rustling and saw that Bubbles was climbing up the tree. “Hi, Goobles,” she said and sat down next to her on a branch. “I just wanted to ask you why you lied to me yesterday.” “Lie? I didn’t lie to you. What do you mean?” asked Goobles, who was very confused. “You did lie. You told me that you found some little peabodis in the forest when you went on a walk with Sunny. I asked Sunny about it and she said that it wasn’t true and that you always told lies like that.” “Lies? geez... I never thought my stories were lies. I mean, they’re not true, but still... But I guess if I’m not telling the truth it could seem like lies. I’m sorry you got upset, and I’m sorry everyone is bugged at me for not telling the truth all the time.” Goobles climbed down from the tree and went to the classroom, since it was almost time for class to start anyway. She was trying to think of a way that she could still tell her stories but not have people mad at her. Suddenly she thought of an idea. “I’ll have to wait until after school to see if my idea works!” she thought to herself. After school many kids were gathered at the park to play before they had to go home. Goobles went around the park and whispered something into everyone’s ear. Pretty soon a crowd had gathered around a large stump in the middle of the stump. Goobles went over to the stump, sat down, and began. “Once upon a time there was a little peabodi, about as big as Dot over there, who went on a long journey......” Goobles continued telling her tale as her audience sat around listening to tales of far away lands, and of imaginary creatures that lived in their own forest. And in only a few weeks Goobles became known as a wonderful story teller instead of the little peabodi who told false tales.