Summer Bird Stories

Family-Friendly Short Stories, Cartoons, and Illustrations

Substitute Thieves

“…And there she is!” Baby bear threw the covers back triumphantly. He jumped back as flames shot past his left ear, singeing the ends of his fur. There was a dragon in the bed.

The dragon stopped breathing fire and sat up. “Sorry about that,” he said, looking embarrassed. “You surprised me.”

“But who are you?” Baby bear narrowed his eyes. “And where is Goldilocks? Did you eat her?”

The dragon looked offended. “Of course not. She isn’t at all royal. I only eat princesses. Unless they get rescued, of course. Unfortunately, they always do. Mostly I just eat peanut butter sandwiches.” The dragon looked at the taller bears. “Who made the porridge? It was excellent. The serving in the little bowl was just right. Do you make granola? I would buy it by the barrel!”

“I hadn’t thought of granola,” Papa bear said. “Goldilocks likes porridge so much that I never make anything else.”

“I like granola too,” Mama bear said. “Maybe we could make some after the dragon leaves.”

“I’ll give you my number. Call me if you need a taste tester,” the dragon said, pulling a business card from his pocket and handing it to Papa bear.

“Guys, stop talking about granola. We need to find out what happened to Goldilocks!” Baby bear stomped his feet.

“Oh. Right.” The dragon got up and stretched. “Goldilocks ate some really old pease porridge and got sick. So, she called in some substitutes. She’ll be gone all week.”

Mama bear started making the bed. “Oh, the poor child. She never could resist good porridge. How old was it?”

“Nine days old. Can you believe it? I’m not sure how it lasted that long without being eaten.” The dragon smiled a wide, toothy smile. “Well, it was nice to meet you all, but I have an appointment with a princess.”

“Bye!” Mama and Papa bears waved happily at the departing dragon as he leaped from the window and flew away.

“Wasn’t he nice?” Mama bear said. “I wonder who will come tomorrow?”

“Let’s make some granola. Do you think we should add coconut?” Papa bear rubbed his paws together as he followed Mama bear down the stairs. “This will be fun.”

Baby bear rolled his eyes and followed them downstairs. “Let’s fix my chair first, or it will be broken tomorrow when the substitute comes, and then what will they do?”

The next morning, after the usual walk and subsequent discovery of missing granola and broken furniture, Baby bear threw the covers on his bed back a little more cautiously than usual. “…And there…is a goat?”

The goat stood up on the bed and tossed back his horns. “That’s right, it is I, the littlest billy goat Gruff!”

“Nice to meet you,” Mama bear said. “But please don’t stand on the furniture.”

“Sorry about that,” the goat said, hopping off the bed. “I guess I was more nervous than I thought. Do you have any trolls you need me to toss around?”

“Nope,” Papa bear said. “But we have a barrel of granola in the kitchen.”

“I wouldn’t mind more. The granola in the littlest bowl was just right. It would only be better if I had an apple to eat with it.”

Baby bear pointed out the window. “That’s an apple tree right there. Have as many apples as you’d like.”

“Really? I’ll take a few with me, then. I’m meeting my brothers at a bridge on the other side of the valley. The grass is greener there, you know.” The goat jumped from the window into the tree and stuffed his pockets full of apples before jumping down and trit-trotting away.

The rest of the week was just as strange. There was a princess who pricked her finger on a fork and fell asleep at the table. She didn’t wake up until they put a pea under the chair cushion. She left complaining about bruises.

Then there were the seven grumpy little men who were crowded on the little bed when the bears got home. They were still hungry after splitting the three bowls of granola. “We were promised breakfast, and we won’t leave until we get some so bring it right here,” one of them said. When they finally left, Baby bear’s bed was full of crumbs.

On Friday, there was no one in the bed, but there was a mermaid in the bathtub. “I ran out of magic potion,” she told them. “Do you have any?” The bears did not have any magic potion, but the witch next door had some so the mermaid was able to leave. “I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to break the chair or sleep in your bed,” she told Baby bear.

“That’s okay,” Baby bear said. “Some days are like that.”

On Monday, Baby bear threw the covers back. “…And there she is! Hey, it really is her.” Goldilocks was back.

“It’s me,” she said. “But where was the porridge? I don’t really like granola, you know.”

“Sorry,” Papa bear said. “We made more than expected. But, I know someone who might like it. We’ll be back to porridge tomorrow.”

“Good. Well, time to go,” Goldilocks said. She jumped out the window and ran away.

“It was fun meeting new people, but it’s nice to have her back,” Mama bear said fondly as she made the bed.

“I’ll go call the dragon about the barrel of granola,” Papa bear said, heading towards the stairs.

Baby bear hurried after him. “Wait, you need to fix my chair first!”

And they lived happily every day after.

Dragon in Little Bear's bed.

Charlie’s Room: Missed Opportunity

Charlie was waiting by the door when Isaac got home. Before the door closed behind him, Charlie had already hurried forward and was waving a sheet of paper half an inch from his nose. “Dad, look at this!”

Isaac leaned back and took the paper. “Careful. I don’t want a paper cut on my nose.” He looked over the paper. “Is this the club list for next year?”

Charlie nodded. “It’s time to pick the club we want to be in after school next year, but we can only pick one.”
“Are you having a hard time choosing which one you want?”

“Yeeeeees.” Charlie sighed. “Mom says I should just pick whatever club my friends are in. But I have lots of friends, and they all want to be in different clubs.”

Isaac handed the paper back to Charlie and changed his shoes. “Are there any clubs you don’t want to join?”

“I don’t want the art club or the running club,” Charlie said, looking at the paper.

“Let’s get a pencil and lightly cross those out.” Isaac went through the living room to the alcove where his desk sat between the living room and kitchen. He took a pencil from the drawer and handed it to Charlie.

Together they traced their steps back to the living room. Isaac sat on the couch. Next to him, Charlie knelt in front of the coffee table and set his paper down. He looked through the list and crossed out the two clubs.

“What next?” Charlie asked.

“Tell me what you like about the other choices.”

Charlie held up the paper. “Hmmmm. I like the cooking club because I like to help you and Mom cook. And maybe we’ll get to eat what we make. I think the computer club plays video games sometimes. The board game club would just be fun. And the Lego club? I love Legos. And did you see that there’s a dinosaur club?”

“It sounds like there are a lot of fun choices.”

Charlie set the paper down with a sigh. “Too many. Why can’t I do more than one?”

Isaac laughed. “Sometimes life is like that. Sometimes you have to make choices when all options sound good.”

“But how do you choose?”

“That’s really up to you.” Isaac picked up the paper and looked at it. “Maybe you could pick something you don’t get to do at home. Learning something new can be fun.”

Charlie took the list back. “I guess I already belong to a dinosaur club. And my dinosaur club is the best club ever. I can ask my friends what they do in the school club, and if they have any good ideas, then I can just copy them.” Charlie crossed out the dinosaur club.

“Good plan. What else?”

“We can cook the cooking club recipes at home. And play the same games. I can play with Legos whenever I want.” Charlie began crossing more things off.

Isaac looked over his shoulder. “Well done. There aren’t many options left.”

“If I sign up for band, I’d need to get an instrument.” Charlie’s pencil hovered over band.

“We could do that,” Isaac said.

“But if I sign up for band, I can’t be in the robotics club.” Charlie frowned. “Dad, did you ever have to make a decision like this?”

Isaac thought for a moment. “Once I had a friend who lived far away on an island. He wanted me to come visit, but I knew it was kind of hard to travel there and back. I was worried about getting home if I went, so I never visited.”

“Never?” Charlie looked surprised. “But how was that choosing between two good things?”

“I stayed home, and I was safe,” Isaac said.

Charlie raised an eyebrow. “That’s not the same thing at all. He looked back at his paper. If I choose band, could I play the clarinet?”

“Of course you can,” Isaac said. “I think that’s a great choice. Why don’t you go let your mom know, and I’ll start checking the ads for used clarinets.”

Charlie grinned and ran out of the room. His shadow broke into two figures as he left the room, and one figure stayed behind. It put its hands on its hips.

“Hi, Peter,” Isaac said.

“I heard you telling a story about me,” Peter said. “But you made it so boring. You’ve gotten so old, Isaac.”

Isaac grinned. “And you’re so little now. Remember when I was shorter than you?”

Peter laughed. “You were tiny. Now you’d fit in with the pirates. Do you want me to see if they have an opening?”

“No, thank you.”

“You’re missing out. We have a lot of fun.”

Isaac looked around the living room. “We have a lot of fun here too. I think I’ll choose to stay here again.”

The shadow shrugged its shoulders. “If that’s what you want.” The shadow slowly disappeared. Isaac took out his phone and started to search for a used clarinet.

Try, Try Again

When trying to learn something on your own, it is important to spend some time on figuring out how you learn best. I think that most people have a combination of strategies that they use when learning something new. It can be helpful to analyze why and how those strategies work for you so that you can use them more effectively.

Since I was young, I felt like I learned best from reading. This was especially true if there were pictures to look at. One memorable example was learning to knit from books. Books are still one of the first resources I turn to when learning something new.

One of the least effective ways for me to learn is from lectures. To compensate, I learned to take very thorough notes in school. It’s a habit that has continued, and I find that I remember and learn more by taking notes, even if I never go back to reread them.

Superficially, this would tell me to always learn new things from books and avoid classrooms altogether. However, this is not really the most effective way for me to learn. To figure out how I best learn, I had to analyze why books work so much better for me than lectures.

One of my cartoons. Find more of my humor on my Cartoons Page.

When I read, I pause often to think about what I read. I visualize the process. I think about how it connects to what I already know. I turn back several pages to check on something I remember reading to see if it relates to what I just read.

In a lecture, my mind is making all the same leaps. Unfortunately, the information keeps coming, even when my brain is on pause. When I take notes, it forces me to focus on writing down the information and staying on task. My mind still sometimes wanders, but it isn’t for as long, and I can usually pick up what I missed to fill in the holes in my notes. I have to think about the information later, often while checking back over my notes to make connections.

My way of taking notes.

When I am learning to do something new, my first attempt usually doesn’t go well. Failure, while not fun, is part of the process. I then go back to check what I learned to see where I went wrong. Books, especially books with diagrams, usually have lots of information that I can go through to compare to my attempt. I make a hypothesis on what I need to fix, and try again.

Lectures, because of time constraints, have less information to go through. An hour of lecture could fill less than a chapter of a good book. Books are more helpful when things go wrong.

A couple of my daily practice sketches from January 2019.

However, actually seeing something done really helps with visualizing what I need to do. Instead of trying to piece it all together through descriptions and diagrams, I can see exactly how it works. The problem is that demonstrations usually make things look easier than they are. It’s hard to reproduce that on my own.

Seeing something done, thinking it through and visualizing it, attempting it on my own, then getting feedback on what I did wrong, and trying again? That is really how I learn best. Books and lectures are just the vehicles for the information that I need.

Looking at that process, how I really learn, I can see many other ways I can best accomplish it. Finding a mentor might be the most effective way for me to learn. YouTube videos and google searches could be valuable if done right.

Knowing how I really learn best can help me be creative in how I learn. I can be more effective with the time I have. This is one of the great advantages of self study.

Practicing is a necessary step in the learning process. Samuel Johnson once said that, “By writing, you learn to write.” Putting what I’ve learned into practice is the ultimate test to see how well I’m really learning. If I can’t use the information I have, the information isn’t very helpful after all.

But studying is an important partner to that practice. Without new information, you are attempting to slowly reinvent what others have already learned and shared. Learning from the people who have gone before you can save you so much time.

I love to learn new things. There is such a feeling of accomplishment when I do something I couldn’t do before. That moment when I understand something that didn’t make sense to me, that feeling of the last puzzle piece clicking into place, is so rewarding. Learning how I learn best makes the entire process easier and less frustrating so that I can get to the good part of learning that much faster.

How do you learn best? Has that changed over time? Does it change depending on what you’re learning? Do you like to learn new things?

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