Summer Bird Stories

Family-Friendly Short Stories, Cartoons, and Illustrations

Charlie’s Room: Musical Chair

It was a crisp fall morning. Isaac stood at the open door and breathed in the cool air. It smelled like damp earth and fallen leaves. High overhead, the sky was a brilliant blue, hidden only by a few fluffy white clouds.

Marianne and Charlie had already disappeared around the corner in their search for the prettiest leaves. Isaac stepped outside and closed the door behind him. He hadn’t been invited on today’s leaf hunt, but perhaps he could go out on a walk of his own. It was too nice out to stay inside all day.

He considered following Marianne and Charlie, but he didn’t want to intrude on their mother and son time. He knew how much he valued his time reading Charlie bedtime stories at night. He was growing up so quickly. Time seemed to go by faster and faster lately. Wasn’t it still summer last week?

Isaac turned the opposite corner, the cool fall day now feeling a little bittersweet. But, the trees were bright red and yellow and brown and orange. He soon slowed his pace and marveled at the variety of colors.

He rounded another corner and stopped. A yard sale? This late in the year? How unusual. The sign directed him down the driveway towards the garage. Read More

Isaac’s Adventures Underwater: Chapter Twenty-One

The dragon flapped its wings a few times. Then it jumped up into the air and flew in wide circles, spiraling higher and higher. Isaac held up a hand to shade his eyes so he could watch the dragon fly.

The dragon paused, just for a moment, and then he tucked his wings into his sides and dove almost straight down. He opened his wings at the bottom of his dive and careened towards Isaac.

His talons locked around Isaac’s shoulders and upper arms, and the dragon beat his wings against the air as they climbed higher and higher. Isaac looked down. The island seemed empty, except for the low wall that was now a thin line, dividing the island in half.

Isaac reached up and clutched the dragon’s ankles. “Please don’t drop me!” He shouted.

“Let go!” the dragon shrieked and tightened its grip on Isaac’s shoulders.

“Only if you put me down somewhere safe.”

“Not on my island!”

“Somewhere else then.” Isaac winced as he looked down. The island looked so far away. If he fell from here, he’d never get back home.

“Fine.” The dragon dove once more, and Isaac held on tight, closing his eyes against the biting wind.

And then his feet were touching something just as the dragon released his shoulders. Isaac let go and opened his eyes. It looked like he was standing in a wooden basket with sky all around him. His knees felt weak and he sat down suddenly.

The dragon was already spiraling higher. “Never come back,” he shouted as he flew away.

Isaac watched him go, and then crawled to the edge of the basket and looked down. He was in the crows nest of a ship. He stepped onto the rope ladder hanging nearby and climbed down to the deck of the ship.

A tall thin man with big bushy eyebrows was waiting on the deck, arms folded. “A stowaway? I’d send you the way of the bat and the owl I found hiding aboard my ship, but I can see that it’s already too late for you.”

“What do you mean?” Isaac asked.

“You can stand on the deck of my ship, and you’re squinting in the sunlight. You don’t see mist or a ghost ship or a skeleton crew, do you?”

Isaac looked around. The sun was shining, and the ship looked solid and deserted. “No, I don’t see any of that.”

“Then you’re one of us, those cursed to play the terrible game. I’d tell you to quit and go home, but it’s too late for you.” He shook his head. “Too late!” He yelled and shook his fist at the sky.

“Do you know the way home?” Isaac asked. “I thought we could go home once we found the party.”

“Not every one can, and few like what they find when they get there. Spending time between worlds like we do changes us. There’s no preventing that.”

“Between worlds?”

The man lifted a busy eyebrow. “Did you see more than a handful of people or animals on any of the islands?

Isaac shook his head.

“Of course not. You could only see the one between worlds like you are. People that didn’t quite belong in one place or another. And they were the only ones who could see you.”

The man held up a little pencil that was missing its eraser. “I found the party, a long, long time ago. They made me the king of wishes. I was so pleased. So foolish. They didn’t say that any of my wishes would come true in the way I expected them to.”

“What happened?” Isaac asked.

“I wrote all my wishes into a little book.” The man pulled a notebook out of his pocket. “And then I watched them all go wrong. I wished for a ship and crew. My crew fought constantly and couldn’t work together to sail the ship anywhere. I wished for my favorite meal. I now have an unlimited supply of roasted chicken that I’ve somehow become allergic to.”

“Did you wish to go home?” Isaac asked.

“I did, and now I’m half here and half there, on a ghost ship that is only real to those just as cursed as I am, forever between worlds.” The man put the notebook and pencil into his pockets.

“Can’t you wish you hadn’t come here?” Isaac asked.

“I can’t change the past. The words just vanish from the page.” The man looked sad. “The only thing that worked was to erase the wishes. But I lost the eraser somewhere, and I’ve spent so many years trying to retrace my steps.”

“But can’t you wish for the eraser?” Isaac asked.

“And risk destroying my only chance to fix this half-life?” The man glared at Isaac.

Isaac thought for a moment. “Have you met the queen of everything?” he asked.

 

Little Miss Please-Don’t-Laugh

Once there was a little girl who, sadly, developed an infectious laugh. This may sound like a nice thing, but it wasn’t. Every time she found something funny and started laughing, everyone around her felt compelled to join in and laugh until they felt sick.

All the laughing also left them susceptible to catching giggle pox. The whole town was immunized against them before she started school. Even so, it wasn’t uncommon to hear someone laughing at random intervals only to notice them scratching at little pink smiley faces trailing up their arm or across the bridge of their nose. An infectious laugh isn’t very nice at all.

At home, the little girl was called Mary, even though the rest of the town called her Little Miss Please-Don’t-Laugh. Her family loved her very much, and tried to raise Mary to be a serious child. They watched documentaries with her, read to her from the dictionary, and discussed philosophy at the dinner table.

Unfortunately, Mary had a naturally sunny disposition, and she managed to find the humor in even the most serious situation. There were days that her family spent so much time laughing themselves sick that they couldn’t eat anything from sunup to sundown. On one of these days, Mary’s mother laughed as she packed a large picnic basket of treats and managed to send Mary to go visit her grandmother for the day.

“Have fun,” she gasped out in-between chuckles. “Don’t talk to strangers. Come back in the evening after we’ve had a chance to rest. Give grandma a big hug from us.”

Mary happily took the basket and skipped out the door. She loved visiting her grandma. Grandma always let her stay inside and watch cartoons while she was busy outside hanging up the laundry or working in the garden. Mary loved cartoons. They were so much funnier than documentaries about the life-cycle of metamorphic rock.

On her way through the woods, Mary met a talking wolf. “Hello, little girl, where are you going?” he asked.

It was just like in the cartoons! She laughed just thinking about it. The wolf laughed too. “I’m going to grandma’s house,” she said cheerfully.

The wolf, still laughing, darted off into the forest. Mary chuckled and continued on her way. A talking wolf! It was so funny.

Grandma already had a basket of laundry waiting outside. Cartoons already! Mary squealed and hurried inside. Grandma wasn’t in the kitchen or living room. Was she in her bedroom? Mary knocked on the open door and skipped inside.

“Grandma?” she said, looking around. Grandma was in bed, but she looked so funny! Her face was all furry and she had big teeth. Mary smiled widely and took a deep breath.

“Little miss, please don’t laugh,” Grandma said in a scratchy voice.

“That’s me!” Mary said, and she laughed and laughed and laughed.

Grandma laughed too and stumbled out of the room. She came in a little later, looking a lot more like herself. “Mary, you saved me from the terrible wolf!”

“What terrible wolf?” Mary asked.

“Never mind. Do you want to watch cartoons?”

And so Mary watched cartoons and ate the treats that her mom sent over. Grandma turned down her hearing aid and finished hanging up the laundry.

Not many years later, Mary temporarily grew out of her infectious laugh. She became a teenager and played angry music and sighed and rolled her eyes whenever anyone said anything funny. The town celebrated.

When she grew up a little more and went to college and another town had to be immunized against giggle pox, the townspeople all smiled at the news. “That’s our Little Miss Please-Don’t-Laugh.” They raised enough money to send her far, far away for an internship when she finished her degree.

Mary found a job in her new city and settled down. The townspeople breathed a sigh of relief. Except when she came home to visit. Then they laughed themselves sick, of course.