I Am a . . . ?

I AM A  . . . ?

by Philip Cooper

(age 10)

Hi! My name is Jumpy. My family and I live in a forest called Biggy's Bountiful Backyard. It is named after a guy named Powerful Biggy. The “Backyard” is about as big as a small town.

When I was born, I was named Powerful Biggy too, which is not peculiar because all babies are named Powerful Biggy when they are born. It is because the person the forest's named after, Powerful Biggy, buried all of his nuts in this area so trees could grow. Up sprang the oak trees, down came the nuts. 

Of course, he wasn’t the only one, but he planted about a third of them. He and his buddies must have liked one particular spot because there are two acres of trees there, but that belongs to our “government” and I will explain why later. The adults name their kids Powerful Biggy, even girls! As their children grow, though, their parents look for a characteristic of their children. Then they name them that characteristic. I guess Powerful Biggy was REALLY BIG AND STRONG.

In the same way, I jump around a lot and once even jumped out of our tree so it is no surprise that my name is Jumpy.

 It is end of the harvest month (It is the beginning of November for humans) so we’ve been gathering food for a long time. 

After we gather enough food, an inspector will come and make sure we have enough food. Inspectors don’t like coming here because we have never failed inspection. They usually have twenty-five homes to go to so they never like it when a specific home keeps on passing inspection. One guy even simply placed his inspector sticker on the tree without setting a foot inside and thoroughly inspecting our food supply. Being an inspector is a tough job so the inspectors are paid with food for the winter. That is where those two acres of trees come in, supplying thousands and thousands of acorns to the “government”.    

 We fill our home with a ton of acorns along with a bit of seeds and conifer cones. Since we have a large home, we can fill it with more food than an average home can hold. All this food leaves little room to sleep, but we don't care. We have food so we are happy.

 There are a lot of blue jays. I do NOT like blue jays. They like to steal our acorns. It is a good thing I have many siblings, because now we can take turns guarding our home. I have eleven siblings to be exact. Even so, blue jays still get to our acorns. After all, they can fly and we can't. As a result, my big brother and I raid bluejay nests and take back acorns. Those pesky bluejays like to take more acorns then they need just to spite us. So we leave just enough for them. Then we take what we need and give the rest to poor people. Not all blue jays are bad though. I have a friend who is a blue jay, but that is a different story. Three blue jay families always try to steal from us, so that is who I am talking about.

I have to get back to work. A bluejay stole some acorns so I guess Wolverine (named for his small size, but ferociousness) and I will get back to work. See you around!  

If you are between the ages of 4-14, (or know someone who likes to write stories)
I would like to post your story here. Send me an email. I'd love to read your story!

 Signed,

Wiggles the Polliwog