Zappy’s Adventure

Son and SJ Shoemaker
Word Count: 734
5/7/2023

While out at dinner the other night, my son took to drawing a story on the back of his menu. He was particularly entranced by the end result and asked me to write out the story for him. Below is his story. While I helped with word choice and sentence structure, the characters and events are entirely his creation. Enjoy!

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Once upon a time, there was a broken world. Dark clouds covered the lands and blotted out the sun. Lightning strikes were a constant occurrence, and the air rumbled with thunderous booms. Plants died away and rivers ran with lava.

The world had not always been this way. Before the evil fairies came. It was once a peaceful and prosperous land. And perhaps it could be once again, if only the evil fairy antics could be stopped. And there was one creature who held the potential to do just that.

Zappy was a kind blue squirrel. He was so friendly and sweet he could calm the storms for a time, until the evil fairy of the forest found him and drove him away. Over and over again, he would find a place to calm the storms and stop the lightning, but before the dark clouds could part and reveal the sun, the evil fairy would chase him away and zap him with his wand.

But not all fairies were evil. There was a good one too, who wandered from place to place looking for anyone who he could help. And one day he came upon Zappy and saw what he could do. It was then that he had an idea. If he could help Zappy, then Zappy could help everyone else in the forest. So he used all of his power to turn the evil fairy into a little turtle.

“There,” he said. “Now the evil fairy will not bother you.”

But as he turned to leave, the good fairy dropped a small device with three buttons on it. A green one, a blue one, and a yellow one. Zappy inspected the strange device and tried pressing the three buttons, but they were broken. Nothing happened when he pressed them. It would take quite a bit of research to fix it, and Zappy would need help from his friends.

With the evil fairy no longer a threat, Zappy decided to calm the nearby storm. He asked nicely for the thunder and lightning to stop and they did. Then he asked nicely for the clouds to part and they did. And the sun could finally be seen. On the other side of the dark clouds that had been there for so long, there was a bird, flying in circles. He thanked Zappy because now he could finally see the ground so he could land. His wings were very tired.

When he landed, he said “Hey, I think I’ve got a research part from you. Maybe it’ll help.”

Zappy used the part to repair the yellow button. And when he pressed it this time, the darkness cleared away all across the forest. It was yellow like the sun and turned the dark to light. So, Zappy knew he needed to find more research parts to fix the other two buttons. But where could he find them?

He thought, “I know!” And rushed toward the river.

There he found a small green house. And inside lived the turtle who was once an evil fairy. Now he was an evil turtle. He knew about the device that the good fairy had left, but he didn’t want to tell Zappy because he was evil. So Zappy asked him to play a game. If Zappy won, he said the turtle had to give him another research part. So they played tic-tac-toe. But no one won. It was a tie.

But, as Zappy turned to leave, the evil turtle said “Here you go.” He gave Zappy another research part because “It was so nice to play a game with my friend.”

So Zappy repaired the blue button. And when he pushed it, the lava turned back to water. So the rivers were fixed.

That was when the good fairy came back. He was looking for the device he dropped. And when he saw all the work that Zappy had done, he decided to leave it. He gave Zappy the last research part, and he repaired the green button with it. When he pushed the button, all the evil fairies were made good fairies again. Because green means good. And the good fairy was so impressed with Zappy, he gave him a blue statue. It had spikes on its head and a fire in its hand. And there were even more buttons for Zappy to fix with research on his next adventure.