Children’s Section

Here is one of my children’s stories.

The Adventures of Velma and Vivian

This series is about a couple of raccoons and the antics that they get themselves into. This idea came to me by the antics of a couple of real life raccoons that I have living in my forest.

This particular Adventure for the female duo came to life after I caught them on the deck sniffing around the grill.

Not only is this story safe for work, it has been toddler tested and parent approved.

So, here is one of many installments of,

“The Adventures of Velma and Vivian,

Tasty Morsels”

Copyrite 2012

            Velma and Vivian were raccoons. They are also very good friends. One could say that they are close enough to be sisters. They have had many adventures together. They are inseparable, Velma, a simple, sensible, and selfless raccoon who analyzed everything before she acted was the Ying as Vivian was the Yang. Vivian was impulsive, impractical, and very, very vain. They had a lot of fun in their adventures together, this adventure was no different. This night was no different than any other night of their foraging for the nightly meals. They always looked for something tastier than the last meal. With every opportunity that they had for finding more food, they always returned to the pond behind the big garage and fished for the tastiest swimming morsels. They enjoyed these best as they could also wash their meal and not have to search for water. The pond reaped the tastiest little pinching treats that lived in the bottom of the pond.

This night they had fished and ate, but the treats were not as plentiful as night’s pasts, and their stomachs were still hungry. They continued their hunt for food. They found themselves trudging through the woods until they met a path. They followed the path until they lumbered up to a tall white barn. They walked around the barn but found no way in. They crawled under the barn but found no access there either. A short distance away, they saw a much larger, but shorter building. They explored this with no luck of gaining access inside. They could smell something delicious but couldn’t locate just where the yummy odor was coming from. They found six large round barrels that smelled like food, fire, and other things, but not the yummy smells that they were being surrounded with. They found what they thought might have something tasty inside. They knocked it over but the lid stayed on. Velma pulled while Vivian bit at the cover trying to free the tasty smelling things inside. This was abandon when they couldn’t breach the round folder of its food. Now one must remember that even though raccoons are smart in their own right, they are really not to smart when you compare them to other forest inhabitants. Squirrels were highly intelligent by comparison, whereas the skink was a really stupid animal, the only thing that might disguise how stupid the skunk is might be covered by their meanness. And the smell they release is nauseating. It is no wonder why they are so lonely.

Velma continued to smell something different, it smelled somewhat like the treats from the pond but it was different somehow. She had trouble identifying it. Velma walked around trying to locate where the smell was coming from. It seemed to some from everywhere. She walked around the garage again trying to follow the smell. She saw a porch on the house that went around half of the large house. Vivian lumbered up behind her with her nose high in the air. She could smell the delicious odor coming from somewhere. She stopped when she bumped into Velma. They both looked at the large house and on the porch stood a man in front of a smoking silver box. The smoke was coming straight toward them, though the only thing that got to where they were standing was the delicious odor of what he was cooking.

They knew better than to walk up to the large figure, he might misunderstand and try to hurt them. He closed the top, turned, and waked through a large sliding window.

Vivian ran toward the porch.

Velma reluctantly ran and caught up to her just as she reached the porch. Velma stopped as Vivian bounded upon the porch. She was just reaching up to see how hard she was going to jump when the clear door began to slide open and she saw a foot. He stopped and went back inside. Vivian leapt from the porch and dived under it next to Velma. They waited as the man came back outside and opened the lid to the silver box. The smell, both Velma and Vivian determined, was heavenly. It smelled of the tasty treats they fished for at the pond. But it was different somehow. The man, they saw, was removing several sticks from under the lid when he dropped two of the sticks. Each one had several of the favorite treats on each one. The man grumbled and complained, picked up the fallen delectables and placed them in a tall white container beside the heated box. He turned and entered the home. While he was inside, Vivian jumped up and looked to see if she were tall enough to reach the top. Fully stretched, she could barely reach the top of the container. The glass opened and she ducked behind the box then crawled back under the porch as he placed more of the sticks on top of the box. The smell was almost too much for Vivian to bear.

The man closed the lid and went back inside, Velma and Vivian both looked over the edge at the large glass. Not seeing anyone, Vivian jumped up and polled over the can and extracted the two sticks of the water treats and dived back under the porch. Vivian gave one of the sticks to Velma and they both nibbled the meat and veggies off the sticks until they were clean. The only thing that would have made the meal perfect would have been to be able to wash the food first.

The door opened and the man spoke, picked up the can and opened the lid on the heated box. Busying himself inside the lid then he closed it and went back inside, then coming back out, he placed a bowl of water and a box below the heated box and he removed the sticks from inside the lid. He dropped two sticks on the porch and went inside. He then slid the glass window closed and pulled the curtain over so Velma and Vivian couldn’t see in. He came back out and placed more sticks and some green things under the lid and closed it, then he put something on the table and went back inside.

The twosome waited, seeing nothing happening, both hopped on the porch and grabbed the sticks. They had eaten two of the water treats and the yummy vegetables when they suddenly stopped and looked at each other with their mouths hanging open. Vivian was panting heavily as she ran to the bowl and sniffed the water. She buried her whole snout under the water. Soon Velma had followed suit and both were drinking noisily trying to calm the fire that had been lighted inside. They were confused as they heard laughing from inside the house. They heard another voice angrily reprimanding the man for being so mean. The sliding glass opened and the man stepped out. Vivian and Velma jumped off the porch, confused as to why it felt that they had eaten fire. The man spent some time at the box then walked out to the corner of the garage, placed something down and walked back to the porch and back inside the house. The woman, shorter than the man was looking sternly at the man and wagging her finger at him as he looked sadly at her.

Velma and Vivian looked at the porch, but the sticks they had been eating were gone. The fire was slowly going away as they crawled from under the porch and headed toward the garage. Velma smelled it first, then Vivian. It was the sticks! They followed the smells over to where the man had walked. On a white plate was four sticks, they smelled too good to pass up. Velma sniffed and tasted, the fire wasn’t in these sticks. They tasted better than the first two sticks as Vivian dived in and ate noisily, smacking her lips as she devoured each morsel on the stick. Velma looked at the house and saw the man and a woman standing in the big sliding glass window watching them. She jumped at first but found that they were staring at each other. Vivian asked what was wrong. Velma said nothing and continued to eat when the door stayed closed.

They finished and both returned and looked at the house then lumbered into the woods. They wandered around and did the things that raccoons normally do. They groomed, they preened, and they looked at their reflection in the pond. Vivian turned her head first one way then the other admiring her mask. She looked straight into her reflection, and then washed her face. Some time had passed since they had eaten when Vivian spoke.

“I’m getting hungry Velma, what about you?”

“A little, let’s fish for our favorites.” Velma replied noticing that Vivian was looking back in the direction of the house where they had eaten the delicious sticks. “I doubt you’ll find any more of those sticks. We could look, but I’m not hopeful.”

“It’s worth a look anyway. We might find something else if not that.” Vivian said.

They made their way back to the house and noted that the windows were dark. They watched the house for quite a while before approaching the long porch. They smelled around the ground and the hypnotizing odor seemed to emanate from the porch. They looked at the windows again. They were still dark as they climbed the porch, sniffing around until Velma stopped at the can beside the big silver box. She stood tall and sniffed the top of the can. She pushed it over and rummaged through its contents. Not much to smell, and even less to eat. Vivian had found a way up to the top of the box. The lid was open; she noticed how cold the box was now but still smelled so wonderful. She reached out and grabbed at some things that were stuck on the bars. It was delicious. She pulled up some more. It took some effort to pull some of it off. When she pulled hard, it broke free, the box shook then her worst nightmare became reality.

The lid slammed shut causing Vivian and Velma to jump. Velma dived from the  porch hiding to see what was going to happen next. She waited for Vivian, but she didn’t show, but she could hear her calling out and heard her thrashing around. Velma looked around and couldn’t find Vivian; she narrowed her search to around the cooking box. She could hear her, but couldn’t find her. She kept circling her but was not able to locate her friend. Finally she decided to look on top of the box. She climbed up and then she heard Vivian calling out from under the lid.

“Vivian, are you okay?”

“I don’t know what to do, can you push up on the lid?” she asked.

“I don’t know Velma, let me try.” Vivian pushed up and the lid opened a little bit. Velma grabbed at the open corner and lifted. It opened some more. She kept lifting until Vivian could get out.

She looked at Vivian, being Vivian, and being a raccoon that is easily distracted, spotted a piece of food and went for it. Velma, who had managed to get under the lid to help Vivian get out, now struggled under the extra weight of the lid, grunted once, then ducked when the lid came crashing down trapping both of them.

Velma ducked as the lid slammed shut. Now both were in the dark, delicious smelling trap. She tried to look at Vivian who was crunching the new found morsel.

“What? Said Vivian then continued chewing.

“We need to get out of here; I need your undivided attention and help.” Velma said.

“What do you want me to do?” she said foraging for another morsel.

“We need to open the lid and crawl out.” Velma said.

They pushed up but couldn’t quite get the proper leverage to open the lid of the box high enough to get out. So, they sat. Vivian sat, content, munching on the toasty crisps of food remnants that cooked onto the grill and stayed when the food was removed. Vivian would grab a piece and peel these remnants while Velma tried to find a way out. Unfortunately, the only way out was the way they got in. they had tried a couple more times to open the lid without success. Vivian was running out of food to eat and was rapidly being visited by that ever so dependent drone called depression.

They heard a noise of a car pulling up the drive, stop and got quiet. Two doors opened and then closed. Velma recognized the voices of the man and woman that lived here. Vivian, too busy pulling the crispy treats from the grill, did not hear the car pulling up and the occupants exiting from the confines of the automobile. Velma tried to shush Vivian. She had no idea what he would do if he caught them. They went inside and Velma rallied Vivian for another attempt at opening the lid to the grill. Once again, they were only able to push up the lid about two inches. It clanged back down and the two sat silent not knowing what the future held for them. The big door slid open with conversation between the two then ended when he closed the door.

The man stopped and stared at his prized man cave cooking appliance. The lid was closed. “Odd,” he thought, “I could have sworn I left that open.” He listened and didn’t hear anything from under the lid.

Velma and Vivian both noticed that the lid was slowly opening. Both sat up as the lid let light and space into the grill. The man’s face appeared, Vivian screamed, and Velma sat and waved at the man.

The man opened the grill seeing the two raccoons looking at him. One screamed and bolted from the grill causing the man to scream in like manner, flipping open the grill and step back against the wall of the house. He then stopped and noticed that the other raccoon seemed to be waving at him.

His back against the wall, the one raccoon bolted under the porch. Velma noticing Vivian’s absence followed suit. They stopped around the corner and they heard the door open and the woman ask the man if he was okay. He was still clutching his chest as he panted then began to laugh. After he told her what happened, she joined in laughing.

“You really need to write this stuff down. That’s hilarious, no one will believe it, but it is a great story.” She said.

When he calmed down he admitted thoughtfully, “You know that is a very good idea.”

“That was a very bad idea indeed!” Velma told Vivian regaining her breath. “We could have been killed or we could have starved to death. We stick to what we know, okay?”

Vivian nodded. She agreed that they must be more careful as they wandered back into the woods.

END?