A reproduction of stories told by the Farmer to his children:
Once upon a time there was a boy named Sam and a girl named Sarah who lived in a big white house with a green roof in the middle of a forest with tall trees all around. There was a road that ran by their house and through the forest, and if you followed the road far enough, you get to the highway, and if you followed the highway far enough you get the town of Centerville.
One morning, Sam and Sarah woke up and looked out the window upstairs between their rooms. It was a bright sunny day in summer.
“What do you want to do today?” Sarah asked Sam, her younger brother.
“I don’t know. What do you want to do today?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we could go for an adventure walk?” Sarah suggested.
“An adventure walk. Not again. We did that two days ago.”
“Well, then you come up with an idea. I don’t know what to do.”
Just then, they heard their mom call from downstairs. “Sam…Sarah…breakfast will be ready soon, get dressed and come down stairs.”
So Sam and Sarah got up and got dressed for the day. Only Sam couldn’t find his shoes. He looked under his bed. They weren’t there. He looked under his dirty clothes. They weren’t there. He looked in the toy box. They weren’t there. Frustrated, he sat down on the floor and gave up.
Sarah came back up stairs. “You’d better hurry. Breakfast is ready and mom says you need to come now or you will miss breakfast and we are having waffles!”
“I can’t find my shoes! I’ve looked everywhere.”
Being a nice sister, Sarah offered to help look. She looked in the closet. But they were not there. She looked in the hallway. But they were not there. She looked through the drawers in their room. But they were not there.
“Where did you put them??” Sarah asked.
“If I knew that, I wouldn’t be looking for them.” Sam was sad. But he didn’t want to miss waffles, so he went down stairs without his shoes.
When he sat down at the table he asked his Dad. “Have you seen my shoes? I can’t find them anywhere?”
Dad was reading the paper and shook his head. “Mom, have you seen my shoes?”
“Nope, not since yesterday when you came into the house with mud all over them and I told you to clean them up. Did you do that?”
Sam nodded. But he couldn’t remember what he did with them after he cleaned them.
Waffle breakfast was one of the special breakfasts that dad makes. Usually, Sam and Sarah could smell them all the way upstairs when it was waffle morning. Dad would make special waffles with banana or pumpkin in them, and sometimes he’d even add chocolate chips. Sam and Sarah loved waffle mornings.
Sam sat quiet while he listened to mom and dad talk about what they were doing that day. Then Mom asked, “What are you two going to do today?”
Sarah answered. “We don’t know. We can’t agree on what to do.”
“That’s because you want to go on an adventure walk again and we’ve already done that alot this summer.”
“I asked you what you wanted to do, but you didn’t have any ideas.”
“Well, it’s not my job to always figure out what to do.”
“That’s enough now, you two. I have a lot of cleaning to do today and so I want the two of you outside after breakfast.” Mom told them.
“First, I have to find my shoes.” Sam pouted.
When breakfast was over, mom helped look for Sam’s shoes. She looked in the porch, but they were not there. She looked in the living room, but they were not there. She looked in the bathroom, but they were not there.
Finally, she went up stairs to look in their bedroom again. She looked around and didn’t find them. She paused at the window to look outside at the yard when something on the roof caught her eye. “SAM!” Mom yelled.
Sam came running up the stairs. “Did you find them?”
Mom stood at the window pointing outside. Sam suddenly remembered. “That’s right! I put them out on the roof to dry after I cleaned them.”
Mom shook her head as Sam ventured out the large window to get his shoes. As he bounded down the stairs he called back. “Thanks Mom.”
Once Sam was outside, he found Sarah and they went to the red building. “What are we doing here?” Sam asked.
“I thought I’d ride my bike while I waited for you to find your shoes. But since you’re here, do you want to ride with me?”
“Sure.”
Sam and Sarah rode their bikes around the yard for a while, but soon they got bored. “Why don’t we ride them down the path for awhile?” Sam suggested.
“Okay, but first we have to go tell mom where we are going. You know the rules.”
After telling mom, they road down the path. When they came to the fork in the path, Sam pulled over to the edge of the path and reached into his jacket. “Here. I got these while you told mom where we were going.” He pulled out two walkie talkies.
“I’ll go east, you go west and we will see who makes it back to the house first.”
“You know we are not supposed to leave each other alone in the forest, Sam.”
“With these, we aren’t really alone. If anything happens, use the walkie talkie to call the other person.”
Sarah wasn’t so sure that was right, but she wanted to race Sam, so she took the walkie talkie.
“On your mark, get set, go!” They took off each down their own path.
At first, everything was going okay. But after a few minutes, Sarah remembered the west path had been blocked with a fallen tree. She was sure that was why Sam gave her that path to begin with. When she came to the fallen tree, she found a small path between broken pieces that she could get her bike through. Feeling pretty confident, she started pedaling hard to make up the distance she lost in crossing the fallen tree. But she wasn’t really paying attention and suddenly her front bike tire started wobbling and she lost control as she sped down a small hill. Sarah went flying off the bike as she crashed into the ditch beside the path. Her arm hurt really bad and he bike wheel was all bent with the tire flat.
She laid there for awhile before she tried her walkie talkie. “Hey Sam. Are you there?” “Sam? Can you hear me?”
“Hahahaha. I hear you but I don’t see you! And since I’m back at the house, I win!”
“Ya, because you sent me down the path with the fallen tree! That was unfair. Anyway, I crashed my bike. I need help.”
“Hey. I didn’t do that on purpose. I forgot about the fallen tree. Are you hurt?”
“Just my arm. But I don’t think I can push my bike back home. The tire is really messed up. You are going to have to get dad.”
“Dad? But then he’ll know we weren’t together.”
“Sam, my arm really hurts. Can you please get help?”
Sam put his bike away and went to the house to tell mom. Mom called dad and soon Sam and Dad were looking for Sarah. They found her cuddled up in the ditch only half a mile from where the path joins together again and turns back to the house. Dad first looked at Sarah’s arm and decided it was probably just a sprained wrist. Then he helped get her bike back to the house.
That night before bed, Dad had a talk with them both about why the rules are in place and why they needed to follow them. Because they didn’t obey, they couldn’t go into the forest for the next few days. As dad turned off the lights and left, Sam called out. “Sarah, I’m sorry you got hurt. I won’t ask you to disobey the rules again.”
“Thanks Sam. Good night.”
Stay tuned for more stories as I get them approved by the Farmer :0)
mdschlatterbooks.com 