Learn the Dictionary through prose

A Better Children’s Novel
(c) Robert Reeder, 2000

A certain morning of a certain springtime, an aardvark slowly crossed a dusty road. This normally would not be of note, but the animal was taken aback by what it observed on the other side. Wedged between gnarled branches of a rotting tree was a small framework strung with movable beads. It was an abacus, and it was held captive by the branching growth of the large tree. The aardvark thought to himself, in aardvarkese, "I’ve beheld calculators and computers discarded by the wayside, but never an abacus!" He then wandered on, pausing only briefly during his day’s journey to let a colorful parrot move across his path. The parrot was lost, and not having much birdsense, was on foot for much of his journey. He had most recently spent time on a pirate’s ship, where he was the default mascot for the leader of the gang of seafaring ruffians. They called themselves "pirouettes," thinking mistakenly that it sounded more cultured. During a roaring squall, where the parrot spent most of the time squawking and shouting for crackers in a transvestite manner, he was washed abaft and then overboard. Washed up on the sandy shores of an uncharted island, he survived for several days on a steady diet of salted abalone. He soon abandoned the shoreline in search of better meals, more parrot-worthy. It should be noted that the pirates did do their level best to search out their overboard avian companion, once they had learned of his disappearance. They dragged the seabottom for his feathered carcass, but only found old boots and waterlogged tires. One particularly dedicated swashbuckler even abased himself to be keelhauled as a sacrifice to Neptune. He was that bored. This, however, did not abate Poseidon’s fury, and the misplaced pet was not seen for many years, when the old salts had a salty reunion at Devil’s Skull Island. Returning to the story of the pirates’ parrot Pauly, we learn that he was too disconcerted and abashed to share lunch with the tree dwelling simians he met. To abate his substantial hunger, he took to digging for grubs and roots.