The Eye That Lived

Written for a Storytelling & Bookmaking field trip with Mr. Carter's 3rd-grade class from PS 321

4/11/06

"Umbday! Fetch me some people and make them kids!" said Slimy the eyeball monster to his brother. They lived in a dark, dark cave on top of Mount Everest. Slimy wanted the children so he could use their eyeballs and suck out their brains. Slimy collected the eyeballs to build action figures of himself, as a spare when his eyeballs fell out, to improve his own vision, to look scarier for defense purposes, to use as attack weapons, and for dessert after the brains!

Umbday had been sleeping for five hours. He woke up to Slimy screaming, "Where is my food? It's been FIVE hours!"

Being a little dumb, Umbday said, "Huh? What? Where? What was I supposed to do?" Umbday sleepily walked down to one of the shutes going from the cave to the village beneath. He walked around the stick-built houses looking for little boys and girls for Slimy. Slimy had already eaten most of the children, so there weren't many left. Finally, he spotted a juicy little boy and girl sitting by the river.

Being a little dumb, Umbday said, "Come here little children. I want to take you back to the cave so we can play tag before my brother eats you." The children looked suspiciously at Umbday. Thinking again, he decided to take it back and invite them to play tag by the river. Unfortunately for Umbday, the children were too smart for his lies. They quickly ran away. Trying to follow them, Umbday tripped over a stone and fell into the water. "Ahhhh! My eyes! It hurts! It burns! It stings! Ouch!!!!!" he cried.

Luckily for him, Slimy came down to the village to find out what was taking so long. When he saw his dumber brother in the water, he scolded, "Not again! This is the eighth time this week!" Slimy pulled Umbday out of the water and gave him new eyes to make him feel better. Together, they spotted some more children.

Slimy caught these children by himself and took them back to the cave. Before leaving the village, he told Umbday, "I'm not helping you anymore. From now on, it's your problem if you get stuck in a river or can't find any children's eyeballs to eat!"

Umbday felt very ashamed of himself. He started to think about his life at that moment. He realized he had been pronouncing his name wrong his entire life. He realized he'd been falling into the river too many times, and had been going down the wrong shute from the cave. He never slept enough, except for when he slept too much. And worst of all, he'd been eating children's eyeballs all his life!

Then he decided to...