32The Peanut Butter Chronicles Book 1:
Of Wizards and Giant Butterflies
Written by R.E.D. the Animator, co-written by Double AA, and Beta-read by .
Chapter One
Many, many years ago, before the invention of the computer (as hard as it is to believe, there was once a time before computers existed), before the discovery of America, before the founding of the Greek or Roman Empires, and even before the invention of the hot-dog, the world was a different place, people lived differently than they do today. There were different laws and customs back then. There were even different laws of physics. But customs aside, our story will be following a seemingly insignificant person as they unknowingly set out to change the world for the better.
"Get me my flip flops!" snapped Grandpa Redcap to his grandson, David Redcap.
"I can't find them," protested David, "the cat must have got them."
"How am I supposed to do my thinking without my flip flops?" asked Grandpa Redcap.
"Just use your sandals," suggested David.
"Sandals?" asked Grandpa Redcap. "Sandals are meant for the beach, David. Do you want me thinking about the beach while I should be doing my precious thinking?"
"No, Grandpa," said David with his head down. "I'll go find your flip flops."
David ran out of the room. Grandpa Redcap sat down in his favorite springy armchair.
"That boy would never get far in the real world." said Grandpa Redcap to no one in particular.
"I disagree," said a sinister voice from inside a coat closet. (For some reason scary things like being in closets.)
"You!" gasped Grandpa Redcap as he reached for his walking stick, but a sword quickly chopped it in half before he could get it.
"So you've been hiding here all along have you?"
"I found your flip flops, Grandpa," called David a few minutes later. "They were up in the pine tree again. Grandpa?"
The room was silent. David cautiously walked through. Then he saw him.
"Grandpa!" shouted David as he ran over to Grandpa Redcap. "What happened to you?!"
"Help!" said Grandpa Redcap. "I've fallen and I can't get up!"
"You're not wearing your Life Alarm are you?"
(Studies have shown that 70 percent of all seniors who fall down and can't get up, are never near enough to a phone to call for help. But Life Alarm is a simple gadget that you can wear on your wrist. If you ever suffer from a heart attack or something else, just push a little button, and the good people at Life Alarm inc. will quickly get you the help you need.)
"Just help me up, okay?" said Grandpa Redcap.
"Fine," said David as he helped Grandpa Redcap up.
"Be on your guard David, he'll be back."
"Who?"
"The person who pushed me over, duh!"
"Someone just walked in and pushed you over? But I thought you said you fell over."
"Never mind what I said!" said Grandpa angrily, "Now first off, they didn't just walk in here and push me over."
"But you said they did."
"Never mind what I said!" snapped Grandpa as he suddenly grabbed at his chest.
"What is it?" asked David.
"I'm dying! The guy who came in here was looking for something, when I wouldn't tell him where it was he threw me and then ran away."
"But you said that he pushed you."
"Never mind what I-!"
Grandpa Redcap fell over and didn't move.
"He's dead!" gasped David. "And it's probably somehow my fault!"
"I'm not dead!" snapped Grandpa as he sat up. "My body just stopped working for a second."
"But you said that you were dying."
"Never mind what I said! Now listen closely, in the attic, there is a map. You must find it at all costs."
"But you're a cartographer, there's tons of maps in the attic!"
"No no no! It's the one in the trunk."
"But there's tons of trunks in the attic!"
"It's in the forbidden blue one."
"But you told me never to open that one."
"NEVER MIND WHAT I SAID!"
"Gosh! You don't have to get angry!"
"Well if you just did what you were told then I wouldn't have to get angry."
"How can I do what I'm told when the thing that you tell me to do is impossible?"
"It's just a map! How hard can it be to just go get a stupid map!"
"Fine!"
"Now there's one more thing. When you find it, do exactly what it says on it."
"But I thought it was a map."
"It is, but it also has stuff written on it."
"But you told me never to draw on maps!"
"What's that got to do with anything?"
"Well you drew on your map. Isn't that being a hypocrite?"
"NEVER MIND! JUST DO WHAT THE MAP SAYS! AHH!"
Grandpa Redcap then died. David stood looking at him for a few seconds.
"Does this mean that you don't need your flip flops anymore?"
Thick rain poured down on the day of Grandpa Redcap's funeral. Many random people were gathered around to mourn his death.
"Grandpa Redcap was truly a nice man." said the Mayor at the podium. "He was not only good to the people around him, but he was also a good map maker."
David looked down at his Grandfather's coffin. How could he ever get on in the real world without him? Who would he turn to? How would he ever feel happy again?
(Wow, this is sad. This story is supposed to be a comedy. I might as well tell you that David was secretly freaked out by his Grandpa's dead body. He had never seen a dead body before, and it kind of scared him. Plus it stank ... really bad.)
"So long, and may you rest in peace," finished the Mayor before the coffin was lowered into the ground by the morgue staff.
(For all your dead body needs, just turn to Thomson and sons city morgue. They will fix that body up right to make it look beautiful for your funeral parties. When you call ask about our coffin specials. We also do themed funerals. Whether your theme is Hawaiian, or haunted, we can accommodate you for unreasonably low prices.)
Everyone slowly left the cemetery. David stayed behind for a few minutes, staring into space. Then he remembered where he lived and went home.
He had just gotten back his house, when suddenly he heard someone or something moving from behind the couch. David looked around himself for some kind of weapon. He slowly picked up a golf club. (Grandpa always kept one by the door in case a salesman came by.) David slowly approached the couch.
"Stand up slowly now. I've got a weapon and I don't want to have to use it," said David nervously even though he was kind of looking forward to hitting someone with the golf club.
It darted out from behind the couch as quick as a bolt of lightning. David screamed in terror and threw the golf club up in the air.
It was only the cat holding Grandpa's flip flops in its mouth.
"You almost made me kill you." said David angrily.
"You almost killed yourself." replied the cat while looking at where the golf club had landed.
"Well you're the one who surprised me!" said David who was used to his cat being able to talk.
"Even a whittle child could have known that I was only a cat."
"Hey! I am a child!"
"Dude, you're like, sixteen, but I will admit that you do only have the mental capacity of a child."
"Okay," said David to himself. "first I'm going to stop talking to the cat. Second, I'm going to find that stupid map that Grandpa colored all over. And third, I'm gonna have some Comida-Nachos."
(Now with 50 percent more cheese!)
"What is with these stupid commercials?" protested the cat.
"What commercials?" asked David stupidly.
"Right. I'm just going to leave now and chew on your Grandpa's flip flops."
"Whatever," said David as he ran upstairs.
David quickly pulled down the attic stairs and climbed up. Once inside it was very easy to find the forbidden blue chest because it was sitting on a stone stand with a bright light shining down on it, and it had a record player nearby that was playing angelic music. David quickly threw the chest open and took the map out. He carefully unfolded it and read what it said at the top:
Darn it David! If you got out this map because of curiosity then I'm going to pummel you! (It was defiantly Grandpa's words) If you're reading this because I told you to then I'm probably dead by now.
"You're dead?!" gasped David.
Yes. But I died for an important cause, a cause that you must now take up. You see-
Suddenly the sound of glass breaking filled the house.
"You idiot, Gunther!" shouted a muffled voice from downstairs. "Why don't you just wake up the entire neighborhood while you're at it?!"
David quietly folded up the map and put it in his pocket. Then he had a sudden idea. He took a normal map and put it in the forbidden blue chest. He then got out of the attic and walked down stairs.
"Dang it!" said David in a fake voice. "I looked everywhere, but I just couldn't find that forbidden blue chest that my Grandpa said would be in the attic and that would contain the very important map."
The two thugs who had broken into the house both looked at each other for a second.
"Hey Baxon," said the thug called Gunther. "I bet the map- umm ... the special thing we were supposed to get is in the attic."
Baxon, the other thug, thought it over for a second. "I think you're right! Let's go up stairs."
"Careful," said David. "The ladder to the attic is a pull-out."
"Oh, thanks," said the Gunther.
While the two thugs walked up stairs, David quietly slipped out of the house.
"Congratulations," said the cat. "You actually did something smart for once in your life."
"Oh hardy har har," said David dully.
"Now what are you going to do?"
"Well, I think I'll follow this map to where ever Grandpa wants me to go. It probably goes somewhere secret. Like behind the grocery store or something."
"I highly doubt that your Grandpa would die over a map that leads behind a grocery store."
"Well I can't think of anywhere else more secret."
"Why don't you look at that map."
David unfolded the map.
"Do you see that little dot there?" asked the cat.
"Yeah."
"That's the city we're in right now."
"The whole city?!"
"Yeah. And do you see that squiggly line over there?"
"Yes."
"That's the boarder to another country."
"Wow!"
"And do you see that big blue thing? That's the ocean. And do you see that land beyond the ocean? That's another continent. And do you see that-"
"STOP! You're going to make my head explode!" shouted David.
"The world is much bigger than you think, David ... so you had better start on that journey."
"But I don't even know where to go."
"My guess is that you should start at the west end of the dotted line, and head east until you reach the X."
"Right, east it is."
David started walking.
"Umm ... David? You're walking south. East is to your left."
"Right."
"No, left."
"Whatever." David looked around himself. "Which way is left?"
"Gosh!" shouted the cat. "Just follow me."
And so David set out on a new quest. He had never been so far away from home before. (Actually, he had never been more than two blocks away from his house.) Soon they arrived at the edge of the city.
"This is where you go on your own, kid." said the cat.
"Wait. You're not coming?"
"I have much better things to do than tell you which way is left and right."
"But how will I know the way?"
"Just buy a compass. You can get them really cheap down at Supply-Mart."
(Meeting all of your adventure quest needs.)
"Well," said David, "goodbye."
"See ya," said the cat who then whispered to himself, "wouldn't wanna be ya."