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| Dr. Dodo confronting Arlene from the helicopter, she has turned from her greenish color due to Dr. Dodo's amazing speech (Mr. Fish can't be see, but he is present in the helicopter) |
A lot of things happen here in Riverville, New York during
the month of January. It’s just after New Year’s so everyone is naturally doing
special things. For one thing, I can’t count the number of people who are
making New Year’s resolutions that they aren’t even going to keep! Some people
will have special dinners, some people will go out to eat, some people will be
spending time with their family, some will be coming home after the ball drop and
some will be celebrating their birthdays. Take Arlene McQueen for instance,
she’s a normal-looking 11-year old
girl who lives here in Riverville. She was out walking in the park one fine
morning. Now this just so happened to be the same time Angel Stevenson was out
walking. She was walking “her dog” named Fido (I put “her dog” in quotations
because 1. It’s not her dog, it belongs to a girl she knows and 2. It’s not
really a dog; it’s actually a guinea pig that behaves like a dog does, you
know, she barks, she pants, she walks with a leash, she likes to take walks . .
.). When Arlene saw Fido, she instantly fell in love with her. She wanted to
keep it. “This girl was crazy,” says Angel. “I was merely taking Fido for a
walk when this girl walks up to me and asks if she can keep her!” After Angel
rejected the offer, Arlene’s reply was, “But it’s my birthday today.” Angel
still refused. This is when Arlene shouted, “But I wan-it (want it)! Wan-it!
Wan-it!” And something strange started to happen, with every “wan-it”, she grew
bigger . . . and bigger . . . and bigger
. . . and BIGGER! Until she must have been at least 20 feet tall and her skin
had turned a green color (sort of similar to either “green with envy” or the Incredible Hulk)! My trusty, junior photographer, Daniel P. Smithwater and I just so
happened to be in the park at the time of the incident. So I was able to record
everything. Daniel tried to get a few good pictures of her when she was green,
but they all came out blurry. Arlene then surprised everyone by snatching poor
Fido away from Angel and walking away with it. I know Angel very well, so since
she didn’t have a cellphone, I quickly grabbed mine and called 9-1-1 (see, now
I’m a hero!). The police came, but this was no good, as Arlene had since moved
into town and started to take everything she wanted! Talk about violent! The
police tried to stop her but they couldn’t either because they couldn’t use net
guns (in code 1205973-09 it states that guns of any sort cannot be used when
children are involved). We also tried to contact the girl’s mother’s number,
but we couldn’t find it. Just when all hope seemed lost, Dr. Dodo and his best
friend, Mr. Fred Fish from Animal
Adventures Inc. (they both were in the paper a few weeks prior) happened upon the scene. Dr. Dodo is
quoted for saying, “When I first saw that girl, I was like, ‘Whoa! Someone’s
got some serious anger issues to let out!” So Dr. Dodo and Mr. Fish devised a
plan. It was a plan that just had to work – deception. Deception has worked
before, ever since the Garden of Eden when that serpent deceived Eve. However,
unlike that scenario, Dr. Dodo and Mr. Fish weren't going to be untruthful. So
they borrowed a relatively small helicopter and flew over to where Arlene was.
This is when Dr. Dodo uttered a little speech:
"Honestly Arlene, look over here baby girl. Why are you taking other people’s things? Even if it is your birthday, other people have belongings that they are very fond of. And if you take them for yourself, you will only make other people sad. Have you ever heard the saying, ‘It’s better to give than to receive’? This is why instead of taking, we should give and therefore we get the satisfaction of making someone else feel better, just like God wants."
By the end of his little speech, Arlene was in tears and she
suddenly shrunk back down to normal size and gave back the things she took.
See, violence isn't always the answer to problems; sometimes all that is needed
is just a few kind words to heal the wounds. Angel was relieved to have Fido back.
Fido was especially glad to be out of the hands of that . . . "weird girl", so
she wagged her tail (or what little bit of tail she did have, anyway). I then
realized that Arlene hadn't gotten any presents for her birthday so when I
asked if she was disappointed in not getting to keep any of the “presents” for
her birthday, she said, “It’s ok, because my birthday is tomorrow!” I then
asked why I thought it was today and her response was, “Oh, my Mom says
EVERYDAY’S my birthday!!!” Oh no! I just hope Dr. Dodo’s words were
inspirational enough to make Arlene see things a little differently!
Written by: Mr. Smiley
Photographer: Daniel P. Smithwater
Edited by: Christian Ryan
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