Author's note: I wrote this for my son when he was 4 or 5. The basic idea was inspired by a series of stories my own father, also a Michael, used to spontaneously entertain us kids with. I remember being endlessly amused and amazed by his ability to throw these great ideas up on the spur of them moment, and thought I'd try to carry on the tradition in written form. Dad was truly a great dad, if you were a little kid! This is the first "Little Michael" story. So far I've only written one other. |
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HOW
IT ALL BEGAN or THE
MYSTERY OF THE LITTLE BLACK FOOTPRINTS It
was Sunday afternoon, and Mommy was tidying up the house as usual. Suddenly,
out from behind the door jumped MICHAEL! "SURPRISE!" he shouted. Mommy
jumped high in the air. She really WAS surprised. And then she laughed.
"What are you doing here, Michael my funny boy? You were upstairs playing
with your train!" "Not
playing, Mommy! I was RealPretending. It’s a real train, and I was riding
in it. I went around and around and around. Then I got out to look at
the bridge. But then the train went away." "Went
away? You mean it kept going around and around?" "No,
Mommy," said Michael. "It went into the tunnel and didn’t come out!
So I came downstairs and surprised you." "You
mean your train is stuck in the tunnel?" "No,
Mommy, it just went away, it really did! Come upstairs and look!" So
Michael and Mommy went upstairs to look at the electric train, and sure
enough it wasn’t on its tracks. Mommy and Michael looked in the tunnel.
It wasn’t there. They looked "Now,
Michael! What did you do with the train?" Mommy shook her finger at
him. "Honest,
Mommy! I didn’t put it anywhere! It was really gone, all by itself!"
"You
silly boy, playing tricks on your Mommy!" She laughed, and went back
downstairs to tidy up the house some more. But Michael stayed upstairs
in his room, thinking. "Now
that train couldn’t just disappear! It had to go someplace!" he thought.
"I’m gonna look for it!" And he went over to look at the train tracks
again. He looked at the front of the tunnel, then inside the tunnel,
and then at the end of the tunnel. And there, right at the end of the
tunnel, he saw something that made him stop. "What’s
this?" he asked himself in surprise. "LITTLE BLACK FOOTPRINTS!" and
sure enough, leading away from the tunnel’s end were the unmistakable
marks of a pair of tiny feet, black and wet as if the feet had been
dipped in ink, leading to the end of the table and up onto the window
sill. "I’ve
got to follow these," he thought, "and find out what’s going on here."
So he went over to the window to see where the footprints led. First
of all, they went to the other side of the window, then onto the dresser,
down the dresser, onto the carpet, and under Michael’s own bed, to right
where his slippers always were. Only now, he noticed, they weren’t there!
Not only that, but the trail of tiny prints stopped right there, where
his slippers used to be. Quick as a wink he jumped up and ran downstairs.
"Mommy!" he shouted, "where are my slippers?" "Your
slippers?" she said, "aren’t they right by your bed where they’re supposed
to be?" "No,
Mommy, they aren’t! And I found all these little black footprints!" "LITTLE
BLACK FOOTPRINTS!?" she exclaimed, "What on earth do you mean by that?
You haven’t been making a mess up there, have you?" "Really,
no, Mom! Just come look!" And so Mommy and Michael went upstairs to
try and solve this new mystery. But when they got there, Mommy said,
"what do you mean, you funny boy? Your slippers are right there!!" And
so they were, right where Michael had left them the night before. And
of the little black footprints there was no
trace at all. "But,"
said Michael, "I saw them there, just a minute ago, and the footprints,
too!" "Michael,"
said Mommy, "you played one trick on me, with the train, and that was
funny. Now you’re trying to fool me about the slippers, and that’s O.K.,
too, because even two tricks is a little bit funny. But don’t do it
again. Three tricks would be too much, and I might get mad, because
I have work to do and I don’t want to keep running upstairs." "But
Mom," said Michael, and then stopped, because he knew his mother wouldn’t
understand. How could she? She hadn’t seen the little black footprints.
Just the same, he knew they had been there, because he really had
seen them. So he just said, Meanwhile,
Mommy went out in the garden to pick some roses. She found three beautiful
ones: a red, a yellow, and a pink one. Then, humming happily to herself,
she brought them back into the dining room to put in her favorite vase.
But when she looked on the mantlepiece, where she usually kept it, all
she saw was . . . LITTLE BLACK FOOTPRINTS! "MICHAEL!!!"
she shouted upstairs. Now
you have to understand that Mommy, being a grownup, couldn’t imagine
any other answer to the disappearance of the vase than that somebody
had taken it. And since Michael was the only one besides her in the
house right then, she thought it must have been him. After all, hadn’t
he just been trying to fool her, and even talking about those footprints? Now
Michael is a good boy, and he really wasn’t playing tricks on Mommy,
after all; so when she told him to go to his room he got kind of sad.
But since she said to go upstairs, he went. And so he was lying on his
bed, feeling a little bit bad, when he remembered about Saki. Saki,
the wise-eyed piggybank with the big eyeglasses, was special to Michael:
sometimes when he was sad he would go Saki and tell Saki what the trouble
was.And though Saki never said anything back, he always gave a friendly
look as if to say, "There, there, Michael, everything will be O.K. very
soon. Just think about how many people love you." And Michael would
start to feel better. So
he got up, went over to his piggybank and said, "Saki, why is Mommy
not being nice to me? I didn’t do anything wrong! It’s all because of
those little black footprints!! I wish she would believe me that I didn’t
make them, and I didn’t take her vase!" But just as he started pouring
out the whole story, something very strange happened. Saki started to
talk! At
least he thought it was Saki. The voice was coming from Saki. But Saki’s
mouth was not moving, and the voice sounded tiny and far away, almost
as if . . . as if it were coming from inside,
in the hollow place where Saki kept his money for him. And it was a
tiny little voice. "Help!
Help!" he thought he heard it cry. Of
course Michael was a little scared, because he had never heard anything
like this before, but being a brave boy he just thought to himself,
"That voice called for help. Maybe somebody’s in trouble and I’m the
only one who can hear. I’d better find out what’s going on!" So he shouted back, "Do you need help?" And,
amazingly, the tiny voice answered back! "Yes, oh, help, please help
me!" Michael
called back, "Who are you?" "I’m
Michael," said the voice. Michael
was flabbergasted. "No, I’m Michael!" he shouted. "Well,
I’m Michael, too, then, and I need help!" "You
really have the same name as me?" "If
your name is Michael, then I do!" "Wow!
And you need help? What can I do to help you?" asked the Michael who
had been talking to Saki. "You
can open up this doggone piggy bank and let me out!" said the tiny voice. "Oh,
that’s easy!" said Michael. And he picked up Saki and very carefully
moved him over to the bed. Then he reached underneath Saki’s tummy and
very gently pulled loose the big rubber stopper which was there. And
then he saw the most amazing thing he had ever seen. First
a few dimes and pennies fell out of the space in Saki’s tummy, and then
he saw a pair of tiny, tiny feet showing, then a pudgy little body squeezing
its way out, and at last arms, hands, shoulders, and head of what appeared
to be--what was it?--a miniature
little boy(!) slowly emerged from the opening. The tiny figure was
wearing a blue and white sailor suit, and sported floppy hair and a
big silly grin. "He’s a cute little guy!" thought Michael to himself.
"Hi!"
said the tiny person. "Hi!"
said Michael. "You
must be big Michael!" said the small one. "And
you must be little
Michael," said his rescuer. "That’s
great!" said little Michael. "Now we won’t get mixed up by calling each
other the same name. You will always be Big Michael and I will be Little
Michael. That’s a great idea, if I do say so myself!" "Yes,
that is a good idea," agreed big Michael. "But that still doesn’t answer
my biggest questions." "What
are those?" "How
did you get so tiny, and what are you doing here in my room, anyway?"
blurted out big Michael. "I don’t understand what’s going on here at
all!" "Well
. . . that’s a long story. But I’ll try to make it short," said little
Michael. "You see, I come from another world." "Another
world?" "Yes,
another world, and there are no people or anything elses there as big
as you. But there are lots of things there that you don’t have in this
world." "Like
what?" "Like
real dragons, and wishing wells that work, and flying cats, and elephants,
and . . . " "Wait
a minute, little Michael! We have elephants here! I saw some at the
zoo!" "Yes,
but your elephants aren’t real elephants because yours have trunks." "Well,
what do yours have?" asked big Michael. "Oh, an elephant in my world has a long
arm, with a hand, where yours has a trunk. That way they can shake hands and hammer nails and write letters and do lots of things." "Your
elephants can read and write? Can they talk, too?" "Oh,
yes!" exclaimed little Michael. "Our elephants are more talkative than
anybody else there. They talk so much that sometimes you just have to
ask them to stop just so you can have it quiet enough to think." "Oh,"
said Michael. "Can I go there and talk to them?" "I’m
sorry," answered his tiny friend. "You’re just too big. You wouldn’t
fit in my world." "But
I wanta go there!" he complained. "Well,
I don’t see how you can," said little Michael. "But
I’ll tell you what. How about if, since we’re friends, I can come and
visit you lots and lots, and then I’ll tell you about my world and all
my adventures there. That’s almost as good as going there!" "Well
. . . O.K. --but I still wanta go. Do you think you can figure out a
way, little Michael?" "I
can’t think of any way right now. But maybe someday we’ll think of something."
Suddenly, he pulled from his pocket a beautiful gold watch on a long
silver chain, and looked at it closely. "My goodness, I have to hurry,"
he said. The gate will close soon, and I have to get that train back
here." "Train?"
exclaimed Michael. "Do you mean my train, the one that disappeared in
the tunnel?" "Oh,
yes, that’s right--you weren’t supposed to see that. I just needed to
borrow it for one of my adventures. I didn’t mean to keep it so long.
Here, put me up on the train tracks. I’ll bring it right back." So
big Michael very carefully lifted his new friend up onto the table where
the train tracks were. little Michael scrambled onto the tracks and
quickly disappeared into the dark of the tunnel. There was an instant
of silence, and then . . . a faraway but familiar sound, a clicking,
clacking, humming noise that seemed to get closer, ever closer till
at last, with a whistle blast, Michael’s electric freight train came
chugging out from the tunnel’s far end, then around the tracks to stop
right in front of Michael! And then out of the tunnel bounced little
Michael, with that same old silly grin on his face, leaving behind him
a trail of--could it be? Yes!!--little black footprints! "LITTLE
BLACK FOOTPRINTS!" shouted big Michael. Little Michael looked down at his feet,
then behind him. Oh, I’m sorry!" he said. "I got your floor dirty. I
keep forgetting. Every time I come here I have to cross the Big
Michael was so astounded he didn’t know what to say. "So . . . so you
were the one who took my slippers? And Mommy’s vase?" "Oh,
I just borrowed them for a little while. You see, on my last adventure
it was very cold, and one of my friends and I needed someplace warm
to sleep. And your slippers were toasty warm. Thank you. I brought them
back, didn’t you see?" "Yes,
but what about the vase? My mom got really mad at me because she thought
I took it! And then I got
really sad." "Oh,
I’m sorry, Big Michael!" said little Michael. Anyhow, she won’t be mad
any more, because I already put it back, and I put a beautiful blue
flower in it, too!" "Thank
you, thank you! I’m gonna go show her, and tell her how it wasn’t me
who did it!" "No,
Big Michael, don’t do that! Because if a grownup finds out about me,
then the gate from my world will be closed forever, and I won’t be able
to come here any more. So you have to promise to keep my secret." "Well
. . . I guess I will. But you have to promise that if you want to
take something you’ll always ask me first. And I want you to come visit
me every time you have an adventure, so I can find out what it’s like
where you come from. O.K.?" "I
promise," said little Michael. "But now I have to go back. There’s a
big feast in the "Oh,
I wish I could go too! When are you going to come back?" "How
about tonight, when you take a bath? I’ll get in one of your little
boats and come visit you then. I’ll tell you everything that happened,
O.K.? It’s so great to have a big friend I can talk to!!" "And
it’s great for me," said big Michael, "to have a little friend who lives
in a magic world!" "Oh,
it isn’t magic! It’s just different, that’s all!" "Well
it seems magic to me. Do you really have to go now?"
Little Michael pulled out his pocket watch again and looked at it carefully.
"My gosh, yes!" he said, hurriedly putting it back. "I only have 3 minutes
before the gate will close for the whole day! Goodbye, Big Michael!
Look for me tonight at the big pond with the white stone banks!" And
without another word, he dashed off into the train tunnel. "Big
pond with the white stone banks?" thought Michael. And
so Michael, who now thought of himself as Big Michael, "Michael!"
said Mommy, when she saw it, "what a beautiful blue flower! Now I know
why you took my vase--you weren’t trying to trick me! You were trying
to give me a surprise present! But where on earth did you get such a
pretty thing?" "It’s
a secret, Mommy," said Michael, with a cute smile. And then, "Mommy,
can I take a bath early tonight?" THE END |