THE STORYTELLER

On the last day of school in June, Monkey Boy—my 9-year-old—brought home an entire year’s worth of in-class assignments and art, an amount equal to about three large trees, which has set undisturbed on my desk until this last week when I figured I should be parental and check his work, now that school’s been back in session a full two months. As a writer myself, I paid particular attention to his writing journals. He was required to journal every morning at school at least five sentences on any given prompt, such as, “What Did You Do Last Weekend?”

Monkey Boy has always been quite a storyteller. I was hoping his skill would cross paradigms from oral to written. His early journal entries were quite elementary if you will. The start of the new year brought fresh hope. His first February journal entry was a rather interesting op-ed piece on Groundhog’s Day, a complex commentary with multifaceted possibilities woven through the piece along with a somewhat predictable ending:

 I think the groundhog will not see his shadow. The sun might not come out. The sun might come out, but it might be covered by clouds. I do not like winter. I hope spring comes soon.

For all Monkey Boy’s distaste of winter, he does appear to like winter sports. The very next journal entry read:

 My weekend was amazing. I had a fun weekend. I went snowboarding. I had a piece of cake. I had fun. 

This journal entry was very straightforward prose, in the style of writing only. See, I remember that weekend. We all had fun. It should be noted, we did not go snowboarding. We have never gone snowboarding. We did not have a cake. We watched the Superbowl and ate chips and salsa.

A few days later, his journal entry read:

Today my parents told me they’re getting a cat for me. I want a grey striped cat. It is cute. It’s cuddly. Cats are kind. Cats are comfy. 

Let me just set the record straight. We didn’t tell Monkey Boy we were getting him a cat. We already have a cat. He is grey and has stripes. He is cute. I guess he’s kind for a cat. It’s not like he cleans the house or fixes dinner. If he happens to miss his litter box, he does try to bury his refuse on the tiled floor by covering it up with loose gloves or socks he finds around the house. What I do not understand is Monkey Boy’s use of the word comfy. Our cat is not comfortable as in he affords us security or frees us from vexation or doubt. As far as I know, none of us wear the cat like a soft, furry bathrobe.

Monkey Boy’s next journal entry on the Ides of February read:

This weekend is my mom’s birthday. It will be fun. We will have a cake and a piñata. I am happy. I am very happy.

There’s clearly a pattern emerging in his writing style: clear, informative, and concise, without a lot of fanfare or superfluous adjectives, and all rarely exceeding the required five sentences minimum. He’s finding his voice. We are getting to know this author. He’s a happy boy. He’s a very happy boy. He likes cake.

However, there is a major flaw in his prose. It’s his content. It’s not entirely truthful.

My real birthday is in late March. We didn’t celebrate my birthday that mid-February weekend, and we didn’t have cake or a piñata. At first, I thought Monkey Boy might have recorded a prophetic vision of my future birthday or perhaps he was planning to get me a piñata for my birthday—he’s not a very good secret keeper. But when we celebrated my real birthday in March, we did not have a piñata. Monkey Boy is not a prophet, and I was beginning to wonder about the boy. Did he just make stuff up to write about because his real life was so utterly boring? Was our everyday ordinary so forgettable that he needed to create his own imaginary world of fanciful parties, candy-filled piñatas, and steezy snowboarding? (No judgments here. Just curious.)

I read through the next several pages and found my answer in his last journal entry. It read:

If I were evil I would be very evil. I would want to rid the world of laughter. I would love nonhappiness. Bye-bye laughter forever. But I am a good person. I like a good joke. 

Well, that it explains. In case you missed the subtle nuance, all those other descriptive and whimsical journal entries were indeed fabricated, jokes to promote joy and amusement. He is, after all, a real storyteller. Nay, a writer.

Well done, Monkey Boy, well done.

Still, why didn’t I get a piñata for my birthday?