WRITING ON THE INSIDE OF MY EYELIDS
Stories
The Great Kazoo
This is transcribed from a recording of several children’s stories about the Great Kazoo that Patrick used to tell to his little daughter Rebecca. Later Rebecca and Cailum used to listen to them as bedtime stories.
(Taped October 1999 at the suggestion of Deborah Stienstra)
This is how I met the Great Kazoo. I admit I don’t like moving and we moved right into a new town, the town of Smallville and I was six years old. And we moved into a new house and we moved into a new town and we moved into a new neighborhood and all my friends were in my old neighborhood, and this wasn’t very much fun at all. And my mom told me "don’t worry you’ll like it" and my dad told me "don’t worry you’ll meet lots of new people". Well you know what? I knew I would but I still didn’t like it very much and I was worried about the new house, I was worried about everything.
Well we got to our new house. We started moving in our furniture and I started bouncing off the walls, running from room to room. Which room would be my room, which room would be my mumma and poppa’s room? Which room would be the baby room when the baby came? Which room would be the kitchen – I didn’t even know that?
I was going crazy, running around here, there and everywhere. My momma said "Get out of my hair you’re driving me c-r-a-z-y! Get into the front yard and stay out of the mover’s way. Well the movers were moving the furniture in and out and in and out and I didn’t know what to do and suddenly I noticed that next door to us there was a kid. He had on red hair and he had on blue eyes, he had on blue jeans and a white T-shirt and he looked really clever. And I said (ominously) I don’t know about the looks of this character, and he looked at me and I looked at him. Well he stuck his thumbs in his pants pocket. I stuck my thumbs in my pants pocket. He swaggered out to the front of his sidewalk. I swaggered out to the front of my sidewalk. He sneered at me. I sneered back at him. He made a big horking sound. " H-o-o-o-o-r-k-i-n-g." I made a big horking sound "h-o-o-o-o-r—k--i-n-g" He spit! I was shocked! At I looked around. My momma wasn’t there so I spit too! He looked at me . He was shocked too! He said "0ooooooo.k" I said "0ooooo.k".too. He put one finger right beside his nose and he blew his nose!!! That’s right, it was gross. I was shocked! I decided that if he could do that I could do anything he could do. I reached up to my nose and I put my finger against to the side of my nose and I snotted too (Becca’s laughter) He couldn’t believe it! He couldn’t believe his eyes. His jaw almost dropped right out. I decided I could show him. He reached around and he was about to stick his hand right underneath his belt and I thought I’d beat him to it. I pulled down my pants and I reached into my underwear and just then when I had pulled down my – my momma grabbed me and yelled "What do you think you are doing? And she grabbed me and dragged me right back into the house my ear, dragging me with my feet around my ankles, my knees around my ankles and my pants around my ankles too and I was going ow!ow!ow!ow! all the way home. And my mamma talked with my poppa and I know she talked with my poppa ‘cause I heard her say, "Your son is a hooligan" later on and I asked him, "Poppa what is a hooligan?" and poppa said, "Don’t worry about it, try to be good and don’t make any trouble and don’t make any fusses." And then I was going to bed later on that night and I was thinking about all the things that happened that day – everybody moving in and this strange new kid next door and all of a sudden I said to my mom. "Mom my room doesn’t have much air in it. Can I open the window?" And my mom said: " O.K". So she opened up the window just a little for me see? And there was this window right across the lane from me right in the house beside me and that window was already opened but the room was dark. And then from the other side of the room from the house next door I heard an 00000000h sound. And I went "ahhhh this is my bedroom and I want to sleep in it but there is something in the room next to me, across the lane and it’s going Ah0000000000h, it was, and it got louder and louder and louder. I was more and more scared. But I knew how to defend myself. I went to the bathroom and I got a glass of water and I threw it across the laneway and right through the other window and I heard from the other side of the window in the house next door "Wah wah wah Wah….Well! I thought I got whoever was over there pretty good so I peeked my head oooooover the side and I heard ….. giggle, giggle, giggll, AND THEN a big splash of water came over and soaked my head and I went bluuuuugh, bluuuuugh, bluuuuugh. I said ‘I’m not putting up with this and I went into the basement of my house. My parents were sitting in the living room talking quietly. I went to the basement and I got a big bucket and then I went upstairs and they didn’t see me cause I was really quiet. I went to the bathtub and I filled up this whole bucket with water and I heard this noise from the room next door and it said "Good night Kazoo" And the voice at the other end said "Can you please just close my window?"And I heard this noise coming over to the window and I said "I’ll get him now" and I threw the big huge bucket of water right across between the two houses, right through the window, right on to whoever it was that was on the other side of the window and that was when the Great Kazoo’s poppa went YEIIIIIIII !EEEEEEKS! and got soaking wet. And the next thing I know I heard my poppa from downstairs calling"What’s going on? And my momma .."OH NO!" And all the lights in our house went on and all the lights in the house next door went on and and I thought OH OH!and from the other side of the window, on the other side of the alleyway, from the house across the way I heard a voice go ..HEHEHEhehehehehe and I knew that I got the Great Kazoo’s poppa all wet! And I knew I had met for certain the sneekeyest, the trickiest, the slickeyest guy I had met in my life and that was the first time I met him. And you know what he was called? He was called the Great Kazoo.
Now that story was about how I met the Great Kazoo and this story is about how I met the person who lives on the other side of the house. And that story and that person is called Deborah and the story is called "Deborah and the First Day at School"
Now, the next day after I met the Great Kazoo, believe it or not, was the very first day we had to go to school and our school was about two blocks away and my mamma and my poppa had already shown me where it was and I knew I could walk there, no problem, all the kids were going there. In the morning my mother packed a lunch for me. And she said "Here you go" and she gave me a smoochy kiss good bye on the front porch. And the Great Kazoo’s mother was giving him a smoochy kiss goodbye on their front porch. And then I heard somebody else on the other side of our house going "mmmseeech" too and giving them a smoochy kiss goodbye too and we walked out to the sidewalk and there was me on my lawn and the Great Kazoo on his lawn and there was somebody else on the lawn of the house to the left of us and that was a GIRL, pretty much like the Great Kazoo except she had red hair and green eyes and I looked at her. I didn’t know who she was. I didn’t want to talk to her. That’s right. And her name was Deborah. I didn’t want to talk to her cause I was a little bit shy so I went over to the Great Kazoo instead. And I said "UMMM Hello!" and he said "UMMM Hello!" I said "Who’s that?" And he said "that’s the kid next door" I said "Who is she?" he said "The kid next door’s name is Deborah" I said "Oh!" He said "Yeah" He said: "I try to play tricks on her. Want to play a trick on her?" I said "Um O.K." He said "Sure, you just do what I do. So we walked over to where Deborah was just about to walk to school and she said "Hi Kazoo! Who’s your friend?" And the way she said it I knew that she knew what a sneaky- weeky- trickey wickey guy he was and the Great Kazoo said "This is your new neighbor. This guy’s name is Pat. He’s o.k." and she said ‘Uh-hun" and she said as we walked to school "When did you move in?" We all talked about that for a little while and she said "Are you nervous about going to school?" and I said "No, I’m not very nervous" and the Great Kazoo "Yeah, yeah, and he’s got lunch and everything and I said "Right!" and I said "What did you get for lunch today?" and she looked in her sandwich and she said "UM – let’s see, I’ve got some cream cheese sandwiches and a little bit of tofu and Mum gave me an apple. What do you have?" And the Great Kazoo looked in his bag and said "UM the same old usual stuff" he sez "worm sandwiches" And she said "worm sandwiches! Oh yuk!" And he said "Yep worm sandwiches" and he said "What did you get Pat?" I looked in my bag and I thought of the grossest thing I could think of and I said: "The same old usual stuff- lizard eyeballs" when I said "Lizard eyeballs" even the Great Kazoo turned a little green. And Deborah said "Boy oh boy, I’m not going to have anything to do with either of you guys and she walked ahead of us. And the Great Kazoo said "Well, we got her pretty good!" and I said "yeah pretty good" And He said I have an idea and I said "What’s your idea?" He said "you’re going to be the new kid in class and the teacher’s going to ask what’s your name? And you are going to tell her and then ask her if we are going to do Show and Tell.
Cause she’ll always say this to you , Shell say "Oh do you have anything you want to show and tell? And you say yes" And then we whispered a little bit and we had a plan. It was a good plan.
Well we went to school and the Great Kazoo did not even come in the classroom and I noticed right beside the school there was a little sheep farm and the Great Kazoo, he went over towards the sheep farm because we had planned it all. And when we went into class everybody said their name and then the teacher noticed me and she said "What’s your name and I said It’s Pat Kellerman. And I said "Are we going to have show and tell to-day?: And she said "Yes we will!" Is there something you would like to show and tell?" And I said "Yes" and just like the Great Kazoo had told me to do I held my hand up to the ceiling and I said "Sheep" because the Great Kazoo had told me he was going to let some of the sheep out of the farm because they always got out, he said, and he was going to let them run around in the school yard. But trick of tricks, the G. K. played a trick on me! When I held my hand up to the ceiling and I yelled out "Sheep" the back door of the classroom opened up and in ran three sheep and they were all going baaah! Baaaah! Baaaaah! And they were all making terrible noises and all the kids started yelling and jumped up on their desks except for Deborah who immediately grabbed one of them and started pushing them out of the door and the teacher whose name, by the way, was Miss Crankshaft, she said "Oh my! Sheep! Come on let’s get these sheep out of here? How did those sheep get in here? And I heard the G.K. going heheheheHEHEHEHE! And the teacher asked "How did those sheep get in here?" And the principal had to be called and eventually we got the sheep rounded up and got them out in the yard just in time for us to go out to recess where we went out for recess and the farmer came and got his sheep and brought them back. I said to the G.K. "Did you let those sheep out of the farm?" and he said "No the gate was open. They just followed me when I walked in and I said "Wow! That was a good trick" and he said "I liked it too". And then – then Deborah did something. She came over to us and she said: " Well it’s going to be time to each lunch soon and I noticed that she had been hanging around where our boots and coats and lunches were. And she said: "Why don’t we check to see what we’ve got for lunch?" And the Great Kazoo said "O.K., maybe I’ve got a bit of candy in there. " So he went and he opened up his lunch bag and he went "Yuck!" I said "Kazoo, what’s the matter?" and I went running over and Kazoo said "Uuug!" and he really did turn green. And I went and looked in my lunch and went "Oh yuuuk, it’s full of spinach and I did turn green. And right away from behind us I heard Deborah and she was going"Heheheheheheh" which meant that she had played the trick on us. And that was the first time I met Deborah and I knew I found somebody as sneaky and as tricky and as wicky as the Great Kazoo.
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