By Cedar Van Tassel

[Note: The following travel-themed short story is by my nephew Cedar, who attends Southeast of Saline School in north-central Kansas. Now eight, Cedar began writing for this blog at age four, and his contributions have included metaphysical fiction, an interactive mummy poem, and a book review.]

One day Grandma Mushdash had a yearning to play baseball. When she was signing up for baseball a baseball player shouted, ”Hey, Grandma! Why do you have such a big nose and mustache!?!” Grandma just glared at him.

Suddenly a baseball flew through the air. Grandma Mushdash grabbed a bat and hit the ball. The ball flew around the world in less than five seconds. Grandma Mushdash jumped on the ball and flew to Australia. The first person she saw was a nomad. The nomad asked Grandma Mushdash if she was a nomad. Grandma Mushdash said, “No.”

Grandma Mushdash traveled into a forest. She found a place in the forest she liked and built a little hut there. One day a pack of monkeys came to the hut, they started to like Grandma Mushdash. They played with Grandma Mushdash’s big mustache, and she named all five monkeys. One was called Brownie and another was called Hairy, there was one called Banana and one was even called Tricky! And of course there was Nomad.

Mostly, Grandma Mushdash and the monkeys ate bananas, different kinds of roots and sometimes they had hamburgers from the market. They drank from streams in the rainforest. That’s how Grandma Mushdash lived for the rest of her life.