Climbing the Titan Tree

My mommy told me NOT to climb the Titan Tree. If you have never heard of the Titan Tree, I’m going to tell you what it is. It’s the biggest tree in the known universe. It stretches from Planet Earth all the way up to Titan. And it has a red caution ribbon around it with signs all over that say DO NOT ENTER! DANGER! But I really needed to climb the Titan Tree. Sometimes I’m in control of my brain and other times, I am not. This was one of those times I was not.

            So I started to climb the tree. I passed squirrels and bird nests and then my head went through a cloud and almost knocked into a star. Then, I was too high for my own good and I started to cry. I could see the earth. I could see the blue and the green but I could not see my house or my mommy and this made me the most sad and the most scared I’d ever been.

            Thank goodness my phone had a signal. So I called my mother and she was more than stern when I told her where I was. I have never heard my mother so upset. In fact she was so angry that her legs started to shake and grow bark. Right there on the sidewalk they turned into tree trunks that grew bigger and bigger while she was roaring into the phone about how angry she was. And in a matter of minutes, she and I were face to face at the tippy top of the Titan Tree.

            Her face was made of birch and her arms were the longest branches and her mouth was so scary I hid behind her leaves. And then she grabbed me. I didn’t know what she was going to do. Thank goodness she hugged me. Hugged me so close to her chest I could barely breath. I was crying, “I’m sorry, Mommy, I shouldn’t have climbed the Titan Tree.” And she was crying too. “I love you so much, but when are you going to start listening to me? When?” “Right now,” I said. “Like the last right now?” “No,” I said, “Like this new right now.” And I hugged her back as tight as I could and we started shrinking down down down through outer space till we were back on the sidewalk again, like regular people.

            And then my mommy took a deep breath. “How about we get some ice cream?” she said. And I said, “That sounds nice, Mommy.” And so we did. And we had a nice rest of the day.

The End.

-JLK

(This story is part of my collection of short stories for small children, Feed It to the Worms.)