“What do you mean it’s MY fault?”, said a tiny but booming voice that sounded like a cannon had gone off. “Of course, it’s not my fault! I’m a pirate, and everyone knows that little boys love pirates!”
“But, it can’t be our fault because we bring him little bits of magic for his dreams!”, wailed what sounded like chattering little mice.
“Oh, and you’re going to blame us, I suppose? We’re the league of superheroes and we’re the role models for little boys.”, sounded a voice that posed as proudly as its owner.
A little boy with golden locks rolling in unruly abandon around his head sat at his desk, looking at the sky outside of his window with little notice for the bouncing little voices. The pitch of the fight picked up until the sounds seemed like it was coming from an invading army of angry dragonflies. But the little boy took no notice, as he sat in rapture of his daydream.
“Oh no, he can’t even hear us anymore!”, sobbed the soft fairy voice that was usually as bright and happy as the sun. “What will we do?”
The group of fairytale characters clambered up onto the desk using anything that they could to reach the little boy. The golden boy would have been amazed at the sight of little tiny bodies huffing and puffing their way up desk legs, over globes, and past glasses that comically magnified their sparkly personalities. Soon, one by one they reached the book that sat open in front of him. Peering from behind his storybook, they noticed that he was reading one of their stories but hadn’t moved from the first page. Big shiny worried eyes blinked out of tiny little faces as they stared at one another in confusion.
“What do you think it is? Maybe he sees a bird and wants to fly. You fairies should whisper your stories in his ears until he pays attention to us again. Yes, yes, that’s the answer!” The pirate bellowed his answer with glee. “Because I obviously cannot do anything since I cannot fly!”
But somehow the fairies knew that this wouldn’t help their cause. Looking at the superhero, they begged, “Oh, can’t you do anything? After all, you’re everything that a little boy wants to be. And you can fly!”
But the superhero shook his head in resignation. “I don’t think that we will be able to do anything about this until he gets his head out the the clouds. I’ve seen that look before.”
The mice looked at the superhero in confusion. “Well, if you know the answer, then tell the rest of us! What is it? What did we do?” The beady little mice eyes were filled with tears as they all stared up at the larger-than-life (well, to them anyway) figure of the man who looked remarkably like Superman.
“Take a closer look at the book”, said Superman, “and you’ll know what I’m talking about.”
So several little figures clambered onto the book’s page and looked down, then up at the boy, and then back down again. And they all fell down into a heap as they cried out…
“He’s too young to be in LOVE!!”
Yes, on top of that first page of one of his favorite stories lay the picture of a sweet little brunette girl with long cascading curls. They could only hope that this didn’t make him grow up too fast and forget all about them. After all, they still had so many stories left to tell their favorite little dreamer.
