The Longest Story Ever by Andrew Wooding - Day #13

(You can join this epic story at any time, but have fun browsing the archives if you want to dip into past instalments or even start from the beginning. Feel free to leave your comments as well. Cartoons by Mychailo Kazybrid.)


This is the story so far. Charlie the Dog and his hopeless maid, Ethel, were shopping in the local tree centre. That’s because they wanted to buy a tree (of course). The trouble was, one of the trees had eyes and kept running around. Very strange.

Charlie the Dog loved a mystery, so he decided to investigate. The first thing he did was take a book out of his pocket, called The Complete Book of Trees. He always carried it with him because he never knew when he might need it … and it turned out he needed it right now.

Holding up his detective’s magnifying glass, he quickly flicked the pages and started to read out the names of the trees pictured in the book: ‘Oak. Birch. Fir. Weeping willow. Pine.’

When he’d got to the end, he announced: ‘Nope. There’s thousands of drawings of trees in here and not one of them has eyes or legs.’

‘Really?’ said Ethel.

‘Yes,’ said Charlie, ‘and it can only mean one thing. What we’re looking for isn’t really a tree.’

‘Wow!’ said Ethel, in deep admiration for her boss. ‘That’s brilliant, sir. You’re such a genius.’

‘I know, Ethel. I know,’ Charlie modestly agreed with her.

Charlie used his trusty magnifying glass to examine some of the ground that the tree had run across.

‘Just as I suspected,’ he said. ‘These are human footprints. This means that the tree we’re investigating is actually a person dressed up as a tree.’

‘Wow!’ said Ethel, still in deep admiration. ‘What great deductive skills you have. You’re even more of a genius than I thought you were.’

‘It’s okay, Ethel. You don’t need to tell me,’ said Charlie. ‘I’m fully aware of how incredibly clever I am. Now, there’s only one more thing to do.’

Charlie reached into one of his pockets and pulled out…

Ah, now that would be telling. You’ll have to wait until tomorrow’s exciting instalment to discover exactly what it is.


Today’s total: 331 words (Total so far: 4,272 words)