Lets continue the story.
Well they brought Arnold to court and it was decided that as he didn´t really exist and anyway no real harm was done. Little Tommy was safe and he had learned a valuable lesson in that going off with strangers even if they are friendly and cuddly and green is never a wise move.
Now Tommy gives football classes to Arnold and I heard Arnold is teaching Tommy how to cook, vegetarian dishes.
The real end.
If you believe Arnold really exists read on.
If you think this is just a story read Arnold (9) and skip this bit.
Can you do exactly that or are you going to read both?
Well lets continue the story.
So Arnold was in a right pickle but luckily for him the missionaries had established some sort of thing called law which previously to their visit wasn´t needed at all. This meant that Arnold could have a fair trial.
Unfortunately for Arnold the judge and jury was quite religious as it was made up of the locals with their own religion and the missionaries w¡ith theirs and when Arnold´s defence said they couldn´t even bring Arnold to court as he was a fictional creature the rest of the people in the courtroom argued that if we thought god was a fictional creature like Arnold the world would be in a right old mess. Arnold´s lawyer said the world could be in a right old mess with or without a god depending on whether the dominant species i.e. humans decided to take responsibility for their actions. He also said it might be a good idea to stop using god as a scapegoat and mature a bit.
He was thrown out of court and Arnold was hanged.
Little Tommy is now a social recluse.
The end.
He ran to the operation theatre in the hospital. A cranky doctor with a walking stick hobbled by ignoring him. “Hmm, he looks familiar.” said Arnold as he entered the operating room. “Open me up.” he yelled. The doctors obliged.
Out popped a very ragged looking Tommy with bits of grass and carrot in his hair. He was furious. His ears were billowing smoke. “You tricked me.” he screamed.
The villagers became furious too on hearing the news. However, they still had some disbelief that this creature really existed as he kept fading in and out of sight as they decided what to do with him. They didn´t realise it was their disbelief that caused this optical illusion. Eventually they threw pink and orange dyes over him to keep him in focus. Finally, they voted on sacrificing him at noon in honour of the return of little Tommy. Arnold groaned and felt the stitches on his tummy. What a blooming disaster.
“Oh gosh”, thought Arnold. “Perhaps that wasn`t the best thing at all to do, I didn´t really think that one through. How will his mammy and daddy feel without Tommy giggling around the house? Never mind that, how is Tommy feeling right now? Maybe I should only eat bad kids.”
And with this sudden thought trickles of tears streamed down his fuzzy face. The smell of wet wool made him even more upset.
A few hours passed and Arnold could stand it no more. He was sketching pictures of little Tommy and talking to them. He even managed to create a life size cardboard cutout of him but if didn´t do Tommy much justice.
The following day he strolled down to the local psychiatrist. There was quite a queue waiting to see her. With the depression he now had he didn´t think much of the severe indigestion he had but while flicking through a woman´s magazine in the waiting room he realised the indigestion and the depression were more than likely related. Who needs psychiatrists he thought as he stormed out of the room, magazines are a fountain of knowledge. Then he realised he wouldn`t have landed in this mess if it hadn´t been for magazines and he was glad he hadn`t said that aloud.
The good news was that this uncomfortable stomach feeling meant that he was not made or had not evolved to eat meat. The bad news was that Tommy was still in his tummy. Luckily he hadn´t moved from his food storing belly to his food digesting belly so there was still time to get his sixth stomach pumped.
Little Tommy woke up in a leafy part of a tree top.
“Did you have a nice snooze?” asked Arnold.
“Not really.” Tommy replied. “I had strange nightmares that someone was about to eat me.”
“Fancy that.” shrugged Arnold while he stirred a cauldron of steaming vegetable soup.
“What’s that you’re at?” inquired Tommy. “Your bath.” answered Arnold.
Tommy roared laughing and fell backwards holding his jiggly tummy.
“Good joke fuzzy man.” he chortled.
Arnold wasn’t the best cook in the world and he wasn’t at all sure how to cook meat and to be quite honest he was less keen on the idea with every passing minute. At last he could stand it no more. It’s survival or die he said to himself. Then he stomped over to where Tommy was leafing through a girlie magazine and seriously doubting his furry friend’s sanity. Arnold grabbed him and swallowed him whole. He didn’t even add the soup. Not one bone crunched, he slid down nicely and landed in one of Arnold’s six stomachs.
Silence landed with a thump.
I think it was a sunny day when Arnold decided to head down towards the village. Although it could have just as easily been windy or maybe there was a little hurricane blowing about. I suppose it’s not very important nor interesting. Off he went for himself, trudging through the heavy foliage until at last he came in sight of some small children playing what could only be described as football. Knowing full well that these barefooted creatures had never seen a vegetarian monster before caused Arnold to hesitate. Their fear of him could result in his extermination. What if they were really aggressive creatures. They always seemed quite pleasant from afar but perhaps that was a little shortsighted of him. He decided to risk it, after all his health and skincare were apparently in turmoil. Down he swept and stood among them. They completely ignored him.
“What’s this?” he thought, “Am I just a fictional creature?”
Then it occurred to him that his being so green in colour could mean he was difficult to pinpoint. A red rubber ball bounced off his head.
Only one of the children noticed the odd deflection of the ball in the middle of the game. He approached the green mass. The others continued playing. “Hello.” he said in whatever language they use there. “Do you want to play?”
“Not really.” said Arnold. “Do you want to be my dinner guest?”
“Where’s dinner?” quizzed the boy.
“My tree house ” said Arnold, and off they skipped.
The missionary´s stories were all a bit far fetched but the tribes people loved make believe. What they really loved were the presents so they let him stay and he eventually bothered to learn their language if only to facilitate his teaching of his native language. More and more of his kind came with more presents and more of the jungle was cleared to make way for their bigger houses and social buildings they called churches. Thanks to the newcomers who seemed to know an awful lot the locals began to live more comfortably, but perhaps not as wisely. They began to dismiss their old ways as useless and thus with the death of the elders and many trees and plants, many cures for fatal diseases were lost forever.
But let’s forget about all that for the moment. The fact is that Arnold who is a vegetarian monster who was quite content to fool around in his tree house, listen to the birds and chew leaves, was also influenced by the changes, not religiously but gastronomically.
He came across a woman´s magazine one day. You know the kind - lose weight in a week articles and such. Once he had deciphered the letters and taught himself how to read, he read about nutrition and discovered he may not be getting the right nutrition at all from his green diet. He didn´t know what capsules or supplements were and he most certainly hadn´t ever seen a vitamin of any of the known species, but he did understand that there was a serious lack of meat in his life.
Now he wasn´t too fond of the idea that he had to eat meat, however, survival is survival and like everyone who gets sucked in by these magazines he thought he had to better himself so he decided to only eat what he liked.
Well, he liked children.
“Oh dear” he thought “this could turn out to be a bit grizzly. ” So that night he crept down from his tree house. He stole quietly into the town with the sole intent of kidnapping a small child for dinner tomorrow.
Let’s follow him and see did he have any luck.
The bespectacled one flew down in a white eagle and landed in a manner that tore up the local crops and added to the risk of a hard hungry winter. Then he ripped the side of the flesh of the white eagle open and hopped out. Initially it was agreed almost without having to bother with words that this being was a threat, so the locals organised themselves and headed down happily to behead him. The tribes people had never seen such a pale and sickly creature. Perhaps he was a ancestor of theirs who had visited the underworld. Perhaps the creatures of the underworld had drained the colour from him although it seemed as though they did leave some blood behind as he glowed pink when he struggled to drag his backpack from the now seemingly lifeless eagle.
He drew out from his bag strange and magic presents and potions that altogether changed their original idea to tear him limb from limb. They were so fascinated by the magic machines he displayed that they didn´t even notice his mad ramblings in a language that only he understood. He went on and on about this man who was god who was actually three gods but was really only one god and to glam it all up this god or one of his multipersonalities was born of a girl who was actually a virgin. They believed in some crazy myths too but then again they didn´t really believe that Arnold existed and as we all know well, Arnold the little green monster exists.
Arnold is a little green monster. Don´t be afraid. Arnold is vegetarian.
Arnold lives in one of the many jungles in Indonesia and to tell the truth not many people have seen Arnold but Arnold has seen them.
Oh, and don´t ask me where he got his name, for legal reasons I think he´d prefer if I didn´t say.
The little tribe that live near Arnold´s tree house invent scary stories about him. They don´t mean any harm, they just prefer that their children are afraid to go anywhere without an adult until they can hunt and look after themselves.
In fact everything was quite pleasant in the jungle until the day the missionary landed, wearing spectacles.