[The] Animals & Misbehaving

INTRODUCTION: A tiny bit of a play I started. Long ago, I had a huge collection of little plastic animal figurines and I ADORED play-acting things with them. I built up this entire mythos involving the "Animal Village" in which the tiny Animals lived, far from their enemy, Bad Guy (so I wasn't terribly creative with names), and his cohorts, Merganser, Black Rabbit, and some lady whose name I can't remember--maybe it was Sheila. I think I'm forgetting someone else. Anyway, the two primary Animals were Turtle and Kitten, who were both from the same set of figurines (Mrs. Cow, another prominent figure, as well as Gordon the giraffe and "Neil Diamond," the panther...stop laughing!--I loved his music!...were also from this set). My storylines altered according to which toys I happened to lose at which times. For a long time, either Turtle or Kitten was best friends with Kangaroo. But then I lost Kangaroo and so Turtle and Kitten hung out together. Then I found Kangaroo--he came back from a long world trip he'd been on, as he tended to travel a lot--and he became friends with the other Animal again. Then I lost Turtle. Then I found Turtle. Then I lost Turtle for good. Poor Turtle. Eventually, my playtime with the Animals ended, and I stashed them away upstairs somewhere.

Nevertheless, while I still had them (still don't know what became of poor Turtle), they provided me with countless hours of solitary entertainment. I attempted writing about them a few times, but never got very far, because what I did with them was mostly oral storytelling. (Oddly, none of the bad guys ever directly showed up, seeing as I had no figurines to represent them! I kind of just had to imagine they were there. To this day, "Bad Guy" has no real face. I always just assumed he looked rather like Gargamel. Acted just like him, too.) I came up with a reason as for why there was an entire village of tiny animals--they were brownies!--but by then the play had long stopped; yet when I was little, the Animals storyline was my D4D, my Manitou Island, my Trench Rats, and my Kemet all rolled into one.

This here is one of my earlier efforts, perhaps from when I still actively played with them. Most of the Animals stories were meant to be like parables, just little stories that ended with a lesson being learned. Who knows, perhaps if I'd run with this idea, I could've made money off of it. I believe this play was going to be about school bullying. Still timely! Date unknown, but probably from the mid- to late Eighties.

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[The] Animals &
Misbehaving
[Note--there is no "The" in the title--it's just "Animals & Misbehaving"--but seeing as my play is about THE Animals, it seems it should have that word. So I broke my habit of trying not to include words that are not originally there.]

Turtle--T
Kitten--K
Kitten's Mother--M

K. Mom, I'm home!

M. Oh, good! I need your help.

K. We'll [sic] is it alright [sic] if I stay in my room for a while?

M. Why? Oh, my goodness! How did you get that black eye?

T. Some one [sic] punched him.

M. Kitten, were you in a fight?

K. No way! That bully, Pit, just walked over and said "I hate blue eyes. I like black," and then he punched me. [Note--missing comma after "said." I haven't forgotten this line in years. Still makes me crack up. I remember when I told it to my mother she frowned at me.]

M. Why did he do that?

K. I don't know. But it sure was mean.

M. Did you tell your teacher?

K. No.

M. Why not?

K. I didn't want to be a tattletale.

T. Do you want me to leave?

M. No, Turtle. Could you please stay?

T. Okay, Mrs. Cat.

M. Turtle, could you go get an icepack? You know where they are.

T. Be right back.

M. Kitten, when you tell on someone who hurt you, you're not being a tattletale.

K. I'm not?

M. Of course you are'nt [sic]!

[Story incomplete]