A Sword, a Guidebook, and the Evil Gorilla Fitzherbert: A Short Story
Based on a true story… sort of.
As Emery sat in her bed contemplating the unfairness of broken bones, her father walked in with a steaming mug.
“How’s my patient?” he asked, handing her the mug. She sniffed it, then took a sip. Hot chocolate– the good kind. With extra cream and marshmallows.
“Awful,” Emery said, pointing at her foot, which was wrapped in white bandages, just as it had been for a whole week now.
Her father sat on the stool by her bed, yawning loudly. “Well now,” he said. “You can’t be that awful. You’ve got time to read those books you told me about.”
Emery shrugged. “I guess so.”
She glanced glumly at the stack of novels that sat next to her. Though she did love them, she was tired of being stuck in bed.
The door opened, and her Uncle Westley walked in, bearing a plate of cookies. “Howdy,” he said, coming over and handing the plate to Emery. She grabbed a cookie shaped like a train and shoved half of it in her mouth. The delicious taste was dulled by her morose attitude.
Uncle Westley joined Emery’s father sitting next to her bed. “Now Emery,” Westley said, leaning forward on his knees and looking at her quite seriously. “I want to hear the whole story, from the beginning. What happened to your precious little foot?” Westley’s eyes sparkled happily, and his toothy grin lifted Emery’s spirits immensely.
Emery set down her cocoa and sat up straighter in bed, because she enjoyed telling this story and wanted to do it right.
“I was coming home from my book club, and I was carrying a whole bunch of novels,” she began, pointing at the stack of books beside her for emphasis. Her father interrupted her.
“Emery,” he said. “Don’t make up stories. You were coming home from an epic battle, and had just defeated the mighty dragon Horatio, remember?”
Emery gave her dad The Look, the one that was supposed to silence him immediately.
Westley nodded for Emery to go on, the corners of his mouth twitching slightly.
“And, you know those little cracks in the sidewalk?” Emery said, ignoring her father who was now looking quite exasperated.
Westley nodded. “Deadly, those cracks are.”
“Yes,” Emery said with satisfaction. “I accidentally dropped a book, and tripped on it, and almost fell, but I didn’t. Then came the crack in the sidewalk.”
“Emery!” her father said, clutching his head as though a terrible headache had just gripped him. “No, you dropped your magical sword and the talking guidebook, and then the mighty gorilla Fitzherbert leaped in front of you as you were bending over, and he tripped you! Then, a wild, terrifying grin crept over his face, and he bared his evil teeth, and–”
“DAD!” Emery wailed. “It wasn’t an evil gorilla named Fitzherbert! It was a crack in the sidewalk!”
Westley tried to hide his smile. “Go on, Emery. The deadly sidewalk crack had just appeared…”
Emery nodded and turned her back on her father. “Yeah. And then, I tripped on it. And I broke my ankle, and it hurt terribly, and the end.”
Westley clapped somberly, fully appreciating the awfulness of the situation. Emery’s father, however, sighed and shook his head at Emery.
“I don’t know why you hide your magical past, Emery,” he said. “There are such tales you could tell! The romantic Prince Humphrey, whose heart you broke, and the fairy Rosalie, and your sword and the trolls and the evil gorilla Fitzherbert……”
Emery finally giggled, because this was pretty funny. She decided to humor him.
“I never broke Prince Humphrey’s heart. For the record, he was a jerk and deserved to have his heart broken. And the gorilla’s name wasn’t Fitzherbert, it was Ferdinand. And there was no fairy named Rosalie. There was a water nymph named Rynnia who gave me that sword, which wasn’t magical. It was plastic.”
Her father winked. “Oh,” he said lightly. “I must have forgotten those details.”
Westley raised his hands in the air. “Whatever you say,” he said, “I know one thing. I’m going to get some of your mother’s hot chocolate.”
As soon as Westley had shut the door behind him, Emery and her father burst out laughing.
“You’re pretty funny,” Emery admitted. “But next time I break a bone, maybe let me tell the story my own way.”
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
About The Author
Abby
Abby is a teenaged writer who loves using her words for Jesus, to seek and point out beauty in the ordinary. When she isn't writing, you can find her jamming on her guitar, which she fondly calls "Raymond Fender the First", sitting on porches, or reading.