Killing Tweety
Johnathan Singer Junior, or little Johnny, as everyone called him, was ecstatic. Today was his cousin's birthday party, and she was having it at Fast Wheels, the nearby rollerskating rink.
Little Johnny loved to skate. At the rambunctious age of three-and-a-half, he had already mastered the basics, and then some. He was so good at skating, in fact, that Santa had given little Johnny his own pair of four-wheeled skates (and not the training kind) for Christmas.
As such, Johnny didn't understand why Mommy insisted on holding his hand every time he went skating. He was big enough and good enough to skate with the big kids. Besides, Mommy skated so slow and he wanted to go fast fast fast.
Still, slow skating was better than no skating Johnny soon realized as his mother, fed up with her son's antsy antics, threatened to leave him behind with Daddy if he didn't stop squirming around this very instant!
So Johnny stood absolutely still. For a whole five minutes.
The twitching started in his fingers and toes then slowly inched up his arms and legs. It was a only a matter of moments before little Johnny was all-but dancing in place with impatience while his mother continued to dress him. It seemed to take forever, and Johnny was beginning to suspect that maybe Mommy was being slow on purpose when, at long last, all his clothes were finally on.
Little Johnny was out of the room in a flash, making it to the kitchen in record time. He was so excited about going skating that he didn't bother searching for his special glow-in-the-dark spoon, instead opting to eat breakfast at an unhealthy speed. Johnny would have finished his breakfast in record time as well if his father hadn't taken away the bowl of cereal for fear of his son choking.
After a lecture from Daddy about how eating too fast was not only dangerous, but also unhealthy, Mommy came in and told Johnny to go put on his socks and shoes and wait out in the car. Little Johnny quite happily obeyed and was sitting in the car in under five minutes.
After making sure her son was securely buckled in and that his precious roller skates were safely stowed away in the trunk, Mrs. Singer made the ten-minute drive to Fast Wheels, though she had to drive around for another ten minutes to find a parking spot. It was another fifteen minutes before she and Johnny gained admittance, and Mrs. Singer was glad she had decided to leave home early. As it was, Johnny and his Mommy arrived at the party just on time and with not a minute to spare.
Not that Johnny cared.
The party was pretty boring in Johnny's opinion. Everyone gave his cousin her presents, they all sang “Happy Birthday,” and then everyone ate cake and ice cream. Things got more fun when they started doing games because Johnny could finally skate a little, but then Tweety came out to play and the party got a whole lot more better.
Little Johnny was coming back from a drink break when the games ended and, at last, it was time for free-skate. Johnny quickly glanced around for his mother and found her talking to Auntie Tina. This could mean only one thing: he was finally free to skate as fast as he wanted to. With this thought in mind and a big grin on his face, little Johnny zipped out onto the skating floor... right into Tweety's path.
By the time they both saw each other, it was too late to turn -- they were both going too fast, and a collision seemed imminent. However, the brave yellow bird launched himself into the sky in an attempt to avoid ploughing over the small child.
Alas, Tweety was too fat to fly, and so, after a spectacular mid-air somer-flop, came crashing down to the hard skatefloor. The force of the impact was so great that Tweety's head
came
rolling
off.
As he stared at Tweety's headless, unmoving body, little Johnny heard his cousin whisper, horrified --
"You killed Tweety."
---
This story was based on real events that occurred during one of my trips to the local skating rink. Fear not. None of the children actually involved or witnessing the event were emotionally scarred for Tweety was merely winded and, as soon as he had regained his breath, quickly reattached his head before skedadling (not that I can blame the poor guy).
