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The Adventures Of Squirmy The Worm
Reader Star Rating: 
Howard King
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SYNOPSIS
Squirmy is an adventurous young worm who loves to swallow large objects to show his forest friends. One time he gets himself in trouble by swallowing marbles and getting stuck in a fence. Enjoy this story to find out how he escapes and what happens to him.
Once upon a time, a long time ago, in fact last summer, there lived a little worm in the hardwood forest. His name was Ethelborght, but no one called him by his given name; they called him Ethel for short.
He decided to have everyone call him Squirmy, which is a pretty good name for a worm, don't you think?
Squirmy did not have much to do besides making little holes in the ground, so in his spare time he used to sit around and try to think of things to do like small boys do these days.
He was always putting things in his mouth, sometimes things that he shouldn't have.
One time he found a lit flash-light and he put that in his mouth and told everybody that he was a glow worm. They believed it too until the batteries in the flash-light ran down!
Then they could see he was just a small green worm with a stomach ache.
Once he swallowed an old piece of a wood building block and told everyone he was a square.
He was certainly getting away with that until he met a termite!
When Squirmy had his mouth open the termite had a good lunch of the building block and Squirmy was no longer a square.
One day he was alongside a board fence with a small crack in it, just room enough for a small worm to squeeze through.
Squirmy had just swallowed a large marble that he found beside the fence.
He squeezed the front half of his body through and would you believe it, there was another marble on the other side of the fence.
Squirmy just couldn't resist the temptation; you guessed it, he swallowed that one too and there he was stuck like a pig under a fence.
He called on all of his friends in the forest.
All they could do was stand around and sympathize with him. His friends the Woodpeckers couldn't find anything to cling to when they tried to peck a larger hole in the fence.
The Robins would get him by the tail end and try to pull him out, but to no avail.
He was wedged in there pretty tight.
His mother threw some soapy water on him hoping that would make him slide through, but that didn't work either.
It looked as if Squirmy would have to stay half on one side of the fence and half on the other side until his stomach acids would dissolve one of the marbles. Not a very pleasant prospect as not too many acids would dissolve glass marbles.
I am sure that the stomach acids of one small worm will not do it.
The exterminators had recently been there and the only termite left in that part of the forest had just left to visit his sick Aunt in Cleveland. He would have made short work of enlarging the hole so Squirmy could squirm through.
Then, to add to Squirmy's troubles, as if he didn't have enough trouble already, the man that owned the fence came down on one side painting it blue.
Of course he didn't see one little worm.
He painted the part sticking out on the one side blue.
Then he came back on the other side and painted that side red and the end of little Squirmy red also. You will have to agree with me that Squirmy was indeed in a bad way.
Then one of his little friends had an idea. "Why don't we consult Mr Wise Old Owl, who lives in the hollow tree on the other edge of the forest?"
Everyone agreed that if anyone could get Squirmy out of his mess, Mr Wise Old Owl was the one to do it. So a pair of swallows agreed to fly over to Mr Owl's hollow tree and get his help.
Mr Owl was very cooperative and he told the swallows to get a dried pepper plant, crush the leaves and throw them in little Squirmy's face.
That seemed to be a rather cruel thing to do, but Mr Owl didn't seem to be inclined to say anything more.
The two swallows flew back to where Squirmy was stuck in the fence, where his friends were waiting. They told them what Mr Wise Old Owl had said.
No one wanted to throw pepper in Squirmy's face, but no one else could come up with any ideas at all.
So they sent a chipmunk to gather up some dry pepper leaves and they ground them up and threw them in Squirmy's face.
His nose wrinkled up like a prune and he let go with a sneeze that shook the whole fence.
The one marble flew so far that they didn't find it for three days.
Little Squirmy was able to back out from the crack in the fence.
He was now a funny looking sight, everyone laughed when they saw him.
One end was red, the other was blue, the portion that had been protected by the fence while it was being painted was now blanched to a fish belly white.
Have you ever seen a red, white and blue worm? They sure are funny to look at.
One would have thought that Squirmy would have learned a lesson about swallowing things, well maybe he did for a few days, but in a short time he was back to his same old tricks.
In his travels through the forest he came upon a set of sleigh bells.
He just couldn't resist the urge to swallow them.
You think he was funny looking before, you should have seen him after he swallowed the sleigh bells.
A lumpy red, white and blue worm is what he was; I for one cannot imagine anything more amusing.
Squirmy found that by contracting one of his body segments he could make a bell ring.
Pretty soon he was able to make any of the bells ring by contracting a different segment so he was able to play a tune.
He learned one tune 'The Star Spangled Banner' and got a job playing for the opening of the baseball season with the Pittsburgh Pirates.
It was quite an attraction for everyone to see a red, white and blue worm playing the 'The Star Spangle Banner'.
Tune in at the start of next years' baseball season and watch him on TV and don't forget to stand up.
The End
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