Wally's Storytime: A True Story

It was the typical library storytime. Two- and three-year-olds ran around the media auditorium while their mothers tried to listen to the storyteller, each convinced that her child was making the most noise. I watched silently from the piano bench at the back of the room, glad that for once my daughter was sitting relatively quietly and that I was being paid to be there.

The storyteller had done a couple songs and a couple finger games, so now it was time for a puppet show. This, however, would be no ordinary puppet show--and not just because this time the storyteller would invite the children to hold the puppets themselves--for this would be the puppet show that changed history.

After giving a wolf puppet to her son, a sheep puppet to a little girl, and a woodchopper puppet to a special little boy who we'll call Wally, the storyteller held up her own puppet--a little shepherd--and began her story. This, you see, was the ages-old story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf.

The story started out as usual. The little shepherd watched his sheep, got bored, and cried, "Wolf! Wolf! Wolf!" and the woodchopper came running up the hill to save him. Each of the junior puppetmasters played his or her part quite well. A second time the little shepherd settled in to watch his sheep, got bored, and cried, "Wolf! Wolf! Wolf!" and again the woodchopper came running up the hill. Then, the third time the little shepherd got bored and cried, "Wolf! Wolf! Wolf!" and the narrator explained, as the story goes, that this time the woodchopper did not believe the little shepherd, and so he--

But wait! Lo! Our dear little Wally would not hear of it. He would not let his woodchopper puppet sit idly by while the wolf puppet mauled the little shepherd puppet's little sheep puppet. Wally jumped to his feet and promptly bludgeoned the wolf puppet with the woodchopper puppet's wooden head.

What could that poor storyteller do? Wally, in his youthful innocence, had changed the story.

And I, dear reader, I could not help but wipe a tear from my eye. For you see, Wally may only be two and a half, but Wally knows the true meaning of Storytime--it's not about telling the story the way it's been told a million times. No, it's about something far greater, far more important: it's about beating the crap out of that damn wolf.

Let us all remember this lesson, and dear little Wally who taught it to us, the next time we hear a little boy cry wolf.