Chapter 8 The Stanley Trap and Tommy’s Tales T

he three friends sit on the roof for a long time talking and planning. They discuss all the different ways they can try to put a stop to Stanley and the more they talk the more they realize how difficult it will be to catch him.

Stanley is very sneaky and fast. He can climb better than any of them and is also a very good leaper. There is one other major issue, there doesn’t seem to be any pattern to how Stanley comes and goes.

“If he always came by the same entrance or left by the same path,” Mac complains, “We could catch him that way.”

King confirms how he has never seen Stanley come and go the same way twice. “It’s like he is trying to be tricky,” King suggests. “The only thing I can think of that is the same every time is lettuce,” King says feeling discouraged and frustrated.

After a moment Mica leaps up and says very excitedly, “That’s it! Lettuce!”

Mac and King straighten up and look at Mica expectantly. When she does not continue Mac finally says, “What about the lettuce, Mica?”

“The lettuce.” she says with a look of resolve on her face. “He always takes the lettuce.”

“So, what? Of course he takes the lettuce. I’m sure he eats it!” Mac says grumpily.

“But don’t you see, that means we can use the lettuce as bait,” Mica says triumphantly.

Mac and King finally get it and agree wholeheartedly. “We can use the lettuce as bait,” Mac says. With this important fact now discovered they set about developing their plans. Mica takes the lead. “When Mr. Heetderks was giving me a tour, I noticed that there are a lot of holes in Tommy’s area.”

“Yeah,” King affirms. “Tommy is really good at digging holes.”

“Okay, great,” Mica continues. “I hoped so. When we have the chance to talk with tommy, we’ll ask him to dig a good hole under one of his rocks. Then we’ll need one of those big leaves.” She says as she nods her head toward a gigantic philodendron leaf down below.

King jumps in and says, “That’s no problem for me, I can bite through the stem easily enough. But what do we need a big leaf for?”

“It will be the door to our trap,” Mica answers as she turns to Mac. “Mac, does your foot feel good enough to jump?”

“Yeah, but where am I jumping?” He asks.

“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” Mica says as they all huddle together. A few short moments pass as Mica explains her plan.

“Perfect!” King exclaims as Mica finishes.

“WHOOO HOOO!!” Mac yelps as he leaps up. “Let’s do it!” he says turning to the exit.

“Wait,” Mica interrupts, “How do we get over to Tommy’s place?” she asks.

King says, “don’t worry about that, I’ve got a secret exit.”

And with that they turn and walk back through the high door and down the steps.

Talking bushes

At the bottom, King leads them out the front door of his house. Instead of turning left, however, they follow King to the right toward the back side of his house.

King walks directly toward a little depression in the ground. It’s a tight squeeze for King but they are all able to get out easily enough. Before long they are making their way around the back of WorldWonder along the inside of the exterior wall toward the tree where Stanley had climbed out with the lettuce. They turn at the tree and follow the same path Stanley had taken only they are going toward the tortoise enclosure rather than away from it.

About halfway between the exterior wall and Tommy’s place Mica, who was in the back of the group, hears something to her left. “What’s that?” she says in a harsh whisper as she investigates the underbrush. Mac and King stop and look back at her and all three wait expectantly. After a few seconds of staring into the tangled green plants, Mica thinks she sees a plant stem shift a little. At the very same moment she hears someone say in a thin, sad voice, “It’s not polite to stare.”

All three of them jump back, startled, and confused about where the voice has come from. Mica’s eyes drift over to where the moving stem had been to study it for a second. She sees that it tapers down to a very fine point but there’s no leaf at the end. She follows it back in the other direction until she sees a branch that grows down and away from it. This second branch separates into five narrower stems that look almost like, “Wait, are those toes?” she is thinking when suddenly they grip the stem they’re clinging to. All in an instant, Mica realizes she has been staring at a gigantic iguana, perfectly blended into its surroundings.

The site of the huge lizard is so startling to Mica that she yells and jumps backward tripping over a stone and tumbling into the bushes behind her.

The lizard turns its huge head toward the commotion and says, “That’s the way it always goes with me, if there’s a rock to trip over, you’ll fall over it for sure when you meet me. Why just a little bit ago I was minding my own business in the sun on top of the wall, and something knocked me right off it. But that’s the way it always is for me.”

“Oh, Lizzy, it’s just you. You scared us!” King says, relieved.

“Hey King, nice to see you,” the huge lizard responds.

King continues as he makes his way over to help Mica up, “Yeah, we saw you fall. It was Stanley who knocked you off the wall. He was stealing lettuce from Tommy again and used your tree as an escape route. We’re on our way to talk with Tommy now. We’re going to catch Stanley and teach him a lesson.” King finishes his monologue and then seems to tense up and looks at Mac and Mica and then back at Lizzy, “do…you…want to help us?” he says hesitantly.

For a second Lizzy looks honored and appears like she will say yes, then her face falls back into a defeated, sad expression and she says, “I better not. If I was helping it would all go wrong. That’s the way it always happens with me, the thing you don’t want is exactly what you get. No, it’ll be better if I don’t help.”

King exhales as if he’s been holding his breath. After helping Mica to her feet, he says, “Okay, well, let us know if you change your mind.” And then without pausing to wait for a response and without even saying goodbye he quickly walks off down the path toward Tommy’s place adamantly encouraging Mac and Mica to follow right away.

Mica feels rude leaving the lizard behind without even saying goodbye, so she turns and says, “Nice to meet you.” And just as Lizzy is about to respond there’s a snap and a swoosh and a flop as the branch and Lizzy with it fall to the ground with a crash.

King turns back to Mac and Mica and urges them to follow, “Come on guys, she’s fine,” he says insensitively.

And despite the guilt Mica feels, she walks away toward Tommy’s. As she walks away, she hears Lizzy saying, “No surprise there. A perfectly good branch breaking for no reason. That’s the way it always is with me.”

Setting the trap

Moments later they are standing beside Tommy’s enclosure and King calls in a loud whisper, “Hey Tommy, you there?” He turns back to Mac and Mica and says, “Don’t worry about Lizzy, she’s fine!”

There is a slight shuffling and scraping sound inside the enclosure and a slow, deep voice says, “Is that you, King?”

“Yeah, I wanted to introduce you to my new friends, can we come in?”

“Yeah, sure,” Tommy says.

“Okay, see you in a second,” King replies and then turns toward the left and follows the wall of the enclosure around until they come to the very same steps Mr. Heetderks had used while carrying Mica on the tour. They climbed the steps and hopped down into the enclosure, finding themselves face to face with a huge tortoise.

“Tommy, this is Mac and Mica,” King says, breathlessly.

Tommy looks at them both and smiles, “Hello, it’s good to meet you, I’m Tommy,” he says, warmly. Mac, blurts out, “Tommy, we’re here to put a stop to Stanley stealing your lettuce.”

This catches Tommy off guard, and he doesn’t know exactly how to respond so he stutters a bit and then says nothing.

Mica sees Tommy’s confusion and jumps in, “What my brother means, Tommy,” she pauses remembering her manners, “I mean, it’s good to meet you. My name is Mica.”

“Hello Mica, it’s nice to meet you too,” Tommy says with a smile returning to his face.

“What my brother means to say,” Mica starts again, “is, when we were standing on the roof, we saw Stanley steal your lettuce. I saw him do it a few days ago too. We heard you yelling at him to bring it back and we saw him take it right over the wall and out of WorldWonder. King says he’s been doing this for a while, and we don’t think it’s right. So, we’ve made a plan to stop him. But to make our plan work, we need your help.”

Tommy does not respond right away, and Mac, Mica, and King begin to doubt their plan. They’re wondering if they misread the situation. Just as Mac is about to break the silence, Tommy starts slowly nodding his huge head up and down like he’s coming to an important decision and finally says, “It started as a joke after I met him last year on my adventures to Lighthouse in Chap Hall. At first, I thought it was funny. But it’s not funny anymore. I have asked him to stop but he doesn’t. He’s way too fast for me to catch him or stop him, and, well…” Tommy trails off and looks very sad for a second before he adds, “And, well, I like Stanley, but I really wish he would stop picking on me like this.” Then looking up at his new friends with his huge eyes he says resolutely, “Yes, I will help.”

“Good!” Mica says confidently. “Then here’s what we’re going to do.”

For the next few minutes, they describe their plan to Tommy. In a matter of minutes, they are ready and each of them heads in a different direction to do their part.

Mac and King go off to get the Philodendron leaf while Tommy moves toward the big rock and his food bowl. They had all decided to place their trap near the food bowl since that’s where Mr. Heetderks puts the lettuce every morning.

Tommy has his instructions on how he should dig out the hole, but Mica follows him just in case. She instantly regrets this decision, however, because turtles move very slowly compared to kangaroos. Even though they only have a short distance to travel, it becomes very clear to Mica that it will take them a long time to get there.

After about a minute, Mica asks, “What’s Chap Hall?”

Tommy, who is concentrating very hard on putting one huge foot in front of the other and dragging his heavy shell, stops and turns his huge head toward Mica. “Huh?”

“What’s Chap Hall?” Mica repeats patiently.

“Oh,” Tommy says, “That’s where Lighthouse is.”

“What’s lighthouse?” Mica asks.

Tommy opens his mouth to answer Mica’s question but then seems like he doesn’t know exactly what to say. Finally, he says, “It’s a place I went to last year. There’s lots of kids there.”

Mica wonders about this. Because when she was on the tour with Mr. Heetderks there were a lot of kids, and they were very big and intimidating. So, she asks, “Was it scary?”

“No, not scary.” He laughs, “Well at first it was a little scary, but I got used to it. The kids sing and dance and have a lot of fun. I got to sit in the front. I learned a lot there and I also talked with Eli, before he flew away, because he had gone too.”

“What kind of things did you learn?” Mica asks curiously.

“Well, one time I was hungry, and I got some food in a way I wasn’t supposed to. I learned that I shouldn’t take things that aren’t mine. I learned that I should give to others to be helpful. The kids really like to give.” Tommy looks thoughtfully at Mica and then continues, “I guess that’s how everything started with Stanley. I met him in Chap Hall, and I had just learned about generosity, and I wanted to practice sharing. So, I told him that Mr. Heetderks makes sure I have lots of lettuce and that he could have some if he wanted. He came the next day and it felt good to share. We laughed and had a great time. He likes to pick on me because he says I’m slow.”

They finally arrive at the food bowl and continue talking and sharing stories while they work on the hole together. Tommy shares all about the things he’d learned at Lighthouse in Chap Hall the previous year. When Mac and King eventually get back with the leaf, they join in with the work and conversation. Finally, the trap is finished.

They all stand back and inspect their work and Mica says, “The only thing left to do is wait.”

Tommy suggests, “Mr. Heetderks usually brings the lettuce by in the morning. If Stanley’s gonna come, he usually shows up then.”

So, with the trap set, they decide to say goodbye and meet first thing in the morning.