Joshua and the Shimbly Confront the Root Thief

by AJ Hunter

One afternoon Joshua was resting under a shade tree, using his Shimbly petal as a pillow. When worn as a cape the petal allowed him to fly.

As Joshua was about to fall asleep he heard sound, like the whirring of a fan.

It was the Shimbly! It was flying towards him like a helicopter.

It was the same Shimbly that gave Joshua its petal in exchange for his yellow handkerchief.

The Shimbly communicated by movement and Joshua couldn't understand a single shake until the Shimbly's dizziness went away.

"Joshua, there is a great aggravation going on!" Shook the Shimbly, eventually. "Some dreadful creature is snatching the roots from all my vegetation chaps! Lend us a hand?!"

Joshua and the Shimbly flew off immediately to confront this mysterious root thief.

While flying over Ship Wreck Cove a sudden gust of wind hit the Shimbly and knocked its yellow handkerchief completely off!

"Yah

ooho

ohoo!"

The Shimbly couldn’t fly with only three petals and plummeted towards the cove. The Shimbly flailed for help, but unfortunately Joshua did not see it.

Joshua was so focused on capturing the subterraneous nuisance that he did not notice the Shimbly was no longer with him.

Joshua plunged after the beast but it swiftly retreated into the ground. In a heartbeat, a new hole appeared far from Joshua’s reach.

Every time Joshua went after the monster it would escape and taunt him from a fresh hole.

Joshua was getting very discouraged. He could not catch something capable of moving that quickly in soil.

Just as he was about to give up he heard a whirring sound...

It was the Shimbly! But there was something different about him...

“Ahoy, matey!” Shimmied the Shimbly. “Ya can’t go a-plunderin’ after ‘em like that! Ya need the right booty to lure him up to the poop deck!”

The Shimbly plunged one of its roots into the ground. In no time the Shimbly squirmed violently, “Shiver me tubers! The scallywag took the bait!”

“Avast! A kraken of the sandy loam!” quaked the Shumbly as it raised its root from the ground. Latched onto its root was a baby Rootster. “Be ye a-feared, ye scurvy odd dawg!”

Adult Rootsters only eat the roots of non-communicative plants. Joshua figured that the little Rootster was too young to know it was stealing the roots of conscious plants.

Joshua took the Rootster away from the Shimbly amid threats to “flog” and “keelhaul” it.

Joshua taught the Rootster to tickle a plant’s roots before taking it's roots. If a plant was ticklish it would miss the root.

The tiny Rootster promised to only take roots from non-ticklish vegetation.

The end.