The Battle of Destruction!

The following short story was written by my 9 year old son, Damien Ferguson, and he won second prize in the 3rd grade city-wide writing contest for his efforts. That was quite an accomplishment, especially considering that he attends public school.

I hope you enjoy reading it!

It was early daytime one morning not too long ago in the village of Dayfas . . . but it was Game Month in Dayfas!
It was the most fun of all, in fact, it was the absolutely, most incredibly fantastic time imaginable for one boy named Jerry because he just KNEW that he had good cards! He loved to play at home with his brothers and his one sister, not a little sister, but a great big sister who was already 12 years old named Tabitha! He would lose once in a while, but as his father taught him, “That’s just a part of the game!” The funny thing about THAT was that when the baseball bounced and hit Jerry in the mouth and made him bleed and when the football hit him in the eye and made it turn all kinds of shades of purple and black, his father told him at those times that, “That is just a part of the game!” It may be true that it is, but Jerry sure did not LIKE that part of the game!
Anyway, as I was saying, Jerry lost once in a while and now it was coming time for the BIG TOURNAMENT! His mom and dad said, “You’re not going to win!” But if he finished in first place then Jerry would win a Wii! If he placed second he would get a PS2! And if he ended up with a third place finish then Jerry would win an XBOX 360! But that was not the end of it . . . if Jerry ended up in 4th place he still could win a plain old XBOX! And finally, even if he did not do any better than 5th place Jerry still could walk away as the proud owner of a NINTENDO DS!
Jerry REALLY and TRULY wants a Wii! Why? Because a Wii is loads and loads of hours of non-stop fun and entertainment, but his mom and dad said they WON’T buy him one because they say it is just too expensive! They said to Jerry, “If you want a Wii so badly, then you are just going to have to save up the money and buy it yourself!”
But Jerry said, “I have to buy other things with my money! I have to have my HOT WHEELS TRACKS and CARS!”
Here are some pictures of Jerry’s cards (but not all of them). Altogether there are 120 in all of the set, but three of Jerry’s favorite cards are Dragon Fire, Dabe and Dusty. Dragon Fire is a dragon, Dabe is a ghost, and Dusty is a cloud of dust! The cards look like this:

Dragon Fire has 15 lives. His defense is 100% destruction of his foes. Dabe has 10 lives and his defense is 90% destruction of his opponents. Dusty has 10 lives and his defense is 100% destruction of his foes. So Dragon Fire and Dusty are very good cards to have!
Jerry’s friend, James, has a Sharkey card and it is the best card he, Jerry, has ever seen! This is what it looks like:



Jerry said, “Are you going to be in the tournament?”
James answered, “No.”
Jerry asked, “Can I borrow your Sharkey card?”
“Yes,” said James.
“Thank you, James!” said Jerry. James was such a good friend! Jerry was SURE that he would win it all now!
“You’re welcome, Jerry!” replied James.
So Jerry went home and showed his mom and dad his friend’s card, Sharkey, but his mom and dad said, “That’s not YOUR card! That’s your friend’s card!”
Then Jerry said, “But James is not going to be in the tournament, so it’s okay if I borrow his card to play the game!”
“Well, if that’s the case, then it should be okay, son!” said Jerry’s parents. So they agreed to let Jerry keep the card for the tournament.
In two more days the tournament would begin. Then came the special notice! It was announced that the games would be televised on the local television station! It would even be covered on the news, and rumor began circulating around town that ESPN wanted to broadcast it! Not to be outdone, FOX, CNN, Disney, Nick and Cartoon Network all said they were going to broadcast the big tournament as well. Boy, were things ever so exciting in the little town of Dayfas! Why, this was even more exciting than watching the Fire Department get old lady Pencilface Crumpett’s cat, Eraserhead, out of the apple tree in the middle of Thing Park!
Getting more excited as the thoughts of being on TV entered his mind, Jerry said to himself, “Boy, oh boy! I just KNOW that I will win!” As he thought this, Jerry imagined himself being the center of attention as the whole town came out and threw a giant ticker tape parade in his honor right down Main Street!
The next day Jerry played with his mom and dad and his brothers and EVEN his great big sister, Tabitha, who was already 12! He wanted to get in practice for the tournament.
The next day following was Game Day. The first kid Jerry faced was Tom. Tom was easy. Jerry beat him on his second try. Tom won a Nintendo DS. Tom was stupid!
Next up was Fudge. That wasn’t his real name, but since he had been called Fudge for so long no one seemed to know what his real name was, and nobody ever bothered to ask him! Some people called Fudge the Fudge Monster because he is weird and is always eating chocolate fudge brownies. He placed 4th and won the XBox.

Next up was an adult! Jerry was nervous playing against an adult who wasn’t his mom or dad, and this adult had a Dragon Fire card, too, but because he took a picture of Jerry’s card and Photoshopped it he was disqualified. Because of this, Jerry’s friend, Braden, got to play instead and he lost to Jerry and won the 3rd place prize of an XBox 360.

That meant that Jerry was in the finals! He had made it all the way to the championship round! And now he had to play his worst enemy ever, a no-good boy called Toodles McGreedy! What a horrible name for a rotten, stinking (yes, literally stinking of dirty feet and rotten eggs) kid! Toodles McGreedy was so bad that even the snakes in town avoided looking at him!

Toodles snarled at Jerry with a twisted grin upon his filthy face. He thought he would win! But he did not know that Jerry had saved his best friend’s card, Sharkey, for this very moment! Just as it looked as if Toodles McGreedy would come away victoriously, Jerry pulled out Sharkey and defeated that rotten Toodles McGreedy! The crowd erupted in thunderous applause, but Jerry looked over at Toodles and noticed a tear running down the cheek of Toodles. Jerry said,

“What’s the matter, Toodles?”

Toodles said, “I don’t have a mother or a father. I live alone with my younger brother, Foodles, in a small shack by the railroad tracks. All we ever get to eat are scraps that fall off the train as it passes us by.”

Jerry said, “I never knew that, Toodles. Why didn’t you ever tell anyone?”

“I didn’t think anyone would care, Jerry,” said Toodles.

“Aw, shucks, Toodles, I care, and so would my family. Why don’t you and your brother come and live with us? That would make us happy, and it would make everyone happy, too. Especially Jesus!”

So that is how Toodles and Foodles came to live with my family. No longer is Toodles rotten anymore. In fact, he and his brother have become like two more brothers to me and my brothers and sister, and we all get along very well.

Even Tabitha!

I let Toodles play with the Wii I won whenever he wants to, and he lets me play with the PS2 that he won at the tournament. And he no longer stinks! In fact, I think he is really pretty cool.