Where The Wild Thing's Things Are

Once again here in The Zone, the boys' rooms were trashed. Wizard did a pretty good job of cleaning his on his own. Moose needed a lot of help and guidance cleaning his mess, although he needed no assistance in trashing it in the first place. Wild Thing took two days to make his room spotless, but his closet was another story.

The day Wild Thing wore dirty clothes to school and dawdled at dinner, his mother called him "MESSMASTER" and Wild Thing said, "I AM NOT!" so she sent him upstairs to clean his room. That very night in Wild Thing's closet a mountain grew and grew and grew until there was laundry piled up against the walls and almost to the ceiling. The big, smelly mountain of laundry became the world all around.

There was no ocean, and there was no private boat, but there was a giant staircase that rose twenty feet in the air. So the Wild Thing stood at the edge of the stairs and contemplated his navel until "Ding!!" a brilliant idea popped into his head. And when Wild Thing came back to the giant staircase, he flung his laundry. Shirts, shorts, underwear, socks, sweaters, pants came soaring over the ledge ... and each piece hit his brother, Wizard, on his head for the Wizard was foolish enough to sit in the line of fire. Wizard roared terrible roars and gnashed his terrible teeth until Wild Thing said, "Bombs away" and launched himself down the vestiary slide. Down, down he tumbled until he knocked Wizard out of the way and reached the bottom floor.

"And now," cried the mother, "let the sorting start! Darks here, whites there, colors behind me." And Wild Thing looked with a vacant stare at the mother and replied, "Huh?" The mother growled, "Darks Here, Whites There, Colors Behind Me!" They sorted: darks here, whites there, colors behind her, until the mountain of laundry had been reduced to a few, little, smelly moguls. "Now stop!" said the mother and sent the Wild Thing into the laundry room with an armload of darks. Into the shiny deep washer they went, and they were lonely. The darks in the wash sent Wild Thing back to rescue more darks from the floor. Wild Thing went back and forth, rescuing darks, until all the darks were together again in the washer. The mother sent the darks on a watery journey until they were clean. Wild Thing went to play at a friend's house while the mother entertained the brothers at the park.

Later on from far across the town the father came home, and there was no one there. The father rescued the darks from their watery journey and banished them to the desert until they were dry. Then the father led the darks out of the desert and folded them neatly one by one until there was a small treasure of dark clothes. The father presented this treasure to the Wild Thing and sent him back up the giant staircase to put the darks away.

Wild Thing trudged back into the daylight of his very own room, where he found his empty drawers waiting for him . . . and the next three loads waiting to be laundered and folded.

The End.