The Ridiculous Adventures of Michael Mattingly: The TERRIBLE Monster

By Jackie Vandall Thomas III

Do you like a story where a brave knight mounts his steed and saves a damsel in distress and the two of them live happily ever after? Well Michael Mattingly sure doesn't! He's writing the stories around here, and he likes his stories to be completely ridiculous!

Join Michael and his seven-foot-tall purple dragon friend Boris as they embark on adventures through the strangest landscapes possible, meeting talking beans and polar bears and anything else you could dream up. On this particular day Michael and Boris must find and slay a TERRIBLE monster! Do they have what it takes? Will they survive? And can they finish before lunch?

"The Ridiculous Adventures of Michael Mattingly: The TERRIBLE Monster" can be read by kids ages 8-11, and enjoyed by anyone who likes a ridiculous story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jack Thomas
• Release date: Jun 21, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301508341

Jackie Vandall Thomas III

Jackie Vandall Thomas III is a children's author who writes and illustrates books that are mostly silly in nature. He lives in a stone fortress up on Mount Shasta with his wife, Sandra the Destroyer, and his army of pet otters. He enjoys Chinese food, non-Chinese food, and puppets.

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The Ridiculous Adventures of Michael Mattingly:

The TERRIBLE Monster

By Jackie Vandall Thomas III

Published at Smashwords

Copyright 2013 by Jack Thomas

*****

He twiddled his thumbs, he counted the number of tiles on the ceiling, he sang the ABC’s backwards in his head…but nothing Michael did would make the clock tick any faster.

He sat at his desk in the middle of the room. All the other kids in Mrs. Drury’s third-grade class seemed to be listening to her as she went over math problems on the white board, but Michael just couldn’t seem to keep his attention away from the clock. Oh, he tried to listen—he tried to watch as she scratched out equations on the board with her squeaky little blue pen and explained how to solve them—but his eyes always ended up drifting back up to that second hand as it tick…tick…ticked away the time, each tick seeming to take longer than the last. And the minute hand was so close to its destination! When it reached the big number 12 on the clock that hung above the white board, the hour hand would then reach its own destination, that beautiful number called 3. And when that time came—only a few minutes away now!—it would be three o’clock and that wonderful bell would ring.

Michael Mattingly did not dislike school. On the contrary, school was one of his favorite places! Where else could you learn great new stuff and play great games and have fun with your friends all in the same place? But though he enjoyed it very much, these final moments of the day were often very long and drawn out, sort of like the weeks before Christmas. These moments were hardest because he wanted so desperately to go somewhere. He wasn’t sure where yet, but he knew it would start in his room. It always started