Tommy Tobotsky Tarantula III; The Sock Drawer Incident

By CC Molinari

Susie Vanderhoof is an outspoken, bright eight-year-old with an imagination large enough to match her heart. She makes the discovery of a lifetime when she finds a talking spider named Tommy Tobotsky Tarantula III has been residing in her sock drawer. The two form an immediate bond, but Susie's parents think she is exercising her overactive imagination when she tries to tell them about Tommy, and then, refuse to allow her to keep him. Fearful of losing her new friend, Susie makes a brash decision that puts her and Tommy in danger, and in the process, irrevocably shifts the dynamic of her small family.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9781643009681

Book preview

9781643009681_cover.jpg

Tommy Tobotsky Tarantula III

The Sock Drawer Incident

Written by CC Molinari and Elizabeth Stanley

Illustrations by Luke Scriven

CC Molinari and Elizabeth Stanley

ISBN 978-1-64300-966-7 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64300-967-4 (Hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-64300-968-1 (Digital)

Copyright © 2019 CC Molinari and Elizabeth Stanley

All rights reserved

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Covenant Books, Inc.

11661 Hwy 707

Murrells Inlet, SC 29576

www.covenantbooks.com

Table of Contents

Preface

Intruder Alert!

In Which Susie’s Imagination Runs Away with Her

Peanut Butter and Jelly Leftovers

In Which Nina is Contradictory

MIA

Settling Sediment

Elm Road

An Der Schönen Blauen Donau11

Appendix

About the Authors

To our little sealion girl, Morgan Leona.

Preface

Some of my warmest memories from childhood are of being snuggled in my pj’s in bed with my sisters and my mom while she would spin the tale of a talking tarantula. I couldn’t tell you when the first story arose, I just remember the nights my mom would slowly begin to nod off in the middle of a sentence while we would yell her name, desperate for her to continue the saga before it was time for bed.

Susie and Tommy were born in the depths of my mother’s imagination over two decades ago and have lived on in my own heart all that time. In 2016, when I discovered I was pregnant with my own daughter, I practically begged my mom to set aside time to bring Tommy and Susie to life on paper so one day, I could read their adventures to my own daughter.

It was with that in mind, my mom and I sat and began to map out Susie and Tommy’s first adventure together. Our greatest hope is that parents would take the time to read these books with and to their children in order to encourage discussion, exploration, and relationship.

We’ve included an appendix at the end of the book to help with certain phrases or items with which you may not be familiar. We would love to encourage you to take the time to look up words you may not know or ask your parents for help! The point is: this book and the stories from when I was young are as much about exploration as they are the story itself.

What lay between these pages is an adaptation of sorts of my mother’s improvisational wit and is but a small taste of many more grand adventures to follow.

I hope these stories alight your imagination as they did mine as a very young girl and lead you to discover the most magnificent things about the world, others, and yourself.

Go forth, fellow sojourner, and adventure well.

—ES

How do you keep five rambunctious children and a few additional friends at a reasonable noise level in the 1990’s? You invent stories!

My recall of Tommy tale-telling was that he arrived on our trips back and forth across town with kids cramped inside a recycled vehicle gifted to us by my sister and her husband.

My love for a good story, however, happened long before any of these moments began. My own mother had a rich value for books because she would drive us weekly to the beautiful big house on Market Street that served as our city library for a time. To this day, I can still hear the creaks in the floors and smell the stacks of books. It brings me the greatest joy to recall those summertime moments from the age of seven on to adolescence when time seemed to stand still as I devoured book after book in our non-air-conditioned home. With electric floor fans blowing the pages, window shades drawn to minimize the sun’s intensity, my imagination soared.

So, dear friends, may your own imagination soar with many magical moments, full of laughter and love that Tommy and libraries full of stories bring you.

Cheers!

—CC

Chapter 1

Intruder Alert!

We’ve hit turbulence! Susie cried into the headset. I gotta pull up! She yanked hard on the yoke, bringing the nose of the 1963 Cessna 172 Skyhawk¹ further skyward. It’s no use! she yelled over the wind.

Looking over her shoulder, Susie saw the missiles closing in. I’ve got to bail out!

She began to shoulder her parachute, but as she threw open the plane’s door, a voice came crackling over the plane radio. Susie…asked you…your room…

Hello? Susie grabbed the headset, panicked. I can’t hear you! Repeat transmission! Do you copy?

The voice pierced clearly through. I’ve asked you a hundred times today, young lady, to clean your room. Susie! Do you hear me?

Sighing heavily, Susie peeked her blue eyes out in between the two sheets that stretched from end to end over her bed like a canopy. Yes, Mom! I’m sorry!

She had shrouded her bed in the dusky blue of her sheets to shut out the world and any possible interruptions. Her mother, however, was not an interruption. She was Susie’s commanding officer and not to be ignored.

Reaching back into her tent and shutting off the fan that