Johnny and the Best Day Ever

By Robert Curry

Robert Curry has been a children's storyteller for over thirty years for students and teachers in elementary schools and campers and staff in summer camps. Johnny is the result of those stories. When his daughters were very young, he would tell them a story before bedtime, usually stories familiar to all that have been told over the decades and

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Curry
• Release date: Aug 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9798869207906

Robert Curry

Robert Curry has been a preacher, speaker, writer, teacher, and children's storyteller for more than thirty years. Married to Dorothy Ann, they have two daughters and four grandchildren. It is through his daughters that the stories about Johnny were born. Curry and Dorothy Ann enjoy travel, hiking, sightseeing, and sharing the beauty of the Michigan Upper Peninsula together. Curry is an avid reader of mystery, adventure, and historical fiction.

Book preview

Chapter One: The Snowy Unicorn

The day was already getting hot, very hot, and it was still early in the morning. It was too hot to do much of anything, especially to mow grass—swimming or playing baseball, for sure, but way too hot to push a lawnmower through the backyard. Johnny had finished the front yard, but now he was faced with the huge backyard his dad was so proud of. It was only a few days after school had ended for the summer, and this was how he would spend it: mowing grass. Johnny sighed and wished he was somewhere fun, anywhere but there, standing next to the now-idle lawnmower.

Get back to work and stop daydreaming, Johnny, said his father as he leaned out of the back door, or it will soon be too hot to mow the yard.

That’s the idea, said Johnny under his breath, low enough that his father couldn’t hear him.

I’ve got to get to work, said his father; I’ll see you this afternoon."

See ya, Dad," said Johnny, restarting the mower. Might as well get this over with, thought Johnny, then I can get to the really fun stuff. He started his loops around the backyard, circling the trees and steering around all the flower beds, yard statues, and birdfeeders. The mowing was almost finished when Johnny glanced to one side and noticed something shining brightly in the sun. Johnny stopped, turned off the lawnmower, and picked up what was shining in the sun. He immediately saw what it was.

Wow, said Johnny, it’s a ring! It was a big gold ring that was too big for any of his fingers; only his thumbs were big enough. The thick band had squiggly designs on it, and the stone—well, the stone was beautiful, milky white with little spots of many colors. The longer he stared at the stone, the more the spots seemed to dance around each other. It was the most beautiful ring Johnny had ever seen.

Johnny, said his mom from the back door, you need to get back to work, honey. It’s getting hotter.

Ok, Mom, replied Johnny, as he put the ring in his pocket and got back to work on the yard. After he finished and put away the mower, he went inside the house. Later that afternoon, shortly before supper and expecting his dad to be home from work at any minute, Johnny went into his room. As he changed into clean clothes, he discovered the ring still in one of his pants pockets. Oh yea, thought Johnny, the ring! He pulled it out of his pocket and looked at it again. He stared at it for some time, watching the colors in the white stone swim around each other. I wonder whose ring this is? he said out loud.

Johnny sat on his bed, staring at the ring. Oh, there’s a little dirt around the stone, Johnny said aloud to no one but himself. Sliding it onto his thumb, he began to briskly rub the beautiful stone in the ring around and around to the left, counter-clockwise, to try and clean it. Suddenly he became very dizzy, and then everything went black. When Johnny woke, he lay still for a moment and then sat up. What just happened? he asked himself.

Something was very different!

Instead of sitting in his bedroom, he was sitting in the middle of a small clearing surrounded by huge trees in a dense forest. Johnny cautiously stood up and looked around, trying to figure out where he was and how he had gotten there. The clearing contained a few small shrubs and several fallen trees, which to Johnny, appeared to be arranged like benches in a park, all facing toward the center. The clearing looked to be some sort of gathering place, but for whom? He walked to the edge of the clearing to see if there was a trail or something else that could tell him where he was, but the forest was so dense he could not see more than a few feet ahead.

Johnny could hear sounds all around him: birds singing and moving from tree to tree, the wind rustling the leaves, and small animals moving about. Johnny suddenly realized he was hearing a different sound, as well. What was it? Voices? Deep in the forest came the low murmur of voices, and the sounds were moving closer. Johnny quickly ran behind a large fallen tree. Hiding behind the tree, Johnny watched and listened as the voices grew louder. Within moments Johnny began to see movement through the trees at the far edge of the clearing.

Who is that?

Out of the trees and into the clearing came a large group of people, maybe as many as one hundred in all: men, women, and children. All the men had beards of different lengths. The women had long hair hanging down their backs, and their heads were covered with scarves. The children clung tightly to their mothers.

Not one of them was over three feet tall! Johnny, almost five feet tall, would tower over all of them.

As they came toward the center of the clearing, most of them sat down on one of the fallen trees or another. Some of the men seemed to be in a serious discussion, and the women looked very worried, holding tightly to the children. The men seemed to be having an argument with one man who had the longest beard of them all. He had to be their