Aagh scanned across the top row of books. “Wow! These books are wider than the others.”
Eek stepped back. “Be careful up there! Those books don’t go all the way to the end. They might fall over.”
“Ooh, that sounds like fun.”
He shook his head. “You don’t understand. If the books fall over, they’ll make a lot of noise. When the people hear the noise, they’ll come out here looking for us. It would be smartest for us to go back into the hole then, where the people can’t go. I’m not sure you’ll be able to get down here soon enough for the people not to see us.”
Aagh noticed how far off the floor she was. “Oh, okay. I’ll be really, really careful then. I promise.”
She moved slower across these books. Since they were bigger, she was able to stand completely on each book. As she did she made the sound for that size book for a longer time. She stopped at the really wide book with the shiny gold coloring. “What’s this book?”
Eek stood up. “That’s the Bible.”
She stared at the book. “Oh, wow, God sure likes pretty things.”
“It says in that book that in Heaven, where some of the people go when they die, the roads people walk on are that color.”
“Wow! Heaven must be a really pretty place. Well, if that’s God’s book then I shouldn’t play on it.”
To skip being on the Bible, Aagh jumped over it onto the next book in the row. As she landed on the next book, the rest of the row started to fall over.
“Oh no!”
Eek stood up. “Aagh, watch out!”
To keep the books from falling over, Aagh ran across the rest of the books in the row. The books stood back up straight when she pushed off each one. When she got to the last book she hopped on the books that were lying flat, holding up the other books. She jumped on the shelf and pushed on the books as hard as she could to straighten them up. She didn’t get them as straight as before, but they didn’t fall down.
Aagh shook her fur out. “Whew! That was close. I think I’ll explore a little higher.”
She climbed to the top of the bookcase. What she found there surprised her.
“Hey, Eek, there aren’t any more books here. There are some little people, the same size as me. Except, they aren’t moving.”
“Those are pretend people. They tell a story. Each one tells a different part of a bigger story. Wait right there. I’ll climb up and tell you the story. I know an easier way.”
He went over to the curtain hanging right next to the bookcase. He climbed up it to where his friend was waiting.
While she waited for Eek, Aagh pretended to talk to one of the pretend people. She stood up on her back feet and put a paw on its shoulder.
“Hi, my name is Aagh. What’s your name? Nice weather we’re having, isn’t it?”
By the time Eek reached the top of the bookcase, Aagh was on her third pretend person. “Hi. My name is Aagh. What’s your name?”
Eek smiled. “What are you doing?”
“I’m pretending I’m talking to the pretend people. They don’t talk much. I think they’re kinda shy.”
He tilted his head. “They don’t say anything because they aren’t real, silly.”
She stood between two of the pretend people. “I know. But wouldn’t it be cool if we were the same size as people so we could talk to them. We could tell them that we’re just looking for a safe place to live with food to eat, just like they are. Then maybe they wouldn’t try to kill us just to put us in the grave, right?”
“That sounds good, but you know it isn’t going to happen. That’s just not the way God made things work.”
“I know. But I can pretend, can’t I?”
“Yeah, you can pretend.”
“Okay. You say these pretend people are telling a story, even though they don’t talk.” She tilted her head. “Which one of us is being silly now?”
“Look, it’s like this, sometimes people tell a story by talking. Sometimes they put stories in books. Sometimes they use pictures, and sometimes they use pretend stuff.”
“That’s kinda strange. But I guess when God made people like Him then they can do things like that.”
“That’s right. Now, do you want to hear the story?”
She swished her tail. “Yeah, I like stories. I assume with all these pretend animals the story happens in a barn.”
“Well, this story happened a long, long, long time ago. They didn’t call it a barn; they called it a stable. But it’s where the people kept their big animals.”
“What are all of these animals, anyway? None of them looks like a mouse.”
He shook his head. “No, there isn’t a mouse in this story, just big animals. Let’s see, that smallest one is a sheep, or a lamb, they’re the same thing. The next bigger one is a goat. This one is a donkey, sometimes the people would ride on their backs. And this is a cow.”
“How do you know all of this?”
Eek pointed to the furnace grating in the wall, close to the ceiling. “I know how to get up there where I can look down here and see what the people are doing. The mom and dad told this story to the small people when they put this pretend stuff here. And the dad likes to tell parts of the story to the people at the church.”
“Wow. That’s pretty neat.” Aagh went to the front of the bookcase so she could see the whole scene. “So, who are these people?”
He went into the stable. “This is the dad person, his name is Joseph. And this is the mom person, her name is Mary. They’re married to each other.”
“Okay, so we have Joseph and Mary. All right, I got that,”
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