The Little Grandee Sprite”: “Carol Kretschmer, a born-again believer in tenth grade, first discovers boys as she looks into her high school yearbook. She now wants her first boyfriend. She is the head varsity football cheerleader attired in black and dark blue. She is a Little Grandee High School Sprite with a pet griffin named, ‘Gallant.’ Gallant says, ‘Mistress, before you go out with a boy, make sure that that boy is a Christian like yourself.’ Stubborn, Carol says, ‘No. First I will go on a date, then ask him if he is born-again like myself.’ Thus the sophomore girl begins her new life with cute boys.
THE LITTLE GRANDEE SPRITE
By Mr. Morgan P. McCarthy
Her name was Carol Kretschmer, a sixteen-year-old sophomore girl of Little Grandee High School. Little Grandee was a town in the Griffin Land, a world of men and women and children and Tawny Benevolent Griffins and Gray Malevolent Griffins. Carol was happy in high school and proud to be a Little Grandee Sprite. She especially loved being the head varsity football cheerleader, for which she did thank her God every day. As blessed as she was as a cheerleader, Miss Kretschmer was especially glad to be a born-again Christian. The Lord Jesus Christ was her personal Saviour and the Lord of her life and her Best Friend. This young woman called the Good Lord, “My Friend of Friends.” Her second best friend was her pet Tawny Benevolent Griffin, whose name was “Gallant,” her protector from those Gray Malevolent Griffins out there.
What did Carol Kretschmer look like as a Sprite cheerleader? She was a blonde girl with bangs and with straight shoulder-length hair down the back and along both sides of her head. Her eyes were brown, accentuated with full dark eyebrows and with long dark eyelashes. Her form was five feet
Page 1
seven inches tall and lithe and limber and supple. And her cheerleader uniform was a most coordinating black and dark blue. Black and dark blue ribbons adorned her blonde hair along the back of her head. A black and dark blue cheerleader sweater covered her torso, with dark blue on the upper half up to the V-neck and with black on the lower half down to the hem. There was a chenille emblem of black letters reading in an arc ‘SPRITES” across the upper dark blue of the sweater. And the sleeves were also dark blue along the tops up to the shoulders and were black along the bottoms to the cuffs. And a dark blue and black cheerleader skirt covered her legs nearly down to the knees. It was a box-pleated cheerleader skirt with black main pleats and with dark blue contrasting pleats. And its pleats were wide and few. And it had a zipper/button closure in the back. She also had on black knee socks with three wide dark blue stripes near the top. And she also had on black canvas sneakers with dark blue shoelaces and dark blue soles. Carol was a very beautiful girl. And all the boys wanted her. Even grown men looked at her in affection. Yet, being a born-again believer, Miss Kretschmer did not let herself become proud. God made her what she was. She had not made herself. To God be any glory whatsoever in any thing of His divine work of creation. Instead she found her popularity an opportunity to spread the Word of God throughout Little Grandee High School.
One day, as she was paging through her Freshman year high school yearbook, Carol made a most exciting discovery in her life at sixteen years old. She was sitting out back in Mom and Dad’s countryside yard amid the tall and thick field grass in her cheerleader’s uniform. The wild and uncut grass upon which she was sitting was poking her all about in places where a girl did not want to be poked. Her pleats were all spread about in a messy pile around herself. And the wind was blowing her ribbons about in her hair. And for her first time, this sophomore discovered cute boys. They were everywhere about in this last year’s yearbook upon her lap right now. She just had to tell her good and loyal griffin pet. In a summons, Carol stood up in the field grass and raised her right arm above her head. Behold, a gallant Tawny Benevolent Griffin coming now from afar unto her. Lo, ever-faithful
Page 2
Gallant coming to his mistress. He lighted upon the grass before her, bowed his noble form before her, and said, “Your faithful griffin at your service, O Mistress.”
“Gallant! Gallant!” said Carol Kretschmer, “I want a boyfriend!”
“You want a boyfriend, Mistress?” Gallant asked her.
“Yeah! Yeah! They are everywhere in this yearbook!”
“Have you picked out one from the yearbook that you might want to ask out?” asked Gallant.
“Oh, I want all of them,” she said.
“Usually a girl has only one,” said Gallant.
“Then any of them would do, Gallant,” said Miss Kretschmer.
“My mistress, you are coming of age now,” said the Tawny Benevolent Griffin.
“But which one should I have?” asked Carol.
“That’s easy,” said Gallant.
“What do you think?” asked the Little Grandee Sprite.
“Why, the boy who is saved and living for God,” replied the wise pet griffin.
“Is that what the Bible says, Gallant?” asked Carol.
“Uh huh, O Mistress,” said the Scripture-learned griffin. “It is written in II Corinthians 6:14, ‘Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.’”
“Does God say there what I think He says?” asked the head varsity Sprite cheerleader.
“It does,” said Gallant.
“God’s Word there must say that I must not be unequally yoked together with an unbelieving boyfriend,” said Carol.
“Right, Mistress. You are a Christian girl. God does not want you to date a non-Christian boy.
He says this in the Bible for your own good,” preached the wise good griffin.
“Which cute boy at Little Grandee High School is born again as myself?” asked Carol
Page 3
Kretschmer.
“Pray about that, Mistress, and let God bring him unto you in God’s ways and in God’s will,” counseled the griffin pet his griffin mistress.
“Oh, I cannot wait for all of that, Gallant,” said Miss Kretschmer in the excitement of this new desire.
“Nay, my mistress. You will get yourself into all kinds of trouble if you go out with the boy that God does not want for you,” warned the sagacious Tawny Benevolent Griffin pet. “Pray, and let God answer your prayer before you start your dating life in high school. It is written in Ephesians 3:20 about the all-wise God, ‘Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,’”
“Not me!” snapped the sixteen-year-old girl. “I am going out looking for a boy and finding out all about them!”
“Mistress,” uttered Gallant with the voice of Holy Spirit authority.
“Too late to yell at me now, Gallant,” said the sophomore girl. “I’ve made up my mind.”
“Carol,” called out Gallant with the love of Christ.
“Too late to beg of me now, too, Gallant,” said the stubborn young woman. “Gotta go, good friend. I’ll tell you all about my adventures one-by-one when I get back.”
“What would Jesus do?” asked the Tawny Benevolent Griffin.
Convicted of her sins, the offended girl turning into a woman gave out a huff at her confidant and walked away from him and left him behind.
And the young Christian lady walked about these Griffin Lands in search for her first boyfriend.
And Gallant got alone with God and did pray for his errant young mistress.
And Carol Kretschmer found her first date. It was with a high school senior who played for the varsity football team for whom she did cheer every Friday night. He was the Little Grandee kicker.
Page 4
And everybody and himself called him “All-Guts.” His real name nobody knew. Some doubted if he even had a real name. He seemed not to know his real name even for himself. And he was called “All-Guts” because he had a big belly. To put it succinctly, All-Guts was portly beyond health. He was all fat in the stomach, and he was no muscles in the arms and chest. His legs strained underneath himself just to hold up his big belly. But these same legs earned him the award for the kicker of the year in all of the Griffin Lands among all of its high schools. On their first date together, All-Guts proceeded to demonstrate to his cheerleader lady his field-goal kicking prowess on the Little Grandee football field after a big victory that night. He spoke and said, “Look how easily I can make a thirty-five-yard field goal against the wind, Miss Carol.” And he ran up to the ball on the tee, swung his right leg, and booted the football right between the uprights.
But all that Carol could see of this field goal attempt was a big belly that jiggled about in his jersey in a most sore sight. This dating was not what it was cut out to be with this boyfriend.
Then it got worse for her. All-Guts then proceeded to take off his jersey, showing his big guts in all of their bare obesity. And he then began to try to flex his tenuous biceps and triceps, making himself to think of himself as a strongman. But All-Guts was no Apollo.
He then asked her, “What do you think, Miss Carol?”
Trying to change the subject, Miss Kretschmer said, “Nice field goal, All-Guts.”
“Oh, but I kick even better with my shirt off like this,” he went on to tell her
“I never saw you kick a field goal with your shirt off in a real game before, All-Guts,” said the Sprite football cheerleader.
“Oh, but that’s all because the coach won’t let me do it that way anymore.” said the fat boy.
“Too bad. That will keep me from ever being M.V.P. of the Griffin Land, I tell you.”
To this, the head football cheerleader asked, “All-Guts, would you put your shirt back on?”
He stood there for a moment with hurt feelings on his face. Then she said to him, “I bet that you
Page 5
can kick a forty-yarder even with your shirt on.”
Consoled, All-Guts put back on his football jersey and did say, “That I can do. But this one I will kick with my left foot, Miss Carol.”
“Your left foot?” asked the Little Grandee Sprite. “But aren’t you right-footed?”
“That I am. I am right-footed. But I’ve been secretly practicing kicking with my left foot here after all of the games. Yours truly wants to make himself better for the coach and for the team,” said All-Guts.
“But how can kicking equally well with either foot help the coach and the team?” asked the cheerleader Carol.
“I do not exactly know, Miss Carol,” he said. “Let me just say that the best get better.”
“Okay,” said Carol. “All right.”
He then proceeded to attempt a forty-yard field goal with the wrong foot. The ball traveled forty yards, hit the crossbar in the middle, and bounced back onto the field. “Short!” he lamented.
“You missed, All-Guts,” said Miss Kretschmer.
“I only miss when I get too excited, Miss Carol,” he told her. “And I was excited because you were watching me.”
The Sprite cheerleader wondered, if this were so, why it was that he made so many field goals in the excitement of all those real games with bleachers full of fans watching him. “You’re better with your right foot, All-Guts,” she told him now.
He stood there sulking and pouting and saying nothing to her right now. And an uncomfortable silence came up between the two right now. Then he said, “Say that you’re sorry for what you said, Miss Carol.”
Swallowing her pride, Carol Kretschmer said, “I’m sorry for what I said, All-Guts.”
“I forgive you, Miss Carol,” he said.
Page 6
Trying to salvage a problem date now, Carol asked, “Hey, All-Guts. Would you like to meet my pet?”
“I love all animals,” he said, happy again this night. “I want to meet your pet. Is it a dog? Is it a cat?”
Raising her right arm in her customary summons, Miss Kretschmer said, “He is neither dog, nor cat. He is a–”
Suddenly All-Guts turned and ran, yelling in great fear for his life. And Gallant came and lighted upon the ground at his mistress’s side. The Tawny Benevolent Griffin asked, “What’s wrong with the boy, Mistress? Hasn’t he ever seen a griffin before in these Griffin Lands?”
In his hasty flight, All-Guts accidentally crashed headfirst into the field goal post. He grunted, stood there in a daze, and fell down upon his bottom, and stayed down there, semi-conscious.
The two approached him where he was sitting. Carol asked him, “All-Guts, what’s wrong?”
He said, “I do not want to be eaten by one of those Gray Malevolent Griffins, Miss Carol. Sir Griffin, please do not eat me.”
“All-Guts, can’t you see that my pet griffin is not gray, and that he is quite tawny?” asked the Little Grandee Sprite cheerleader.
“He is? He really is?” asked All-Guts.
“Boy, look up at me,” said Gallant.
He looked up now and looked upon Gallant. “Oh, he’s a good griffin,” said All-Guts. “Sir griffin, you are tawny.”
“That I am,” said Gallant.
Trying to regain his dignity, the field goal kicker introduced himself, saying, “I am All-Guts.
I kick footballs.”
And the Tawny Benevolent Griffin said, “I am Gallant, the griffin of my mistress.”
Page 7
“Thank you for coming, Gallant,” said the griffin mistress Carol.
“Boy, what do you think about Jesus?” asked Gallant the right question at the right place. The Tawny Benevolent Griffin was looking out for his errant mistress who was here on a date with this young fellow.
“What do I think about Jesus?” asked All-Guts.
“My mistress needs to know,” said the good griffin pet.
“Do you really need to know, Miss Carol?” asked All-Guts.
“Oh, I do. I want to know,” said the Little Grandee football cheerleader.
And All-Guts got back to his feet, stood there with his arms crossed across his chest, and went on to say in most swelling pride, “Let’s just say that I kick better than God Himself, Sir griffin, Miss Carol.”
Thus ended Miss Kretschmer’s first date in ignominy. With a “See you at school, All-Guts,” the sophomore girl got onto the back of her pet griffin, and the two flew back home. All-Guts was all wrong for her. But she did not give up. Carol Kretschmer was a stubborn girl.
Her next date, her second date in her life with high school boyfriends, was with a freshman named, “Yellow.” Everyone called him, “Yella.” He had come to this big high school of a thousand students from a country grade school with only one classroom for each grade level. He had first come to Little Grandee High School scared, and he was still scared at Little Grandee High School now well into his ninth grade year here. His fearful face was always pale and sickly. He was even afraid of eighth-graders. And he always took to stuttering in his debates for the freshmen debating team. He had not won one debate yet. And he was the main reason why the Little Grandee freshman debating team was known for its winless record throughout the Griffin Lands. They were here now at the park on their date together, sitting together at a picnic table.
The head football cheerleader opened up the conversation, asking him, “Yellow, what do you
Page 8
like to do for fun?”
“I don’t like to have fun,” he said. “It’s too frightening.”
“Fun is frightening, Yellow?” asked Miss Kretschmer.
“I took up hiking, and I ended up falling down a cliff. I am lucky to still be alive,” he told her.
“Did you ever get back to hiking?” she asked him.
“No. Not ever again. Not this boy, Carol,” said Yellow.
“Did you go and try another thing to do?” she asked.
“I took up chess,” he said. “And I had an accident. I had a real bad accident, Carol.”
“You had an accident playing chess?” she asked.
“Uh huh,” he said. “I was staring down upon those chess pieces. And I was thinking so hard. And I got afraid of losing so bad. Well, my eyes became crossed. And they would not straighten out again. I was cross-eyed for the rest of the day. And Mom and Dad had to take me to the eye doctor. I am lucky that I can still see, Carol. I quit chess for the rest of my life.”
“What bad luck, Yellow,” said Carol Kretschmer.
“”I had a date one time earlier this year with a girl from our high school, Carol,” he said.
“Was she pretty, Yellow?” asked Carol.
“She was pretty. And she was so pretty that she ended up making me stutter so bad that I could not get anything right out of my mouth,” said Yellow.
“Which girl was she?” asked Miss Kretschmer.
“Gretel,” he said.
“Gretel who?” asked Carol. “I know some Gretels who go here.”
“I’m afraid that if I tell you, you might laugh at me,” he said.
“Yellow, I promise not to laugh,” said the Little Grandee Sprite cheerleader.
“Gretel Grate,” he said.
Page 9
“She’s a senior, Yellow,” said Carol. “You were a freshman boy on a date with a senior girl.” Carol did not laugh at Yellow.
“I was an underclassman dating an upperclasswoman,” he said.
“And you said that that date ended up bad for you,” said Carol.
“I quit dating again for a long while. But now I am trying it again with you, Carol,” said Yellow.
“Gretel Grate is the most popular girl in school,” said Carol.
“She was beautiful. She spoke so well. I could only stammer,” confessed Yella.
“Yellow, you’re not stuttering here with me. You have not said one stammer on our whole date together. Maybe you are all over that now,” said Carol with hopes for this scared freshman Sprite.
“I seem to stutter the worst when I am with a pretty girl,” said Yellow in his simplicity.
At once did the head football cheerleader understand. And she said, “You do not find me pretty. Do you, Yellow?”
“You are not at all ‘unpretty,’ Carol,” he blurted out.
“What does that mean, Yella?” asked Carol.
“You are neither pretty nor ugly,” he said.
“Then I am a plain girl to you. Aren’t I, Yellow?” she asked.
“Can we be friends, anyway?” asked the timid ninth grader.
“We can be friends, Yellow, if you stop being so scared all of the time,” said Carol.
Just then a Gray Malevolent Griffin swooped by just above Yellow’s head where he sat, and the evil griffin called down to him in mean tease, “Boo!” and then flew off away. And Yellow passed right out cold and fell backwards off of his picnic table bench and lay supine, half upon the grass and half upon the bench.
Not knowing what to do, Carol Kretschmer raised her right arm to summon her pet griffin. He
Page 10
would know what she should do right now. And good Gallant came flying up to her at once and lighted before the picnic table. He asked her, “What happened to the boy that made him half on the picnic table and half off of the picnic table, Mistress?”
“His name is ‘Yellow,’ and he fainted dead away when a bad griffin passed by and frightened him,” said the griffin mistress.
“He is appropriately named, Mistress,” said Gallant. “Let me revive him.” And Gallant grabbed a hold of him and shook him with his eagle claws vigorously. And Yella came to.
“What happened?” asked the dizzy young coward.
And Carol said, “Should I tell him, Gallant?”
“Nay,” said the Tawny Benevolent Griffin. “Instead ask the frightened young lad the eternal question. Ask him what he thinks about God, and then you will know if you ought to date him again.”
Yellow rallied and sat back up upon the picnic table bench. And he said, “Are you wondering what I think about the Lord?” All nine words of his interrogative were broken up with stuttering.
“Yellow, you’re stammering,” said Carol.
“God is not the One to talk to me about, I beg of you, Miss Kretschmer,” stammered Yellow, his knees and elbows and ankles and wrists trembling in great terror.
“How come?” asked Carol.
“He is so big and mean…He could kill me with a word…He could squash me accidentally like I could a fly…Even saying His name makes me so afraid that I could die…No one is more horrifying to me than Jesus—not any girl, not any evil griffin, not even the Devil himself.” Yellow was stuttering so badly that he got sick and threw up on the ground. Then he got up from the bench, fled the born-again cheerleader girl and her good griffin, and never came back again.
Thus ended the Little Grandee Sprite’s second date with an unsaved boy in infamy. “This Yellow is all wrong for you, O Mistress,” said her good tawny griffin pet.
Page 11
“I’ll never go out with him again,” said Carol Kretschmer. “Poor Yella.”
“He is afraid of the God of love,” said Gallant in sum. “Poor young fellow.”
The varsity football cheerleader next went out with an older man. He was a Little Grandee alumnus of nineteen years of age. They had agreed to go horseback riding in the countrysides of the Griffin Lands—she and he to ride his horse “Gallop.” She had heard most odd and curious things about him. For one, his name was “Gender Bender.” And she wanted to find out more about him, to see if everything that people had told her about him were true. Surely none of these things could really be. He would be her Medieval knight riding a noble thoroughbred. And she and her prince would ride on into the sunset together on a happy date. He would definitely be most masculine.
As she stood in front of her parents’ house, waiting for him, along came a rider upon a great white horse. This was her date. And she became animated. And he called to his horse, “Gallop, whoa!” And the horse stopped in front of the Little Grandee Sprite sophomore.
Behold, a man in a skirt!
In fact, this man was dressed in the same Sprite cheerleader uniform of black and dark blue as she was herself right now!
Dumbfounded, most regretful disappointments fell down upon Carol Kretschmer’s countenance. This third date in her new dating life was with a transgender guy cheerleader. And he was neither a knight, nor a prince, nor masculine.
Gender Bender went on to say to her, “You are a beautiful cheerleader, Carol. I love your outfit. I came as you today for our date together.”
“You find me attractive, Gender Bender?” asked Carol Kretschmer.
“Definitely!” he said right out in sincere praise for the girl cheerleader. Then he asked, “Do you find me attractive, Carol?”
She wrestled with her reply and ended up saying, “You do make yourself look pretty.” She
Page 12
did now know what else to say. For a girl like Carol, telling a man that he was pretty was not at all like telling a man that he was handsome. And already the girl Sprite cheerleader wished that she was not going out with this man today. But she did not know how to get out of this date.
Yet Gender Bender’s face lit up with happiness, and he said, “You think that I am pretty? What a compliment from a real cheerleader like yourself, Carol.”
Reluctant, the Little Grandee cheerleader Carol mounted Gallop, sitting behind Gender Bender, and the drag queen cheerleader called forth to his horse, “Gallop, gallop!” And the two went on their ride together upon the white horse in the Griffin Lands.
He began to chatter much about a shop called “The Griffin Land Cheerleader Supply Shop,” where he had found this outfit for the day for this day’s date with her. He told Carol that he wanted to be just like her, that he wanted to for now on dress like her, and that maybe their day would come when she would let him try on the very same such outfit that she had on over her form right now as the Sprite cheerleader for Little Grandee High School. He even said how he dreamed about cheering on the varsity football team in what he was wearing right now, to cheer next to this head cheerleader riding with him now, in front of all the bleachers full of fans.
To try to stop all of this cross dresser talk, Carol Kretschmer kept interrupting him and telling him about her life with God as a born-again believer—her church life, her Bible life, her prayer life.
But the twain did not meet. Gender Bender talked his talk. Carol Kretschmer talked her talk.
And the conversation was a wrestling match. Then the girl Sprite football cheerleader remembered what her griffin Gallant had showed her twice already. She needed to ask Gender Bender what he thought about Jesus. What this transgender would answer this eternal question with would be the surefire answer as to whether she should go and date this man again. And she asked him, “Gender Bender, I was wondering: ‘What do you think about God?’”
“I believe that God is a woman,” said Gender Bender.
Page 13
That was it. Gender Bender was the wrong man for her. And the Little Grandee Sprite promised God in silent prayer to never date this man again. She went on to say, “Gender Bender, I would like to come back home to my griffin Gallant.”
And he consented and turned Gallop around and headed back to her home. Just then a Gray Malevolent Griffin flew by overhead on his way to do some Devil’s work. Gender Bender asked Carol,
“Is that griffin your Gallant, Miss Kretschmer?”
“No. No. My Gallant is a Tawny Benevolent Griffin,” she replied.
“Oh. That’s good,” said Gender Bender.
And suddenly the drag cheerleader gasped and grabbed an edge of one of his pleats of his cheerleader skirt. He looked up at this evil griffin, raised his fist up at him, and cursed him. And the man groaned in utter dismay. But the wicked griffin laughed at him and flew off to do his work.
“What happened, Gender Bender?” asked the Little Grandee Sprite.
“He dropped dirty rotten griffin dung down upon my black and blue pleats. Woe! Woe! Woe!”
cried out the drag queen man.
“You can always wash it in the washing machine,” said Miss Kretschmer.
“But then that would mean that I have to take it off,” he said. “I cannot bear to take off something as good as this. I will just have to keep it on and continue wearing this just as it is.
Woe! Woe! Woe!”
“Gender Bender, you’ve got a fetish,” said Carol.
He refused to talk to her the rest of the ride home. Thus ended her third date in inglory. And when she got back home to Mom and Dad and Gallant, never before was she so happy to be home again. She told Gallant about her adventure on this third bad date, and she promised her griffin to never go out with Gender Bender again.
And Gallant praised her for having asked this transgender the eternal question about Jesus.
Page 14
And yet the Little Grandee Sprite went on to go out on a date with a fourth young man whom she did not know yet were saved or unsaved. His name was “Lank,” and he was a Little Grandee junior, and he was the tallest man in high school. And they had their date sitting out on her parents’ front yard together to watch the sunrise of a new day. When they were sitting together side-by-side,
in order to talk to Lank face-to-face, Carol had to tilt her head back and look way up at him. Understanding her difficulty about his great stature. Lank said, “Do stand up, if that would make it easier to talk with me, fair Carol.” And the Sprite cheerleader got to her feet to talk to him. And once on her feet, now her eyes were level with the eyes of the sitting Lank.
Then Lank got to his feet, and now his head was even farther above the head of Miss Kretschmer than it was when boy and girl were sitting. And he teased himself in mirth saying, “Carol, ask Lank how the weather is up here.”
Both laughed, and the Little Grandee Sprite said, “I heard that tall joke before, Lank.”
Then Lank said, “I’ve got another one, Carol.” And he went on and said, “Ask me to move, because I am blocking the sun.”
Both laughed together again, and Carol Kretschmer said to him, “Lank, I never heard that tall joke before.”
“I’m full of them,” he said.
Though Lank were extraordinarily tall, he was also very lean and gaunt, almost bony. That was why he was called “Lank.” He was more lank than he was tall. And he missed days from school regularly due to influenza and fevers that came upon him from time to time. He ate much and weighed little. And that was despite his over seven feet of height.
“Lank,” said Carol, “is it really true that you are the tallest boy in the Griffin Lands?”
“Yes, Carol,” he said. “And I am still a growing boy.”
“They say that you look down upon griffins,” said Miss Kretschmer.
Page 15
“Indeed, Miss Kretschmer,” said Lank. “Whether good griffins or evil griffins, when I stand
in front of one, I have to turn my head down to look upon him.”
“What do you do when you stand in front of a Tawny Benevolent Griffin, Lank?” asked the Little Grandee Sprite.
“I bow before him and ask him if I could pet him on his neck,” said Lank.
“But what do you do when you stand in front of a Gray Malevolent Griffin?” asked Carol Kretschmer.
“I get ready to run,” he said. “That kind eats people.”
“Isn’t the sunrise beautiful today?” asked Carol.
“Just think. Someday I can do something like that hopefully,” said Lank out of the blue.
“You don’t mean ‘making sunrises.’ Do you, Lank?” asked the sophomore Christian.
“Behold God’s painting in the morning sky, O pretty Carol,” said Lank.
“You make a girl believe that you think to make sunsets as well,” said Carol.
“We both like sunsets more than we do sunrises,” said Lank.
“Who told you that?” asked Carol. “I never told you that. I always prefer sunrises to sunsets.”
“By ‘we,’ I do not mean ‘you and I,’ Carol,” he said to her.
“Then who is this ‘we,’ Lank?” asked the cheerleader believer in Christ.
“God and I,” he said.
“Lank, you are beginning to talk crazy,” said the Little Grandee Sprite girl.
“Alas, my girlfriend does not believe in me,” said Lank.
Then Carol remembered the eternal question that she was supposed to ask of this gaunt young giant. And she asked it to him, “Lank, what do you think of God?”
“I think that we all are gods,” he said.
“Why, that sounds like the New Age cult,” she said.
Page 16
“I’ve been reading,” he said.
“Is it the Bible?” she asked in unrealistic hopes.
“Better than the Bible,” he said. “I’ve been reading Jonathan Livingston Seagull.”
“Is that where you got the idea that you are a god, Lank?” asked the Sprite Carol.
“I’ve got a future ahead of me that will make your head spin,” he said. “I may or may not
be a god quite yet, but I will work at it and study it and persevere in my efforts of it until I do become a god.”
“You want to be just like Jonathan Livingston Seagull,” said Carol the born-again Christian.
“I read all about it,” he said. “Jonathan the seagull was not content to just be any normal seagull. He was a seagull who wanted to transcended his own mortality. He was a seagull who wanted to enter a great and high plane never before reached. He was a seagull who wanted to fly faster than any other seagull anywhere anytime.”
“He wanted to be God, Lank!” rebuked the wise and humble Christian girl. “The brightest angel Lucifer wanted the same thing that you want, and now he is Satan the Devil, whose future is the hottest fires of all Hell.”
Thinking himself to be a teacher, heedless of the born-again woman who knew God and God’s Word, Lank went on to summarize Jonathan Livingston Seagull, saying, “He kept trying and trying to fly out of this temporal world into the eternal world. He never quite became fast enough in his flight.
But he never gave up. He had the tenacity and the doggedness that would make him the greatest seagull of flight there ever was. And he kept trying. Faster and faster and faster did he learn to fly as a mortal seeking immortality. And after all of his great work, he finally became that seagull who found his perfection. He flew so very fast in that last attempt that he lost his imperfections. He had finally arrived, Carol Kretschmer. Does that not make Jonathan Livingston Seagull the most great creation of God of all time? I wish to become just like him.”
Page 17
“Lank, do you wish to become the most great creature of God the Creator?” asked Carol the Sprite cheerleader.
“I am working on losing all of my imperfections, so that in the end, I have only perfections. I will be that god, Carol. That is my life goal and my life dream and my life destiny,” summed up the tall and lank high school junior.
“Lank, Jonathan Livingstone Seagull is not real,” said Carol Kretschmer.
“He is real, woman,” said Lank. “And I am real.”
“Lank, you can never succeed in your works. All people have a sin nature that indwells them since birth. You and I are sinners by nature and by choice. And our sins necessarily keep us from being more than we are. Sin keeps us from immortality, from godliness, from deity. Only the Lord is without sin. Only the Lord is immortal. Only the Lord is perfect. He–not you–is the Divine Maker of Creation. Lank, you can never become God!” preached the Little Grandee Sprite Words of everlasting truth.
“All I ask of God is to let me become a god. He can be the big God with the capital ‘G’.’ I shall become the little god with the small ‘g,’” said Lank.
“Lank, the flying seagull in that book is not truth. Only Jesus and the Bible are absolute truth,” said the daughter of God. “And because I am born again, I have a Home waiting for me that is greater even than the world that your seagull had flown himself into. It is called ‘Heaven.’ and that is where I shall be for forever in my own life to come. This is God’s free gift of eternal life. And He gave it to me the moment I had come to Him for so great salvation.”
An uncomfortable silence passed between them. Then Lank said, “I thought that we might have had a fun time together today, Carol. But you are all full of Christ. And you say most strange things.”
“May I pray for you, Lank?” she asked in good Christian compassion.
With the pride of Lucifer, the towering gaunt Lank said, “No! Do not pray for me, woman!”
Page 18
Then he began to walk away and to say to himself, “She believes in Christ, but not in me.”
Thus ended the Little Grandee Sprite’s date with a fourth boy whose spiritual state she had not known previously. And this was a failure of a date as well.
Dauntless, maybe heedless, Carol Kretschmer went ahead and asked out a fifth high school boy for a date. Once again she planned on finding out his salvation status on the date itself and not beforehand despite what Gallant was always telling her.
His name was Beef. Beef was a Sprite weightlifter on the strength team. And he was a sophomore like herself. Beef was stronger than were any of the Little Grandee football players whom Carol cheered on. And Beef was taller than any of the Little Grandee basketball players. Beef was all muscle. But his brains matched his brawn. Not only did Beef build up all of his muscles, but he also knew what all the names were of all the muscles of his body. Beef had suggested that they have their date at Griffin Lands Beach, and the cheerleader agreed. “Come as you are,” he requested of her, and that she did—in all of her cheerleader attire from head to foot. She requested him to do in like—to come as he was—and he did so, joining her at the beach in his swimsuit.
And the first thing he said on this date was, “I want to slay myself a griffin, Carol.”
“What’s that you’re saying, Beef?” asked the Little Grandee Sprite, looking around and fearing any Gray Malevolent Griffin who might be passing by who could have heard Beef speak. There were no evil griffins around right now at this beach.
Bold and impetuous, formidable Beef began to flex his biceps and triceps in front of the cheerleader girl, and he said, “Carol, Beef can lick any griffin out there. Bring it on!”
Cautious, Carol said to him, “Beef, not so loud. A Gray Malevolent Griffin may hear you.” And then she said, “And he might come after us.”
In the third person, the experience weightlifter said, “Beef fears no man and no beast.”
“Even Tawny Benevolent Griffins do not go around challenging the evil griffins,” said Carol,
Page 19
afraid.
“I shall elect to defer my challenge,” said Beef to make her at ease here with him at the sandy shore.
“Thank you, Beef,” she said.
“A guy ought not to scare a girl,” he said in kindness and deference to the Sprite cheerleader with him now.
“Beef, could you teach me some of what you know?” she asked.
“I know muscles, Carol,” he said.
“Would you tell me some?” she asked.
He then reached out his hand and touched her neck, along the front and the side of it. And he said, “This muscle, pretty cheerleader, is called the ‘sternocleidomastoid muscle.’”
“Beef,” she asked. “Is that all one word?”
“It is,” he said. “It is the longest word that I know.” Then he said, “My same neck muscle right there I use to break coconuts, Miss Kretschmer.
Then he reached out his hand and touched her arm just above her wrist. She asked, “And what is the name for that muscle, O Beef?”
And he said, “This is the ‘flexor digitorum superficialis muscle.’”
“This one sounds like an even longer word,” said the Little Grandee cheerleader girl.
“That’s because it takes up three words,” he said to her.
Remembering how he bragged about breaking coconuts with his neck, Carol went on to ask him, “Do you do things with that wrist muscle, also, Beef, that you want to tell a girl about?”
“Yeah!” he said in gladness. “In All-Star Wrestling I finish off all of my opponents with one of my forearm smashes. There are none in professional wrestling like unto my forearm smashes, Carol.”
“Neat, Beef!” cheered the cheerleader.
Page 20
Then Beef went on to touch Carol on her ankle—just above it. “This muscle, Miss Kretschmer, is called the ‘extensor digitorum longus muscle.’” he taught her.
“That sounds like a three-word muscle,” she said.
“That it is,” he said.
“What have you used that muscle for lately, Beef?” she asked.
And he said, “I got real mad one day when I came to a stop sign on my way to school. It was not there the day before, but that day, there it was. I was late for school, and everybody knows that Beef does not like to be late for school. So I got out of the car, walked up to the stop sign, and kicked the wooden sign post down with one swipe of my ankle.”
“Do teach your admiring girl more, Beef,” she encouraged him.
Next he put his hand to the back of her heel. He said to her, “These muscles in the back of your heel are called the ‘tendo calcaneus muscles.’”
“I fell down on the cement one time in cheerleader practice one time and hurt myself there,” said Carol.
“Did you break anything?” he asked.
“It was just a sprain,” she said.
“Ah. That takes longer to heal.” he said.
“Did you ever do any exploits with your heel muscle, O Beef?” she asked.
“I also had an accident just like you did with that same muscle,” he said. “I was ‘pumping iron’ that one day up in that mezzanine that Little Grandee High School has for us weightlifters. And a fifty-pound weight fell off of the machine and landed on my muscle behind my heel, and a chunk of the weight broke off of the weight and lay there on the cement. It was the oddest thing I had ever seen in my days of beefing up. But my heel muscle was okay.”
“Beef,” said Carol, “that sounds far-fetched. Iron does not break off into chunks.”
Page 21
“These weights were concrete,” he told her in good truth.
“A weightlifter can ‘pump iron,’ as they call it, with concrete weights,” said the cheerleader Christian. “And concrete can break off into chunks if something hard hits it just right, or if it hits
something hard just right. I believe you, Beef.”
Then Beef put his hand to her hand and pressed upon her five fingers. “These muscles between the fingers, Carol, are called the ‘dorsal introssei muscles.’” he taught her.
“So, big Beef, what do you do with those hand muscles?” she asked.
“I can remember one time not too long ago where I won an arm wrestling match with the high school gym teacher,” said Beef.
“Is that it?” asked the sophomore cheerleader girl.
“Oh, but there is more to this story that you have to ask about,” said the weightlifter.
“Should I ask?” she asked.
“Do ask,” he said.
“I ask,” she said. “Tell me the rest of your tale, Beef,”
“The gym teacher was using his whole hand. But I was using only my index finger,” told Beef all.
“Oh, Beef. You’re too much,” said Carol in delights.
Just then something powerful grabbed a hold upon the shoulders of the cheerleader in black and dark blue. And the girl felt herself being lifted up from off the ground. Behold, a Gray Malevolent Griffin bringing her up into the sky to drop her down upon the Earth! “Help! Help!” cried out Carol.
Big Beef reached up instantaneously with his weightlifter arms, grabbed a hold of the evil griffin’s lion body, and pulled him hard back down to the ground. The Little Grandee Sprite was free now from the eagle talons. And Beef proceeded to stomp his foot down upon the griffin’s eagle head. And the Gray Malevolent Griffin quickly fled in the air for his own good. And all of a sudden it was
Page 22
all done and over.
“Beef, you saved my life,” called out Carol as a princess rescued by a knight in shining armor.
“I wish to be your prince, O pretty Carol,” he said to her.
Just then in came another griffin, this one lighting upon the ground between boy and girl. In seeking to rescue a damsel in distress, Beef ran up to this griffin, spat out a scorn at him, saying, “Tawny Benevolent Griffin! I hate you, too!” and grabbed him around his neck in a powerful and inextricable grip.
“Gallant!” cried out the Little Grandee Sprite griffin mistress.
And the brute of a young man threw Carol’s gallant good griffin hard upon the sand on his eagle head.
“Gallant!” cried out Carol Kretschmer in great cares. And she quickly knelt down at dear Gallant’s side where he was sprawled upon the sand.
“Carol, do you know this dirty rotten griffin?” asked Beef.
“This is not a dirty rotten griffin, Beef. This is my Gallant, my pet and my best friend and my confidant,” said the Christian girl.
“What is a girl like you doing with a griffin like that?” challenged the brute.
“Gallant, Gallant, are you okay?” asked the mistress of the good griffin.
“I shall be all right shortly, Mistress,” said Gallant in encouragement. “Ask him the eternal question, and you will know what to do.”
Coming up to the high school weightlifter, Carol Kretschmer asked him, “Tell me, Beef: What does a guy like you think about God?”
“I think about God the same way as I think about all griffins, cheerleader,” said the brute.
Enough said. This fifth date for the Little Grandee Sprite also ended in dissolution. And Gallant got back to his feet; nothing more was said between boy and girl; and Carol mounted her pet
Page 23
griffin; and she came back home to Mom and Dad.
And Carol Kretschmer got down on her knees beside her bed in prayer, and she repented of dating unsaved boys, and she promised to wait upon God to bring her a saved boy into her life. No more was she going to go out with a young man until first she knew that he was a born again Christian like herself. “Gallant was right, O Lord,” she prayed. “And I was wrong.”
The next day was church day. Gallant asked her, “Shall we go to our Baptist church by way of the sky again this day, O Mistress?”
“No, Gallant. Let us go by ground this time,” said the Little Grandee Sprite believer.
“That is good with me, Mistress,” said the Tawny Benevolent Griffin.
“I prayed this morning, and God told me to ride you on the ground instead of to ride you in the air on our way to church today,” said Carol Kretschmer.
“To obey God is always good for griffin mistress and for griffin pet,” agreed faithful Gallant.
“I wonder why God said what He said to me about that,” said Carol.
“God will tell you in His time and in His way, Mistress,” said the Tawny Benevolent Griffin.
“Fly me to our good old Griffin Lands Baptist Church, precious Gallant,” agreed the Little Grandee Sprite. “Maybe God will tell me at the service.”
And they began their trek to the little Baptist church down the road a few miles.
Lo, a traveler riding an old donkey, a fellow with a fishing hat on his head and with an overbite that was most manifest on his hirsute face. He was short and thin and dressed in blue jeans and long-sleeved plaid shirt and leather vest and penny loafers with no socks. He looked like a wild man, but his countenance exuded joy in the Lord. Upon his old donkey, he came up to the side of girl and griffin, and he asked her, “Miss, do you know how I can get to the Griffin Lands Baptist Church?”
“That’s in the outskirts of this town,” she said. “I and my good griffin Gallant are on our way right there just now in fact.”
Page 24
“We must be in the town of Little Grandee,” he said.
“I am a Little Grandee Sprite, sir,” she said.
“You’ve got a pretty cheerleader uniform, good miss,” said this fellow.
“I like your hat,” she said.
“I got it from K-Mart,” he said. “I’ve got lots of these kinds of hats.”
“It’s a ‘Jiffy hat,’ Isn’t it?” she asked.
“It is, Miss,” he said. “Fishermen are known for wearing these Jiffy hats. But I do not fish myself.”
“What’s your name, sir?” asked the cheerleader on her way to church.
“My name is ‘Flanders Nickels,’” said the fellow.
“I am ‘Carol Kretschmer,’” said the Little Grandee Sprite.
“Glad to meet you, Carol,” said the fellow.
“I’m glad to meet you, too, Flanders.” said Miss Kretschmer.
“Are you a member of Griffin Lands Baptist Church, Carol?” asked Flanders.
“I am, Flanders,” she asked. “Are you coming to my church for your first time? I never saw you there before.”
“I am coming to your church as a first-time visitor,” said Flanders. “I come from beyond the Griffin Lands.”
“Flanders, I have to ask you something,” she said. The time was now for her to ask that eternal question to this handsome and godly man who had come to her from far away.
“Ask, and I shall answer from the sincerity of my heart, pretty Carol,” he said humbly and patiently.
“What do you think about the Lord God, O Flanders?” asked the Little Grandee Sprite.
“I am a born-again believer, and He is my personal Saviour,” answered Flanders Nickels in
Page 25
a most plenary compound sentence.
“Mistress,” called forth her griffin Gallant, “God has now found you a boyfriend.”
“My my,” said Carol Kretschmer.
“Boyfriend?” asked Flanders.
“My griffin speaks in haste,” said Carol.
“I wish to think as your griffin thinks,” said Flanders. Petting his donkey on his neck, Flanders asked, “Muley, did our Good Lord bring me to a first girlfriend in my life?” The donkey, of course, being a donkey, did not reply with words. But he did give off a most natural “Hee Haw,” in assent to his master.
“Girlfriend?” asked the Little Grandee Sprite in hopes now waxing.
“Would that be not right for me to ask at this time, Carol?” he asked.
Carol said, “That is just what I want you to ask me right now, O Flanders.”
“Shall we go out on our first date at the Griffin Lands Baptist Church then, beautiful Carol?” he dared to ask her out.
“There is no better place for a Christian boy and a Christian girl to meet on a first date than at a small fundamentalist Baptist church down the road, Flanders,” said Carol Kretschmer.
“It is written,” he said, “’But as for me, I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy: and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple.’ Psalm 5:7.”
“And so is it also written, ‘God is is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him.’ Psalm 89:7,” recited the Little Grandee Sprite believer.
“Also, it is written, ‘Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name: bring an offering, and come before him: worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.’ I Chronicles 16:29,” recited Flanders more Scripture about church.
Page 26
And again it is written for us church-goers, O Flanders,” said Carol Kretschmer all caught up
in this sweet fellowship with a cute guy saved like herself, “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day
approaching.’ Hebrews 10:25,”
“That includes us good griffins, too,” said Gallant.
“You are most welcome, good Gallant,” said Flanders. “Is my ever-loyal donkey welcome in your church as well?”
And the Little Grandee Sprite at once said, “Your Muley is welcome to join us at church, O Flanders.”
“To God be the glory,” said Flanders Nickels.
“To God be the glory,” averred Carol Kretschmer.
Page 27
