uHollywood

Humor: Harry Potter and the Wannabe Storyteller

Somehow I never got into the Harry Potter craze. I am thus, I suppose, an oddity, misfit, and candidate for a 12-step program.

My granddaughter, Akiko, age 8, disdains me for my lack of obsession with Harry. She reads the books, watches the movies, and performs Harry Potter-like magic spells when least expected – in a crowded public restroom, for instance, when she wants to get to a cubicle.

We were sitting in the automobile recently, waiting for another family member, when I decided to ease Akiko’s boredom and redeem myself in her eyes. I’d tell her a (what else?) Harry Potter story. I mean, how difficult could it be?

“Have you heard about Harry Potter and the, uh, Tag-along Toad?” I asked.

Akiko squinted at me from the backseat. “No.”

I figured I could tell a viable Harry Potter story, flying by the seat of my pants. That’s probably how author J.K. Rowling does it anyway, and I’ve long suspected I might be the world’s next great storyteller, ready to burst forth from my secret chamber. My tale went something like this:

“Oh, Harry Potter, Harry Potter!” cried Hermione.

(It’s fun to state “Harry Potter” with an English accent, inflecting it like a question in that truly strange British style.)

“Why are you out-of-sorts, Hermione?”

(Harry asked this in a wondrous accent part Cambridge, part Cockney.)

“When I tried to put on my shoe, it began to hop away from me, and I discovered a toad glaring at me from inside!” Hermione answered.

“Blimey, let’s check my handy Book of Recent Happenings,” Harry suggested. From his cloak, he pulled a magical book with a little keyboard attached. He typed in a word-search: “Hermione-shoe-toad.”

Instantly, one of the book’s pages showed a picture of a boy –

(“Neville!” Akiko clarified.)

“Uh, yes, it was Neville who put the toad in your shoe,” proclaimed Harry.

“Let’s confront him at the soccer field!”recommended Hermione.

(“Quidditch field!” yelled Akiko.)

Yes, so off to the quidditch field they went, and there they discovered none-other-than Neville, riding his quidditch broom across the stormy sky.

“Cracky, you come down here now and apologize to me and to the toad!” Hermione shouted.

(Hermione had suddenly acquired a British/Irish/Boston accent. Don’t ask me how.)

“Bloody heck, no!” Neville cursed from on high, emitting an ornery laugh that echoed throughout the Hogwarts canyon.

“Never, never, never, never, never give up!” asserted Harry, quoting Churchill. Turning to the toad, whom they’d named Hopalong and who had joined them, Harry flexed his fingers like a sea anemone, in true sorcerer fashion.

“Ickumbo-dumbo-radish-eek-sow- sow!”

Suddenly the toad gained superhero hopping powers and with a delighted giggle, he jumped high into the sky, bringing Neville and his quidditch broom to earth with a thud.

The end.

I couldn’t think of one more detail to add. My brain was Hogwarted out.

I waited for some small sign of appreciation from Akiko.

“That story didn’t have an ending,” she complained.

“Yes, it did! The bad guy got his come-uppance! Or, should I say, come-downance?”

“Well, it wasn’t a happy ending,” she maintained.

“I guess it wasn’t a happy ending for Neville, but it was a happy ending for the other characters, including Super Toad.”

Sighing, Akiko looked out the automobile window. “That was the worst-est Harry Potter story I ever heard.”

I sat in stunned and deflated silence. Doggone that J.K. Rowling! How on earth does she weave her magic? And where can I get some of that same potion?