(ee & some ea words – long e sound)

      Jix’s pal Pog is free on the weekend, so they agree to meet by the creek to play hide-and-seek. Jix greets Pog with a belly bump. Jix is a jeek, and that is what they do.

Then Jix hides in the weeds between the trees and the creek. He keeps his horns down so Pog will not see him. The weeds have a sweet smell—the smell of a green creeper. Did one come by this way? Jix asks himself.

Jix has never seen a green creeper. Almost no one has, they are so shy. They have six feet and big feelers. They can creep up tall trees, even steep cliffs, but they do not have much speed. They feed mostly on the seeds of the heeka tree, but they will eat the leaf buds too. If you want to meet a green creeper, you need to keep very still. If you do not, they will spit a big gob of green goo on you.

Jix spots a heeka tree just up the creek. Maybe the green creeper is in that tree. Jix peeks over the tops of the weeds. He cannot see very well, so he creeps all the way to the tree on his hands and feet. Then he sees big feelers between the branches. It is a green creeper, and it seems to be asleep.

Jix claps his feet with glee. That is what jeeks do when they feel happy. But then he sees that the green creeper is not asleep. No, it is weeping. Jix feels so bad for the green creeper that he sniffs. If he speaks to it, will it flee? (Creepers may not be fast, but they can leap from tree to tree.) Still, he has to speak up.

“Why are you weeping?” he asks.

The creeper looks down at him sadly. “My feeler is bent,” it says, “so I cannot feel anything with it.”

“We can fix that!” says Jix, and he yells for Pog. Once the creeper is on the ground, the two pals lean its feeler over a big rock and pull down the end as much as they can.

“You did it!” says the green creeper. “How can I ever—” 

     Just then a big gleech dives down on them. But the creeper spits a gob of goo at it, and it crashes into a tree.

     “What was I saying?” asks the green creeper. “Oh, yes. How can I ever repay you?”

     “You just did!” say Jix and Pog together.

     And from then on, whenever Jix and Pog pass the green creeper’s heeka tree, it creeps down for a visit.

                 _____________________________________

   The Adventures of Jix is a 4-volume series with a total of 35 stories about a heroic little monster in a world of fantastical creatures. Here is a sampling of the 37 illustrations:

     “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” read the needlepoint proverb over Katy’s bookshelf—a gift her great-aunt Ada had made her. It was the first thing she saw every morning and the last thing she saw before she closed her eyes every night. And as if that weren’t enough, her mom said it, her dad said it, and every teacher she’d ever had said it.

     “But I’m tired of trying!” cried Katy, who couldn’t tie the laces of her roller skates one morning, no matter how many loops she made. So she went out skating with her laces flying—and no sooner did she round the first corner than she tripped over them and fell smack down on the sidewalk.

     “Oh, I’m tired of trying!” she sniffled as she stuck a Band-Aid on her skinned knee, remembering all the other times she’d gotten scrapes trying to learn to skate. “I’m never going to roller skate again!” she said.

     And she dumped her skates in her bedroom closet—and slammed the door.      

     Then she pulled her coloring book out of a drawer and started to color a picture of a fairy. And even though she tried as hard as she could to stay inside the lines, when she was coloring the hair, her black crayon slipped and drew a line right through the fairy’s eye.

     “Oh, I’m tired of trying!” cried Katy. “I’m never going to color again!”

     And she threw her coloring book into her bedroom closet, along with her roller skates—and she slammed the door. 

      Then she went outside to shoot a few baskets.. She took careful aim and tossed her basketball as high as she could, but it bounced off the rim of the net and banged her on the head.

     “Oh, I’m tired of trying!” cried Katy. “I’m never going to play basketball again!”

     And she threw her basketball into her bedroom closet, along with her coloring book and her roller skates—and she slammed the door.

     Next she went inside to play a tune on her toy piano. And she played it perfectly till she got near the end. Then her little finger, the one that always made mistakes, missed the right note and hit the wrong one and ruined the whole song.

     “Oh, I’m tired of trying!” cried Katy. “I’m never going to play the piano again!”

     And she shoved her toy piano into her bedroom closet, along with her basketball and her coloring book and her roller skates—and she slammed the door.

     Then she got out her printing workbook and did a page of  T’s. They looked fine while she was doing them, but when she held up the workbook after she was done, she noticed that all the tops were crooked. Of course, she tried to erase those crooked tops, but when they were gone, she saw that she’d rubbed holes right through the paper.

     “Oh, I’m tired of trying!” cried Katy. “I’m never going to print again!”

     And she crammed her workbook into her bedroom closet, along with her toy piano and her basketball and her coloring book and her roller skates—and she slammed the door.

     Then she got out her new storybook and started to read, till she came to a word she couldn’t sound out—the word was circle, but she’d forgotten that c has two sounds, and so she pronounced it kirkle. And since she didn’t know what a kirkle was, she couldn’t go on.

     “Oh, I’m tired of trying!” cried Katy. “I’m never going to read again!” 

     And she stuffed her storybook into her bedroom closet, along with her workbook and her toy piano and her basketball and her coloring book and her roller skates—and she slammed the door.

     Then she went and sat on her bed and watched the second hand on the clock ticking time away. Later she lay on the floor, studying an ant that was climbing up and down over the fringe on her rug. Still later, she sprawled on her back on her quilt in order to keep her eye on a crack in the ceiling, just to see if it would widen.

     It was nearly supper time when, all of a sudden, she jumped up and threw open her closet door—and grabbed her storybook and her workbook and her toy piano and her basketball and her coloring book and her roller skates.

     “What are you up to?” her mother asked when she saw Katy setting things neatly out on her desk—and under it.

     “I’m getting everything ready for tomorrow!” Katy cried happily. “Because I’m tired of being tired of …”

                                                                     …trying!

Once upon a time there lived a very old dragon. He was so old that his wings were too stiff to fly. And when it came to breathing fire, all he could manage was a puff of smoke…so he was considered pretty much a has-been by the other dragons that lived on Draco Isle. (Well, that was what dragons called it, anyway; the giants who lived there called it by another name.) In his youth the very old dragon had been called Burnwald the Bold, but now he was called Burnwald the Bald because he’d lost all the scales on the top of his head.

Now, you might think that Draco Isle was a small piece of land, but its name was misleading. It was so big, in fact, that you or I would have called it a continent, and many thousands of dragons roamed there. The mightiest of these was Fangvold the Fearsome, who didn’t need a crown to announce that he was king of his kind. So brilliant were his rainbow scales, so large and sharp his ivory teeth, that other dragons bowed their heads in respect whenever he flew past. Though he was the most ferocious of dragons, he was a tender father to his son, who was that rarest of rare creatures, a silver dragon.

Now, a silver dragon only came along once every five hundred years or so and was believed to bring good luck. According to the ancient lore, if anything bad happened to a silver dragon, all dragonkind was doomed to hundreds of years of misfortune…until the next silver dragon came along. So dragons fiercely protected a silver member of their kind—to make sure that no harm ever came to it. But silver dragons were especially hard to protect because of one unusual trait. When a silver dragon cried, its tears, instead of drying where they fell, crystallized into diamonds. So you can imagine how many greedy giants would have liked to get their hands on one of them. And that’s the story I’m about to tell…because one finally did—a giant, I mean.

Near the Colossal Caverns—a system of huge caves where Fangvold, his young son, and a dozen of his dragon guards made their home—there was a lake. Here the dragons gathered every evening before retiring to their own caves.

One year in late summer, when the slumber thistles had gone to seed, a giant by the name of Rothfer the Wrathful collected as many of the seeds as he could find. He put them in a stout barrel and stomped on them for days on end with his callused feet until they were all crushed to powder. He wore a rag for a mask, of course, so the powder didn’t affect him. You see, the seeds of the slumber thistle would cause anyone who breathed them in to fall into a deep sleep.

Then, on an evening when the wind was right, Rothfer climbed to the top of a gigantic oak near the lake and dumped out the contents of a large sack, letting the wind carry the powder across the water. Soon the dragons on the other side grew drowsy, and one by one they drifted off to sleep. When Rothfer saw that all were slumbering, including the little silver dragon, he climbed down from the tree.

As he trudged among the snoring dragons, he chuckled loudly, not even bothering to be quiet. He grabbed the silver dragon roughly and dumped him into the now empty sack, then headed back to his castle.

The following morning, when the dragons all woke, Fangvold was outraged to find his son missing. He sent all twelve of his dragon guards out in twelve different directions to search the forest until they found him. They asked every woodland creature they came across—including a couple of bears, several beavers, and dozens of squirrels and rabbits—if they’d seen the young dragon and if they had any idea about what might have happened to him. One of them even asked Burnwald, when they found him resting in the sun at the mouth of his cave. (He lived in a cave so small he could barely turn around in it and so damp that no other dragon had wanted it.)

Anyway, Burnwald told the guard that he hadn’t seen the young dragon either. Though enfeebled, he had the wisdom that comes with age, however—and in the middle of the next night, he started awake with an idea; it occurred to him to ask the woodland creatures who slept by day and only came out at night. And, sure enough, an owl offered that the previous evening, she had seen a giant carrying a sack over his shoulder, coming from the direction of the lake.

Well, the only giant who lived in the area was Rothfer the Wrathful, but no dragon had ever gone anywhere near his castle because of his violent temper. So huge was Rothfer that no dragon had ever dared take him on. So Burnwald was more than a little nervous when he set off in the morning for Rothfer’s castle, but he was determined to make the most of this opportunity to prove himself—to show the world that he was still capable of heroic deeds.

As luck would have it, when he neared the castle, he saw the giant heading off in the opposite direction. And no sooner had he passed through the entrance than he heard the sound of crying. Now, the very old dragon was a little deaf, but the hearing of a dragon is so acute that he was still able to hear better than you or I can. As quietly as possible, he crept through a maze of hallways, listening at every door. If other giants were in the castle, he didn’t want to rouse them. Eventually he followed the sound of the crying down a steep staircase that descended deep into the earth. At the bottom, he came to the wooden door of a dungeon.

He threw himself against it, hoping to break it down—and when that didn’t work, he tried to bite off the lock. Unfortunately, he’d lost all his teeth, and gumming it didn’t work either. Then he had a bright idea—if only he could manage to breathe a little fire, maybe he could burn the door down. Well, he huffed and puffed for half an hour, trying with all his might to produce at least one tiny tongue of flame. By then the smoke was so thick he couldn’t see a foot in front of him, and finally he had no choice but to give up. He was too old to ever be a hero again, he realized sadly; someone else was going to have to rescue the little dragon.

With a heavy heart, he climbed back up the stone steps. Now that harm had come to a silver dragon—it had been kidnapped and imprisoned, after all—who knew what misfortune lay ahead for all dragonkind? he thought miserably. With no luck on their side, maybe Fangvold and his guards would fail to free the little dragon too.

What Burnwald didn’t know was that amid all that thick smoke he’d exhaled, he’d breathed one tiny spark that had lit the door on fire. As he neared the top of the stairs, he thought he heard a crackling sound coming from behind him…and when he glanced back, he saw that the dungeon door was aflame.

With an agility he didn’t know he had anymore, he raced back down the steps and kicked the burning door down with one thrust of his foot.

He found the little silver dragon surrounded by a heap of diamonds, so he must have been doing a lot of crying. The little dragon was so glad to see Burnwald that he cried some more, for joy, his teardrops tinkling when they hit the floor. Then he climbed onto the old dragon’s back, as little dragons instinctively do when they can’t fly yet, and Burnwald raced back up those stairs like a dragon half his age.

But when they reached the entrance to the castle, who should they see but the Rothfer—headed straight for them, waving a terrible club with spikes all over it. Well, sometimes in a crisis we can do things we could never do under ordinary circumstances. An emergency makes our bodies stronger and faster and our minds sharper. All in a moment the very old dragon realized that, being no match for the giant, he had no choice but to fly. And to his own amazement, with the first few beats of his stiff wings, he cleared the ground. A moment later he and his passenger were soaring over the giant’s head. Roaring with rage, Rothfer threw his club at them, since they were too high to reach—but he missed them by a mile.

They were nearly back to the Colossal Caverns when the old dragon felt his strength give out suddenly and he crashed to the ground. Fortunately, they were flying low enough that he only broke a few bones, while the little dragon was unharmed. They landed with such a loud thud that within minutes the dragon guards, who were out searching again, found them.

Burnwald was carried back to the Colossal Caverns and welcomed as a hero. It wasn’t long before his broken bones had healed well enough that he could have made his way home to his cave. But Fangvold wouldn’t hear of it. He insisted Burnwald the Bold stay on in the Colossal Caverns and gave him the very best of caves for his own. From then on the very old dragon was treated with reverence by all of dragonkind…and he was loved by the little silver dragon as a grandpa.

For his birthday Stevie got what he wanted most—a real, grown-up hammer and a tool apron his mother made him. He hadn’t told anyone about the nail he’d found in a drawer of his father’s toolbox—at least, not the whole story. He’d heard it jingle when he opened the drawer—and this is what it seemed to say: “I’m a very important nail—and I’ve got better things to do than hang around in some old toolbox. All I need is someone to hammer me in straight and true.”

So, the morning after his birthday, Stevie put on his tool apron with a loop for his hammer and a pocket for the very important nail—and added some smaller nails in case it needed help. Then he set out down the street to find something important for that nail to do.

“Make sure you ask for permission first!” his dad called after him.

“And remember not to run with your hammer!” called his mom.

So Stevie waved to show that he’d heard.

He hadn’t gone very far when he spotted a flier with the picture of a parrot. It was tacked to a telephone pole. “Lost,” it said. “Oh, no!” he thought sadly, remembering how he’d felt when his horny toad ran away. And though he scanned the treetops for a flash of bright wings, all he saw was a scolding bluejay.

So he turned on his heel, about to walk away, when he heard the very important nail start to jingle in his pocket as though it had something important to say. “Wow! You’re right!” cried Stevie after a moment of thought. “That flier could come loose and blow away. Then whoever found the parrot wouldn’t know who it belonged to! This could be just the job for us.” So he checked to make sure the flier was tacked down tight—and it wasn’t until he was satisfied that he went on his way.

In Parker Carter’s front yard, Parker’s dog Peewee lay outside his doghouse, trying madly to scratch a flea behind his ear.

“Here, I’ll scratch it for you,” said Stevie helpfully, and he did such a good job that Peewee licked his hands. Then Stevie gave Peewee a pat—and the doghouse, too, because he liked its red shingles.

But when he turned on his heel, about to walk away, he heard the very important nail start to jingle in his pocket again and this is what he thought it was saying: “What if a shingle came loose? That roof could leak…”

”And poor Peewee would get soaked in the very next rain!” cried Stevie. “Maybe this is just the job for us.” So he checked out all the shingles to make sure none were loose, and it wasn’t until he was satisfied that he went on his way.

Next he passed Mr. Malarky’s house. Mr. Malarky loved flowers and grew them everywhere, even in fancy pots on a shelf under his window. There were pansies and petunias and things Stevie couldn’t pronounce. Stevie stood on his tiptoes, trying to smell them—but even though his mom insisted he was growing like a weed, he still couldn’t quite reach. So he turned to the irises beside him, instead, which smelled pretty good if you sniffed them hard enough.

Then he turned on his heel, about to walk away, when he heard the very important nail start to jingle in his pocket again. “What if that shelf came loose?” it seemed to say.

“Why, all the pots of flowers would fall and smash to pieces!” cried Stevie. “Maybe this is the job we’ve been looking for!” So he checked the shelf to make sure it wasn’t loose, and it wasn’t until he was satisfied that he went on his way.

When he passed Holly Hotchkins’ house, he stopped to watch a chattering squirrel perched on the third step to Holly’s treehouse.

“Catch me if you can!” it taunted Catkins, Holly’s old tomcat, who was crouching on the ground. Stevie knew the squirrel was too fast for Catkins, but Catkins never seemed to remember this, though he’d chased that squirrel enough times.

So Stevie waited until Catkins sprang, and the squirrel shot like an arrow to the top of the tree, then laughed down at them—because now Catkins was hanging onto a treehouse step, afraid to go up or down because his old claws weren’t very sharp any more. So Stevie lifted Catkins gently down and set him on the grass.

“Why don’t you chase snails instead?” he suggested. “They aren’t so hard to catch.”

He’d turned on his heel, about to walk away, when he heard the very important nail start to jingle in his pocket. “What if that step came loose?” he could have sworn it said.

“Oh, my gosh!” gasped Stevie. “Holly could slip and fall—and break an arm or a leg!” So he double-checked the step to make sure it wasn’t loose, and it wasn’t until he was satisfied that he went on his way.

On and on he walked, until he started to feel hungry and began to wonder what was for lunch. Still, he wasn’t ready to give up and go home. When he came to a house he’d never seen before—because he’d never walked this far—he pressed his face against the old picket fence and peered into the backyard. There in the grass he saw a rabbit and five baby bunnies hopping all around. They were so cute that for a moment he forgot all about the very important nail and finding something important for it to do.

When he finally remembered, he sighed, because now he was too hungry to go any farther. He’d just turned on his heel to head for home when he heard the very important nail start to jingle in his pocket. “What if a fence board came loose?” he was quite sure it was saying.

“Yeah, those bunnies could get out and run into the street and get hit by a car!” cried Stevie, forgetting all about lunch. And the very next moment, out of the corner of his eye, he saw something squeeze through the fence. In a flash, he darted over and scooped up a little black and white bunny. A board had come loose and left a gap in the fence, just like the very important nail had warned him.

Then the front door opened and Stevie recognized Fanny Farthing from school. She had cute golden freckles and a purple mouth, from the grape popsicle she was holding.

Soon the whole family had gathered to hear about the rescue. “How can we ever thank you?” said Fanny’s mom.

“Would you like to take that bunny home when it’s old enough?” Fanny asked shyly.

“Would I!” Stevie grinned, his eyes lighting up. “But I’ll have to ask my mom and dad first.”

“I guess I’d better go fix that fence,” said Mr. Farthing.

“I can do it,” Stevie offered, and he felt his heart pounding as he reached into his apron pocket for the very important nail.

So this is the job for us, he thought, to fix that fence and keep those bunnies safe! And though he didn’t say it out loud, the nail rolled into his hand as if it understood.

Then everybody bent down to watch while Stevie knelt down before that loose fence board and, with his new hammer, drove in the very important nail, straight and true.