Party in the Yard I & II, By Sylvester “Sonny” Lawrence Jackson II
Party in the Yard I
I couldn’t believe my eyes, it was just one of those perfect beautiful summer days, where nothing could go wrong.
The sun was up and shining in all its glory. The birds were what seemed to be a singing war, I really think the blue jays were knocking it outta the park, they kinda had this little dance thing going on, while hanging on those little branches; but honestly the red robins in all fairness were putting on a nice show too. Not only were they singing, they had this flying pattern that I couldn’t take my eyes off, well unless of course a beautifully colored butterfly caught my eye. There’s just something about butterflies, or maybe it was the bumble bee hanging out by the beautiful red rose bushes.
Actually it was all just so beautiful and perfect like I said, but I just knew it was all gonna come crashing down, I mean how could it end well.
Her parents were away and we’d planned this for months, every little detail, but something had to go wrong, but what?
After all we’d just turned of age, so buying everything we needed for the party in the yard wasn’t gonna be a problem, we had the money and the car to pick everything up, everyone had a job to do to make this party unforgettable, so what could go wrong?
Well it’s funny you should ask, everything started out well enough, no parents for miles around, not a cop to be seen, the music was pumping and everybody was a moving and a grooving, the party in the yard was a hit.
And then, it started off as being really cute, you know, oh look who’s crashing the party, a little baby squirrel, I’d never seen a little black baby squirrel, and my guess is that a lot of other people at the party hadn’t either.
At first it was just a couple of people looking at the cute little baby, but in no time at all, no one was listening to the birds singing or dancing anymore, there was no talk about the beautiful butterfly or the bumblebee on the damn roses, it was all about the little baby squirrel.
No one was dancing and grooving, I even think people were planning to get the damn squirrel drunk. Then it was like the little baby squirrel knew something was up, I mean everybody, and I really mean everybody was feeding the little baby squirrel, and all of a sudden the little guy just split, yep, he just up and left, it felt like a little child running away from home, only we didn’t know what to do.
After all, we couldn't call the squirrel police and put out a missing squirrel’s report. And now something had changed, there was a sense of sadness that hung over the party in the yard, nothing seemed to matter, no one had anything to talk about except the baby black squirrel that went missing.
And it happened, no I mean it really happened, first there was that scream, a really loud scream, the kind of scream like you’d just dropped the chocolate ice cream cone you’d just bought from the ice cream truck type of scream. People from the front yard came to the back yard, and not by way of the gate that’s normally used to enter the back yard. There was more than one of them, I’m not only talking about the people, who by the way were not only scaring the bumble bees, but were also killing the beautiful rose bushes.
They were running into the party in the yard along with at least eight baby black squirrels, and to my eyes they all seemed happy, the people and the squirrels, the music kicked back in like it was family reunion time, people were feeding the squirrels and the squirrels looked like they were telling stories around the campfire, don’t worry be happy. No one wanted the party to end, except Mama Squirrel.
Yep, Mama Squirrel came to pick up her babies, it seemed like Mama Squirrel just getting outta work coming to pick up her babies at daycare, or an end of the school year party.
Yep, busted by Mama Squirrel, we were so busy having a good time with the eight baby black squirrels that no one even thought about Mama Squirrel looking for her babies, and she didn’t look happy. All the babies knew she was there and even stopped eating for a minute, and for that minute, that very long minute, not a word was spoken and nobody moved. Except me, being one of the senior guests at the party in the yard, I felt like I needed to explain to Mama Squirrel how sorry we were for keeping the little ones up so late and ask forgiveness.
I brought an offering of food and tried to state my case, and after breaking bread (get it) with Mama Squirrel, we made a rock solid deal about the party in the yard.
The Deal:
All squirrels were allowed to come to the party in the yard, grey squirrels, black squirrels, or brown squirrels, no matter what age, without fear of being hurt, and guaranteed to be fed and cared for and loved, and in return no humans would be attacked, and all squirrels would protect humans from all other animals unless these animals were the humans’ own pets. Mama Squirrel even shook on that deal.
That party in the yard is still being talked about to this day, and this day we still have parties in the yard.
THE END!!!
Party in the Yard II
Well it seemed like no one had anything to talk about last summer except that blow out party in the yard. I mean not only did everybody and I mean everybody talk about it all summer, they talked about it all year during school. So how could we not plan Party in the Yard II.
Once again it was a beautiful summer day and my friend’s parents had left right on cue. How they hadn’t found out about the party in the yard is beyond us, everyone seemed to know, and thank goodness too, ‘cause her parents aren’t really big on parties, but having this second party was a no-brainer, by the time I got around to asking my friend Joni, she was already putting stuff together, hence she got the nickname “The Doc.” I found out she’d gotten help from her best friend Lady “C” and my best friend Johnny “5.” We called him that ‘cause he always had at least “5” things going on at once, and he was always able to fit everything together, kind of a problem solver.
And of course we can’t forget our head of security, Little “J.” She’s the quiet one, no one gave her the security job, she just kind of took it, no one did anything in the yard or outta the yard without Little “J”’s permission, and that included us. Well of course Mama Squirrel was there to bridge the gap between us lowly humans and the wild kingdom, a lot of new faces were showing up, if you ask me I think this party was about to go inter-national, worldwide. There were animals I’d never seen in my life before and neither had my friends, and I’m talking about Lady “C” had even been to a place called New Jersey, can you believe it, I didn’t even know where that was, but of course Johnny “5” knew. He said it was near France, who would have thought we’d be getting guests from near France.
Johnny “5” and Lady “C” had gotten together during school and figured out a way we could talk to our new friends, how we could understand each other.
So by the time the party was ready to kick off we could talk to each other, Mama Squirrel’s name is Daisy, and we found out that all eight of this beautiful baby black squirrels were hers, there were four boys, Frank, Fred, Thomas, and Little Timmy, and four girls, Gina, Sandy, Jenny, and Little Sue. And there’s me, Sonny or Lil “Sly.” Once again our party in the yard family was all present and accounted for.
The Doc said she hadn’t hired a band ‘cause she’d gotten a special guest DJ, Jammin’ the Beat, this year, and if we thought the party was good last year, this year will surely blow it outta the water. Well once again we didn’t have to worry about the cops, they were already here along with the fire department, actually the fire department was here to make sure none of our little friends didn’t get ran over, and to be honest I don’t know why the cops were here. I do remember Little “J” saying to some jocks who showed up, “Don’t start nothing, won’t be nothing,” but of course she said this with her five bulldog security team by her side, there was Mo, Larry and Curly, Bud Abbot and Lou Costello and they all had big teeth.
Well the music started and there was a crazy light show too, I of course had to find out who this mysterious DJ was that Joni found, and then it happened, the lights hit the DJ booth and to my surprise there was a porcupine spinning the disc, and he called himself DJ Puff Daddy and he was damn good, badass, people were going crazy to the beat he was laying down, he had this cool ass tiny setup. There are somethings you just shouldn’t question, and this was one of them, the Doc had outdone herself, again.
I stood by the DJ for a while, and it wasn’t just because the music was good, I actually had a really good overall view of the party, Little “J” wasn’t the only one in charge of keeping order at the party, and something had caught my eye, actually five things, yep they were back, it was the Kiddie Kat-Cat-Nip Kids from last year, and they looked high as hell. I started to walk over to them when I stopped in my tracks. I saw Lady “C” in route and she had her chipmunk crew with her and they don’t play games.
The Possum “5” group stopped Lady “C” before she could get to the Kiddie Kat Kids, I don’t know what happened but Lady “C” backed off, I know something was up ‘cause the Possum “5” group is an undercover animal drug unit and cat-nip was on the rise, I found all of this out later on.
I wanted to talk to Lady “C” and on my way over to her the DJ told everybody to freeze, that our special guest had arrived, I turned my head just in time to see them enter the yard.
I had only just heard of them that morning, and none of us knew if they’d actually show up, but here they were, twelve of the most beautifulest felines I’d ever seen, all different colors, walking into the yard like they owned it, their tails were straight up in the air, and fluffy, and they walked to the middle of the yard, and everyone was in awe and everyone just seemed frozen in place, anyway they made their way to the middle of the yard, where they made a circle and one by one laid down their tails, the lights went off and then back on only they weren’t on the cats anymore.
The lights were in the sky. At first I thought it was a garbage can lid that someone had thrown in the yard, but the garbage can lid started doing a figure eight, once again there was something I couldn’t take my eyes off, and finally DJ Puff Daddy said, “Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands and paws together for ‘The Flying Bambino Brothers’ the Italian trio flying squirrels. They landed right in the middle of those twelve sexy felines, amazing.
They were amazing and just when you’d think that was the main event, the lights went down again, when Puff Daddy turned them on again they were shining on the back gate and everyone couldn’t take their eyes off the gate ‘cause so many wonderful things had happened so far tonight, everyone wanted to see what was next, DJ Puff Daddy gave the mike to Johnny “5” and he announced the arrival of her royal highness, Princess Kaylyn, the princess was a beautiful golden Egyptian Pharaoh dog, with two even more beautiful black Egyptian Pharaoh dogs by her side.
I’d never seen dogs as beautiful as them. They just seemed to have this air about them, they commanded respect and every animal and human in that yard gave it, they walked right over to our friend Joni and took their places and the party in the yard was slamming again, the chipmunk crew and Lady “C” joined Joni along with Little “J,” me, and Johnny “5.”
The Kiddie Kat Cat-Nip Kids seemed to have come back down to earth, and turned out to be the life of the party along with the bulldog bullies, who somehow knew how to break dance better than any human present including me. The possum “5” crew and the twelve sexy feline sisters were doing some kind of Texas line dance, which most of the human girls thought was some kind of competition and the cats were winning.
Everybody in town seemed to be at the Party in the Yard II, that’s probably why no one noticed Joni’s parents came into the yard, it was the Flying Bambino Brothers who saw them first.
They flew over to the porcupine DJ fella and broke the news, once again the music stopped and the yard went quiet, the lights were on my friend’s parents, nobody moved and nobody said a word.
Her parents looked at each other and then around at their yard, and together they turned to the porcupine DJ Puff Daddy and said, “Drop the beat Mr. DJ, let’s get this party started.”
Well Daisy’s husband Louie gave us the bad news that due to a nut shortage on this side of town, he’d be moving his wife and eight beautiful black baby squirrels across town, and they didn’t know if they’d be able to make it to next year’s party in the yard. So we got together and decided to provide a car service for Louie, Daisy, and the kids, all we had to do was figure out who the driver would be, this way we’d know “Who’s driving Ms. Daisy,” because without Daisy and the kids the party in the yard would not be the same.
Joni (the Doc) was right, the Party in the Yard II was better than the first. Now the question that remains is how are we gonna beat this next year with, you guessed it, Party in the Yard III.
THE END!!!
Sylvester “Sonny” Jackson is a writer and retired Marine. As many of you know, Sonny is one of the most important members of our writing workshop for people returning from incarceration.