Leapfrog and Toenail read the Wanted Poster that said, “Wanted Dead or Alive, Trixie the Tricycle Thief”. They were filled with overwhelming dread that their tricycles had been stolen by Trixie. They ran as fast as they could to where they had carefully parked their tricycles outside the police station. The tricycles had disappeared without a trace! Even the shadow of the tricycles was gone! Leapfrog and Toenail were so mad that they began pulling each other’s hair and throwing lizards at each other!
Leapfrog said, “If I find that Trixie girl, I’ll pull out her eyebrows, put ketchup on her nose, and put mud in her bellybutton!” Toenail was even madder, and he said, “I’ll do even more than that! I’ll soak cotton balls in glue and throw them at her until they crush her to death!” Our heroes were extremely mad! They had never been this mad before in their whole lives. They agreed that Trixie the tricycle thief did not deserve to live!
After about 20 minutes of throwing temper tantrums and making threats about what they wanted to do to Trixie, Leapfrog noticed a piece of popcorn laying on the ground. Since he was hungry, Leapfrog picked it up and ate it, then he noticed that there was a trail of popcorn leading down the street, so he went to the next piece of popcorn and picked it up to eat it. He was just about to put it into his mouth when it happened! Suddenly, out of nowhere, faster than a speeding armadillo, more powerful than an agitated acorn—-a chipmunk jumped up and snatched that piece of popcorn from Leapfrog and ate it! Leapfrog, moving faster than a mountain with hiccups, snatched the next piece of popcorn up off the ground. He saw that the hungry chipmunk was going to take that piece of popcorn from him too, so he knew that he had to do something quick! Leapfrog put that piece of popcorn inside his shirt to hide it and keep it safe. Well, that hungry chipmunk did not hesitate one second, he dove right down Leapfrog’s shirt in hot pursuit of that piece of popcorn! The chipmunk was running around and around inside Leapfrog’s shirt, and it tickled! Leapfrog was laughing harder than a mouse at a funeral!
The chipmunk jumped out of Leapfrog’s shirt and ran toward the next piece of popcorn. Of course, Leapfrog could not let him get away with that, so he did the only thing that he could think of—-he grabbed the tail of that chipmunk and hung on tightly! The only problem was—Leapfrog was still wearing the roller blades, so away they went! The chipmunk was running as fast as he could, eating every piece of popcorn as he ran, and Leapfrog was holding onto his tail and could not stop! In a matter of seconds, they were out of sight!
Toenail knew that he could not run after them and catch them, because he was barefoot. So, he did the next best thing, he ran into the police station screaming hysterically, “A chipmunk has just kidnapped Leapfrog!” The police sprang instantly into action! Two officers ran toward the police car that was parked outside, so they could chase the chipmunk! They did not want to take time to open the front door of the building, so they just pulled out their guns and blasted that door into the next county! They did not want to take time to open the doors of the police car either, so they opened the trunk, got out a machine gun, and blasted that car for 2 minutes! When they were done, there was no longer any doors, on that police car to slow them down (all 4 tires were also completely flat because of the bullets). They carefully put the machine gun back in the trunk, got into the car, and they were off on the chase! The lights on top of the car were flashing wildly, the siren was blaring loudly, but Toenail was screaming louder than that siren because he was sitting on broken window glass, and every time they went over a bump, it hurt! And they did a lot of bumping since all four tires were flat because of all the bullets in them!
Meanwhile, the chipmunk (with Leapfrog still holding tightly to its tail) finally stopped running. Leapfrog opened his eyes to see why they had stopped and saw that the trail of popcorn ended at the feet of a pretty, little seven-year-old girl. Leapfrog knew that the girl was seven years old because she was wearing a T-shirt that said, “I am seven years old.” The chipmunk climbed up on the girl’s head and made a nest in her hair and took a nap. Leapfrog let go of the chipmunk’s tail and promptly fell over on the ground. The little girl helped Leapfrog get up, and then the girl asked Leapfrog if he was thirsty, and of course he was (she was thirsty too after eating that popcorn, and so was the chipmunk). She gave Leapfrog a cold bottle of pop and even gave a saucer of pop to the chipmunk. After Leapfrog took his first sip of the pop, he jumped for joy and tried to turn two cartwheels, but he fell flat on his face because he was wearing rollerblades! Leapfrog just could not believe it! He was drinking Candy-Flavored Pop! He asked the girl where she had gotten it, and she said that her Grandpa made it! He lived in a little city in Indiana.
She was about to tell Leapfrog the secret formula for the pop when, suddenly the golden silence was absolutely shattered by the blast of a siren and the hysterical screams of Toenail (he was still sitting on broken glass)! The police had arrived! They quickly jumped out of their car (they could jump out quickly because they had already shot off all the doors). They grabbed the girl, told her she was under arrest, they threw her pop on the ground, and put handcuffs on Toenail by mistake! She was Trixie, The Tricycle Thief!
Toenail was still so mad that he wanted to kill her, but he could not because he was wearing handcuffs. Leapfrog said, “This is a very nice little girl, could we just let her go?”
The police replied, “No, this girl had stolen many tricycles and she needs to pay for her crimes! She will have to wash dishes at the police station until she has paid for all those tricycles!”
Leapfrog asked, “Well could we at least get our tricycles back?” The police replied, “No, we need all the tricycles for evidence, but here is $500 reward for helping to catch this dangerous criminal!”
The police put Trixie into the police car, and roared back to town, leaving Leapfrog and Toenail standing there in the dust.
Leapfrog found a key that one of the police had dropped and unlocked Toenail’s handcuffs. They kept the handcuffs and the key in case they needed them later; they kept the $500 dollars too! Leapfrog said, “Trixie was just about to tell me the secret of how to make Candy-Flavored Pop, her grandfather, who lives in Indiana makes it for her. Now she cannot tell us the secret!”
They decided that the best thing that they could do was to go to Indiana and find Trixie’s grandfather. But how could they get from Utah to Indiana? Leapfrog had an idea! He said, “I know how we can get there, let’s go into town and…”
Application:
In Matthew 5:21-22 Jesus says:
“You have heard that our ancestors were told, ‘You must not murder. If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment.’ But I say, if you are even angry with someone, you are subject to judgment! If you call someone an idiot, you are in danger of being brought before the court. And if you curse someone, you are in danger of the fires of hell.”
- Jesus uses some very harsh words to show how he feels about His followers becoming angry.
- We need to remember that all people are created in the image of God, not just the people that we like.
- When our friends or family members irritate us, we need to remember that we irritate them too, and remember that God loves them just like He loves us.
- People should be able to notice that we do not have bad tempers, and that we like other people! Followers of Jesus should be different from other people, and one big difference is the way they handle anger.
- When we can get past our anger at a person, many times we find that the person is not really so bad at all, just like Leapfrog found out that Trixie was actually a nice person and they became friends.
If you struggle with anger, please ask God to help you in this part of your life. He wants the very best for you!