TILLIE’S DELIVERY SERVICE

 FROM THE MESSED UP FILES OF GREENBUSHBOY

Greenbushboy's one and only attempt at writing for an audience that is shorter and less aware of the world around it than he is. He wrote it in the first person. He does not remember why.

SYNOPSIS: Seven year old Tilly travels the world hand delivering all sorts of merchandise from her grandfather emporium. Her companions are Roscoe, her harmonica playing sheepdog, Otis, a transforming mode of transportation, Cameron, a six year old computer wizard, and Rose, a loquacious spinning globe. It's all about geography.



I have a very responsible job for a seven year old. My name is Tillie Sanderson and I work with my grandfather. We deliver goods all over the world. All kinds of stuff. I’ve heard some people call our stuff nick knacks. I’m not sure what that means. Remember, I am only seven. Everything we deliver is very unique no matter what it is called.

That man with the large moustache and the big laugh wrapping gifts at that old wooden table is my grandfather, MORTIMER SANDERSON. That table is over one hundred years old and made from oaks from the Black Forest of Germany. Our store is called the SANDERSON COUNTRY EMPORIUM and it’s been in our family forever. Right now we have never been busier. My grandfather tells me that he has been in the emporium business so long, some of his first customers were the Pilgrims. I don’t really believe that. He tells me so many stories about the EMPORIUM that I suppose some of them must be true.

Taking phone orders, and text orders, and internet orders is ROSCOE the sheepdog. He plays blues harmonica when he’s not on the phone. He’s friendly, polite and very efficient. Roscoe does not let my grandfather near the telephone. He knows better than to do that. Grandpa enjoys talking on the phone so much that no orders would ever come through. My mom says her dad can talk the hind leg off a goat. I don’t quite know what that means, but that's something I would like to see.

The EMPORIUM is an old fashioned word for store. At one time during the Old West, every town had its own emporium. It was a very special place where customers could buy or order all sorts of goods like pots and pans and soap and candy and fancy clothes. Sometimes the customers would have to wait until the next stagecoach or train arrived. That might take weeks or even months. Our customers don't want to wait much at all.

Now every town has plenty of stores, but our EMPORIUM is different. Our shelves are full of everything anyone could ever possibly want. We even have a web site where people can order things. Roscoe and I are continuously stocking these shelves. Our store is so enormous, we need roller skates to get around. We know the location of everything. Grandfather often wonders whether he could find anything without our help. We work all the time moving boxes and wrapping gifts. Every day here is like the week before Christmas. "Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!" That's our motto. Lucky for us, we love what we do because otherwise we would always be too tired to deliver anything personally.



Over there in that room is where we have all of our furniture from around the world. We have cupboards from Italy and France, and hand-crafted and hand painted South American and African chairs and tables. I could sit and talk about this forever , but I’m on a very tight schedule so we have to move on.

HELPING MISTER KVETCH

 FROM THE MIXED UP FILES OF GREENBUSHBOY

Television programming about teachers and students has not changed since the days when Socrates tried to drum Logic into two goofball characters named Plato and Xenophon. All he got for his efforts were two smart ass jokers turning his Acropolis into a daily Roman circus. So annoyed was Socrates at these two jerks that every night  he went home really episted off. After midnight shots of hemlock to chill himself out, he conceived of the philosophy Epistemology which today forms the intellectual  framework for detention classes throughout the Western World.

This format of teachers teaching students and students not giving a damn has remained in this ossified position since then. So Greenbushboy thought, "let's make all the teachers aliens who need Earth kids to teach them how to better rule galaxies far far away because if you can deal with a roomful of fifth graders, you can just about do anything." The Greenbushboy long thought  ended with "and if the kids fail to get their teacher to the next level of excellence, EARTH WOULD BE DOOMED." 

This was an idea written many years ago and forgotten on a computer that might have been named SIMON. I never really fleshed out the kid characters. I should also mention that this was initially an idea for a live action student film. 

 SYNOPSIS: 

Fifth graders on Earth must help their young alien teacher, MR. KVETCH, pass a series of idiotic pop quizzes so he can graduate, make his parents proud, and then go off and join the family business of ruling a galaxy somewhere. Should the students fail in their assignment, Mr. Kvetch will lose all chance at advancement, and Earth will be obliterated.


The fifth graders at the fabulously exclusive ASHTABULA FEVER ELEMENTARY are used to odd. The architecture of the school is Escher odd. The cafeteria food served is a movable feast because the food actually moves, The teachers are especially odd as they spit, drip, dematerialize, and speak with refined English and Scottish accents though none have ever been to either country. Parents love sending their kids to Ashtabula Fever because after a typical school day there, no parent is ever be described as odd again.

And why is Ashtabula Fever Elementary so odd. Well it's a feeder school for alien teachers. No, not that sort of feeder school. Ashtabula Fever Elementary was set up eons ago for the simple purpose of educating the next generation of Intergalactic leaders in patience, forbearance, and restraint. The whole Universe knows the reputation of Earth children. They are the most illogical, cantankerous, aggravating, and least behaved smart asses anywhere in any galactic quadrant. If a teacher can transverse the frustrations of dealing with miserably spoiled Earth children without self exploding, then managing a galaxy with a zillion stars and zillions more in people would be a Sunday walk in the park. And, of course, none of the students know the true secret behind their school. At least not until NOW!!!

 LET'S INTRODUCE SOME OF THE TEACHERS FIRST

FACIAL “SPITS” CLEARVIEW has been a teacher at the school for six kerbensecs (A kerbensec is a form of time medasurement unknown on Earth). He teaches math but literally spitting out the numbers which appedar above and around his head as dripping integers. No student sits in the first row of his class without umbrellas and rain slickers. Mr. Clearview believes it is his breath that forces his pupils to sit at the far end of the room rather than the volume of water he expectorates. He is forever gargling mouthwash and spitting it into a conveniently placed spittoon next to his desk. He also constantly asks for breath mints. The kids oblige by throwing them at him.

MARGARET “MUMBLES” ROTISSERIE, the science teacher has been around since the year One. She loves teaching on Earth and long ago forgot about placement tests to better her intergalactic status.She's a mumbler and barely speaks above a whisper. Students crawl over her like bugs to hear the daily lessons. She has a claustrophobia issue; she sweats considerably; and purposely uses bug spray as a perfume to keep the kids at a distance.

BUFORD “WHIZZER” EEL school counselor and language teacher,who finds living on Earth far easier than being a swimming instructor on his home planet which has no water but plenty of concrete. Buford speaks as if he is drowning in phlegm. No kid enjoys going in to see Teacher Eel about their future plans for his inspirational message is one marked by doom, gloom, and living at home for the rest of their lives. 

This is Principle OTIS “YOU CAN NEVER HAVE ENOUGH WATER” NIMITZ first year at Ashtabula. His home planet exports nothing but principles to all areas of the Universe. In fact that's what his planet of Demerit is known for.. He is a mean looking disciplinarian who struts up and down the school hall ways handing out pop quizzes on subjects no one understands. He tells the frightened students to take them late at night as pop quizzes are best done when sleep deprived. The results of these exams will never be shown to anyone unless certain unexplained events that only he is aware of force his hand. He loves the taste of water so much when he walks, he drips.


MR. KVETCH is the new fifth grade intern and a gloomier, more dejected,  and morose individual would be difficult to find. His manner of teaching at best would be described as histrionic. Every morning Mr. Kvetch slowly trundles into class. He looks around the room and shakes his head. He says hello to his students as he puts his apple on his desk. He places his sack lunch to the right of that. He takes off his shoes and places them to the right of the sack lunch. He sits down in his chair and stares out hypnotically at the students. Just as he is about to commence his daily lessons, poor Mr. Kvetch begins to shake violently and bursts into carbonated tears. In fact whenever he speaks he breaks into a flood of carbonation.