THIS STORY WAS WRITTEN for my own son, a seven-year-old boy who is an avid reader. It is intended for children, approximately kindergarten through the fourth grade, touching on the subjects of Life, Death, and God.

Perhaps it's a little unusual for a children's story to deal with themes that are typically thought of as pretty heavy, but children become curious about these things at this age, and they experiment with the ideas in sometimes very irreverent ways. Oddly, kids are interested in Life, Death, and God, but they don't seem to take it very seriously - maybe they understand something grownups don't.

This story of a feisty grandfather, who, to his own surprise, returns from death to help out his grandson, uses kid-level-humor to present general themes, with some fantastic elements, and a touch of action. I hope that many parents, as well as their kids, will find it not only entertaining, but useful in understanding the universe around them.

What Went Before

Last month we met Jake, who had recently lost his beloved grandfather. Life wasn't going too well for Jake, who also had to deal with a scary dog on his walk to school, and a teacher who wasn't very nice. He just couldn't seem to cheer up; everything was going wrong in his life.

Then, one night as he was studying, his Grandpa Leon appeared! After discussing what it was like to be dead, the question came up... "What's the difference between being alive and being dead?"

It appeared that Leon was stumped for the moment by this complex theological question asked by an eight-year-old. Then he perked up and said, "The difference is just your point of view!"

"Okay, you're going to have to explain that one."

SIX:
Explain That One

"Sure," Leon explained. "It's just how you look at things. When you're alive, as they say, you see things in terms of what you can touch and see. You see yourself as being separate from everything. When you're not alive, you see yourself as being part of everything; you see the Big Picture. When you're in the afterlife, you see almost everything, not just a small part of everything like when you're alive."

"What's the point of being alive at all then?"

"Aha!" exclaimed Leon, really getting into it. "So God and us, together, can know about stuff. So you can know you; so God can know God; so you can know God; so God can know you. It's like the third grade - getting to know stuff. Yes, the third grade is like death!"

"That's what I've been thinking lately," moaned Jake. "But I thought God already knew everything."

"Wow, you've solved the mystery of death!" said Leon, but not loud enough for Jake's mom to hear.

"Great. I'll tell Dad after dinner," Jake said with a smirk. "So tell me how I solved the mystery."

"The difference between being alive and not being alive is just the difference it takes - to know something. If everything were the same, you'd never know any other part of it. If you didn't have light, you couldn't know dark. If you didn't know sour, you couldn't know sweet. If you and your friend, Tania, were the same person, you'd never be able to know her, because she would just be you. If there were just one thing in the universe, namely God, then God couldn't even be sure what He or She or It was since He, She, or It wouldn't have anything to compare itself to. There has to be a dividing line between things so you can step back and look at it - know it."

"So death is just a dividing line?" asked Jake.

"Yeah, that's a good way of looking at it. I should write this stuff down; it's pretty good!" He was so enthusiastic that he slid off the edge of the bathroom sink, and into the sink, and started sliding down the drain, bottom first. Before he knew it, he had folded up, stretched out, and gone down, making a ghostly gurgling sound in the pipes. Only his head - and feet - were sticking up out of the sink, making for one wild sight.

"Whoa, Grandpa. Pull yourself together!"

Leon looked at his shoes, which were on either side of his head, and laughed. "I've been in tighter spots than this," he said, "but I can't remember when. Stand back, kid." All at once, Leon started filling up the sink with himself, and just when it looked like the sink would overflow, he stepped down and stood up. "See, good as new," he said, and he did a pretend karate kick to prove it.

SEVEN
Next

Jake was still amazed by the things his grandfather could do, like actually going down the drain and living to tell about it - well, coming back to tell about it, anyway. He could do anything, Jake thought. Then he asked, "So, what'll you do next?"

"Hard to tell. There may be something about coming back and living more lives in other bodies. Or maybe I stay with God and get hugged all day. Or sometimes there might be other jobs to do, sort of like special missions. Like I say, it's hard to remember. But, you know, whatever's fine."

"Maybe you'll do it all, maybe you won't do any of it?"

"Everyone's different, and it's whatever works for them. That's why you get so many religions, I guess."

Now Jake seemed troubled by something. "What's wrong, Jake my boy?"

"They say that bad people go to a bad place when they die. Is that true?"

"Oh," said Grandpa in a fake, creepy voice, "now, you're talking about Hades, hell, the pit, the fire and brimstone, the underworld, the abyss. No, I don't really think that exists, not like a lot of folks think anyway. If we're part of God, why would God want to do that to himself? It's not about being punished; it's about knowing stuff, like I said. Besides, bad people seem to get plenty of punishment while they're alive. It's called karma - but that's a whole other subject. Look it up in the library."

Jake's mom called upstairs again. "You've been in the bathroom a long time. Are you okay?"

"Fine, mom. I'm just very pooped. Har, har har," he laughed a big, pirate laugh. His mother groaned and walked away again without a word. How many times had she asked him to stop the bathroom humor? "Maybe we'd better go back downstairs," Jake said.

"I'm right behind you," said Leon.

Jake thudded down the stairs and slid into the family room, without being seen by his mother, who was creating the wonderful smells of meatloaf and hot bread from the kitchen. "Not long till dinner, thank goodness," he whispered. He sunk down into the chair with the torn cushion and looked back at Grandpa Leon - who wasn't there. He was gone, again! Without attracting his mother's attention, Jake did a quick search of the house, including the bathroom, and there was no sign of his late (as in dead) grandfather.

Jake felt disappointed that Leon couldn't stay for dinner, at least. Then he thought that was a goofy idea, because ghosts don't eat. For the rest of the night, he drifted in the happy thoughts of Leon. He ate a huge dinner, which made his mother very happy. He laughed at every joke on TV. He remembered to say "thank you" when he got a bowl of chocolate ice cream. Before bed, when his dad asked him if he had done his homework, he just said, "Sure," without even thinking about it. It was a nice night.

EIGHT:
Then Came Morning

Then came morning. The day of the test. The test on Ancient China. The test he'd forgotten about and hadn't studied for. The test he'd fail and Mr. Leesberger would have even more reason not to like Jake. And, of course, don't forget the walk to the bus stop, and the horror of Stinky. Suddenly, Jake's life was back to normal. Miserable.

Jake stood at his front door with his mother. His backpack felt like it weighed more than he did. Several blocks down the street, he could see the school bus coming and Tania and the other kids waiting on the corner. Tania waved to him. The time had come, and he stepped out the door and toward Stinky. Stinky rose from the middle of his yard like a dark bubble of evil from the ground and moved toward the sidewalk. Already, Jake could hear a low growl and dog drool rolled across Stinky's fangs and down his chin.

Just at the point when Stinky would usually start his attack to the edge of the invisible fence, Jake noticed something different about the dog. Suddenly, Jake's knees felt weak; butterflies rushed into his stomach and flew about in a whirlwind. Stinky did not have his special, electric-shock dog collar on! Stinky was free to do whatever cruel, painful thing he wanted to do to Jake.

Jake stopped. The dog stepped to the edge of its yard. No shock. The dog stepped again and realized there was nothing holding him back. He looked at Jake as if he was thinking, "At last, you're goin' down, pal!" And then, with a wild, crazy barking, the dog charged with full force at Jake. The dog was too close for Jake to run for it, so he just waited for his destruction, eyes wide open. With a magnificently savage leap, the dog landed on the sidewalk at Jake's feet.

And Stinky stopped. Suddenly. The dog looked a little surprised. Jake quickly wondered if his pants were still dry. Stinky was looking somewhere over Jake's left shoulder; his head was tilted the way dogs do when they're trying to figure out something. Jake didn't dare take his eyes off the dog, which was very close and panting heavily but otherwise just being a normal dog staring into space. What was Stinky looking at? Then the dog looked up at Jake and made that goofy look dogs make when it looks like they're smiling, and he sniffed Jake's shoe. He started wagging his tail like he was going to try to fly with it, and then trotted back into his yard, rolled on his back a few seconds, obviously enjoying it, and curled up to take a nap.

Jake couldn't have been more happily surprised. This all happened in the space of a few seconds, and the bus was just arriving at his stop. He climbed onto the bus behind Tania, with his knees still shaky and feeling a little like he might throw up, upchuck, toss his cookies, heave, hurl, blow lunch, ralph. None of the kids seem to have noticed that anything worth noticing had happened.

NINE:
Mr. Leesberger Blew His Nose

At school, Mr. Leesberger blew his nose and got right to business. "Okie dokie," he said, placing a stack of papers on Tania's desk to be handed out. "I have the Ancient China test ready for you. I hope you're ready for it. It's an important test, so do your best."

Jake couldn't believe he was about say this, but he felt so badly about forgetting to study (and really, who could blame him), he had to do something. He shyly raised his hand. "What is it," said Mr. Leesberger, as he wetted his finger and tried to rub a jelly stain off his shirt.

In a quiet voice, Jake said, "Something important came up last night, and I didn't study as much as I wanted to. Any chance I could take the test later?"

Mr. Leesberger was not happy; he didn't smile. He sniffed a drop of something back into his nose. "Everyone knew the test was today. Studying for it was your responsibility. So, everyone takes the test today. I'd like to say I'm sorry, Jake, but I can't. Okay?"

Feeling humiliated, Jake whimpered, "Okay. Sorry, Mr. Cheeseburger."

CHEESEBURGER! Where did that come from? Jake didn't mean to say it; it just slipped out. It was a mistake! Oh, sure, he'd thought about it. Everyone had thought about, but no one had ever said it - at least where Mr. Leesberger could hear. This was it. The end of his life. He'd be seeing Grandpa Leon again sooner that he'd expected.

This is what happened next: Mr. Leesberger's face turned red, and he opened his mouth to say some words that would probably kill Jake. Something then caught Mr. Leesberger's eye, something just over Jake's left shoulder. Jake wondered what it was. The teacher stood there and tilted his head to one side the way he did when he was trying figure out something. Then he looked at Jake and made that goofy look dogs make when they look like they're smiling. Something had changed Mr. Leesberger, who was now just looking around as if he was wondering what to do next. This time Jake dared to look over his left shoulder, and he saw Grandpa Leon, kind of floating there. Looking around the classroom, Jake realized no one else could see his grandfather! Leon smiled, shrugged his shoulders, and made some magical motions with his hands like he was pretending to be Professor Goofus again. Jake was astounded.

Mr. Leesberger twitched like he had been hit by a very tiny bolt of lightning. His hair stood straight up, then fell over. Finally, he slowly said, "You know, kids, I don't really feel like doing this test today. I'm not sure why, but let's do it next week. That'll give you more time to go over the material anyway. Let's do something - oh, what's the word - fun! Like go to the library and read about wizards ... or snakes, or something." And they did.

TEN:
May I Be Excused to Go to the Restroom?

Jake couldn't believe his luck. He was saved from disaster twice in one morning. He asked if he could go the restroom, and there he found Grandpa Leon again, floating by the stalls. It seemed bathrooms were their favorite meeting place these days. "You did it didn't you? You saved me from Stinky and Cheeseburger! How?"

"I told you sometimes we have missions to do," he said casually, as he smoothed down his white hair in the mirror.

"So I was right. You are an angel," declared Jake.

"What do you mean?"

"A guardian angel. Heard of those?" said Jake. "They're real angels too."

Leon smiled a big smile. "Yeah, I guess so. Cool."

"It's a little smelly in here, for an angel. Sorry."

"Yeah," said Leon. "It reminds me of when I was in the hospital when I had the heart attack. I knew you were there, but you thought I was asleep."

"How does this smell remind you of that?" Jake wondered.

"Well, since you thought you were more or less alone, you cut one, you farted, tooted, passed gas, broke wind, cut the cheese, were flatulent, shot an SBD, barking spiders. But I knew you were with me. I appreciated your company, kid. So, you were with me then, and I'm with you now."

They were quiet for a minute. Jake could hear a faucet dripping like the ticking of a clock. "Will you always be my guardian angel, Grandpa?"

"I'll do what I can. You may not actually see me anymore. Like I said, that's rare. But I'll be around."

"Why do you think I can see you now?"

"Maybe because you don't trust anything you can't see."

Remembering Stinky and the invisible fence, Jake said proudly, "I'm not going to be scared of anything from now on." He did a couple of bad karate moves to prove it, and said threateningly, "You want a piece of me?"

"Well, wait a minute, being scared isn't always a bad thing. Being scared is just warning yourself to be careful - which, I'd think, is a good thing. But you can certainly be brave, because no one is ever alone."

"How could you be when you're part of Everything!"

"Exactly!" exclaimed Leon, who was becoming invisible as he started to go up the vent over the toilets.

"Thanks, Grandpa. I love you."

"Love you, too." His voice was sounding farther away. "See you around, kid."

Jake was standing alone again in the restroom. "Bye," he whispered. He looked in the mirror and noticed there was something in his face that looked a little like Leon. He liked that. He like being related to him. He liked being related to Everything.

He walked back to the library with a spring in his step. Mr. Leesberger was sitting in a chair actually reading a book about wizards. There was hope for him, yet. There was hope for the third grade. Tania looked at Jake and twirled her finger around her ear indicating she knew Mr. Leesberger had gone crazy. Jake smiled, took a deep breath, and pulled a book off the shelf about Ancient China.

© Ken Lambert, 2007

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ken Lambert is a playwright, actor, and director who recently moved from New York City, with his wife and eight-year-old son, to rural Virginia where he works with Hampton Roads Publishing Company and directs plays with area professional theatres, colleges, and theatrical organizations.