A Hero's Journey

It was a freezing winter afternoon. The snow had sprinkled the rooftops, pavements and awnings of the shops. Rene was walking home from school, sneezing, and shivering in his overcoat. He was waddling at a snail’s pace with his long-lazy limbs and felt as confused as a rabbit in a snare. Rene was svelte, sharp-featured and handsome, though his nose was kind of big, you could hang a swing from it. He was fourteen years old and lived in Monkey’s Eyebrow, Kentucky, a town shaped like a monkey’s eyebrow. He was always bubbling with energy and no task was too difficult for him. He had once built a sky scraper with Legos that was so tall that it had to be hinged to let the moon pass by each night. He could overcome any challenge, but today was a different story. Rene had been working on a complex calculus problem full of twists and turns, and every time he thought he was out of the labyrinth, he had bumped into another wall.

While walking, he was caught

After a few minutes of looking, Rene discovered Purr beneath the table-tennis table. He cleared his throat, swallowed a phlegm-ball and began, “Come on, Purr, it’s time to find you a new home. And hey, don’t look at me that way, I’m not the one who messed up!” scolded Rene. “Thanks to you, I’ll never get to have my own pet cat!” And with that Rene led Purr out of the house and slowly hobbled down to the local pet shop. He knew that the owner would find Purr a good home. So after saying good-bye to Purr and thanking the owner of the pet shop, Rene painfully walked back home and attempted to drown his sorrows by reading his favorite book, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. But Rene’s pity party came to an abrupt end when his father reminded him about the mess he had neglected to clean up. And low and behold, midway through the clean-up, it dawned on Rene that someone else was going to have to do it from now on. He was mighty