The Two Greatest Words.

Written by: Skynetmain

It was a good thing I found Jeffrey when I did. I was walking home after playing with my friends, minding my own business and happily singing, “Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, guess I’ll go eat worms…” when I heard a call for help.

Startled, I looked around to see who was calling. I was the only person within hearing distance, so thinking the call was a figment of my imagination I shrugged and continued on my way, watching a robin as I passed by. Then I heard the call again, coming from the direction the robin had come from. Frowning, I walked towards the area where the noise had come from, scaring the bird off in the process.

“Thank you,” called a small voice coming from the ground. Startled again, I looked down—and to my great surprise, saw a worm bowing to me in thanks.

“Um, no problem…it was easy enough to scare the robin away,” I responded, staring at the worm like it was the strangest thing I had ever seen in my life (Which it was, by the way). “I’m Ezzy, what are you called?”

“My name is Jeffrey Worm,” he answered, and then told me how he had come to run away. “Were you the person singing, ‘Guess I’ll go eat Worms?’”

I thought it was an odd question, but I understood why he had asked it. After all, if I was a worm who had just been saved from an untimely death of being robin food, only to be threatened to be eaten by the person who had saved me…well, no doubt I’d be nervous too.

“Yeah, I was. Don’t worry, I won’t eat you! My friends were teasing me, so as a joke I started singing it. Then it got stuck in my head; it is quite an ear worm, you know,” I responded, smiling encouragingly at Jeffrey.

He perked up, visibly relieved and curious by my comment. “Ear worm? Is that like an earwig? I had a friend once who was an earwig…her name was Ella. I would love to meet an ear worm; they’d probably be more interesting than my friends.”

“Oh!” I exclaimed, realizing he hadn’t understood what I meant. “No, an ear worm is a tune or song that keeps playing over in your head for a very long time, even if you’re not listening to it.”

“Is that all?” the worm asked, saying his words in a long drawl. Had he been human, I think he would have yawned as well to help get his point across. “Dreadful song, you know. You’re singing it wrong anyways—it’s ‘Guess I’ll go eat Humans.’”

“Mm,” I responded, preferring to give a neutral response to avoid an argument. The thought probably hadn’t occurred to Jeffrey that if I sang that, I would be cannibalistic. Or maybe his views were different, I don’t know.

I glanced at the watch on my wrist, and then I looked at him again. “I need to get home soon,” I muttered. “Were will you be staying, now that you’ve run away?”

I heard his tiny little voice rise uncertainly to my ears. “I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about it.”

Sighing, I picked him up. “I have a garden at home. You could probably stay there; I don’t think my mom would mind because you’ll help her plants,” I told him as I began walking towards my house. It was just across the park, so we didn’t have very long to go at all before I could set him down between the tomato plants.

A few moments after tunneling beneath the earth, Jeffrey’s head poked out of the soil once more. “Won’t work,” he grunted, “Uncle Dazzen and his family live here. If they caught me, I’d just be sent home again and punished for running away as well as reading books at school.” He sounded so run down and rejected, I knew I couldn’t force him to stay anywhere in the vicinity. But then, where would he go?

The idea came to me almost instantly. I laughed as I picked up Jeffrey once more, startling him so much he squeaked. I refused to tell him where I was going when he asked, picking up my pace instead.

A few minutes later, we were rushing into the library. As I entered, I nearly ran into someone. The librarian “hushed!” at me, telling me to calm down and be quiet; but I wouldn’t because I needed to speak with her.

“Miss Reader! This is my friend Jeffrey Worm. He ran away from home because he didn’t fit in, and I found him in the park. He needs a place to stay, and because he likes books… I thought perhaps he could stay here?”

“Ah, Ezzy! I shall be glad to keep the bookworm here,” Miss Reader replied, eyes glittering in amusement. “Of course, I wouldn’t feel very good about allowing him to stay if his family didn’t give permission…”

“Of course, Miss Reader, I’ll talk to his uncle as soon as possible! Thank you very much!”

A few days later, I managed to get a hold of Dazzen and Jeffrey’s mother, Sadie. They gave their thanks to me for keeping Jeffrey safe, and also gave their permission for him to stay at the library. In fact, it turns out that Jeffrey wasn’t the first bookworm in his family at all—evidently his great-grand uncle Booker was one as well!

Twizzler0171 enjoys quality dining, long walks on the beach, fluffy puppy dogs, and maiming her victims slowly and painfully. Oh, and twizzlers.

Nessa is afraid of Twizzler0171's wrath and thus didn't change a single thing in this article. It’s either that or because it was written just fine.

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