True Story (and free as well...)
Hi. My publisher, JMS Books, very thoughtfully made an ebook for one of the stories from Silliest Stories Out of Bustleburg.
Here's the blurb. After that there will be a dark secret. Or maybe semi-dark, like chocolate.
Blurb:
The city of Bustleburg's problems may be legion -- fires, crime, pollution, vampires -- but no one warned Professor Daniel Teague about woodpeckers. Daniel's house is his sanctuary from the city. All is well until a small, red-headed avian wreaks utter havoc. With the Nature Society, Animal Control, and the rest of the city thwarting him at every turn, will the professor's smarts and derring-do be enough to defeat a literal birdbrain?
The secret? It's almost entirely a true story. Bustleburg should really be called Greenburgh but all the unhelpful public services, the ridiculous advice, the neighbor who thought my parents were decorating for Christmas, and the sinister avian vandal? Yes. Yes, yes, yes. The escaped zoo animals? Okay, that I made up. But if you read it and think, "Okay, you're exaggerating" then no, I don't think I am.
This story is, of course, dedicated to my dad for it would not exist without him. Since more than a few early readers said this story was one of the best, I'm very grateful to him for sharing this awful experience. I will now raise my glass and give him a toast: "Here's to you, Dad. May you never have to match wits with a bird again."
Here's a bunch of links in case you would like to read the story at the low, low price of free.
Also, here is an excerpt....
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from "That Feathered Menace"
as told by Professor Daniel Teague
Next I called an out-of-town exterminator with fewer scruples than our local guy. “Poisoned peanut butter,” he said. “I’m not going to come all the way out there, but that’s what you do. Woodpeckers love peanut butter. That will be end of your problems.” “Couldn’t you find putty that better matches your wall, Professor Teague?” Mrs. Fitzwallace asked as I dabbed peanut butter on the side of my house. “Oh, and I had my club over for tea yesterday, and one of the ladies said she saw a lovely specimen of downy woodpecker in your yard. Aren’t downy woodpeckers adorable little birds?” I told Mrs. Fitzwallace that actually it was a red-headed annihilator woodpecker, and as they were rather dangerous, perhaps she had better stay indoors. As it turned out, this particular bird did not care for poisoned peanut butter. However, the stuff did attract a brood of kamikaze squirrels who would attempt to cling to the roof with their back claws while hanging down to eat it. Soon, in addition to pieces of cedar shake, there were dead squirrels all over the lawn. At this point, the part of the wall near our window looked like a circus act had used it for knife-throwing practice. I started having nightmares about the woodpecker destroying my house, only to wake up to find they were true. I called back the nature society. “I officially do not have bugs in the wall. Why is the woodpecker still boring holes in my cedar shakes?” “Then it’s a probably a male bird. Most houses in your neighborhood are stone, so it singled out your house. And maybe pecking at your wall makes a much louder sound than knocking on a tree. He needs to make a lot of noise to attract a mate.” “Shouldn’t he have found one by now?” “Well, Bustleburg is so polluted, there probably aren’t many woodpeckers. Hey, maybe I’ll call around to see if there are any captive female woodpeckers in the area. We could put them near your house. What species of woodpecker do you have?” “Wait, what?” I felt a sharp pain in my chest. “More birds to drill more holes? Are you out of your mind?” “But if the woodpecker finds a mate, he might stop damaging your house.” “And sooner or later their babies will need mates. No! No! No! I am not running a bird dating service!” I knew there was a reason I’d kept an old phone with a receiver one could slam down.