There was a woman who lived at the top of the hill, but everybody thought she was a witch, so nobody ever visited.

“I bet she’d cut off your toes, fry them in oil, and feed them to the dog,” Jacob said, grabbing his little sister by the arms and shaking her.

Jacob’s mother swatted him on the back of his head with a wooden spoon. “Stop that at once! Don’t scare your sisters.”

“She just stands there and waves,” whispered the mayor to his assistant. “Is she trying to lure up the children? What kind of maniacal things must she have planned? She never comes down. Where does she get food and cloth for clothing? Who built her house?”

His quiet secretary adjusted her glasses nervously. “Maybe she’s just lonely.”

“Then why doesn’t she come down?”

“Perhaps we’ll walk up one day and discover nothing but a scarecrow at the top,” said a weathered farmer. “Or a deceitful flagpole, blowing in the wind.”

The reverend clutched at his bible and beat his hand against the pulpit. “Whatever it is, it never comes to church, and only the children of Satan refuse to enter a chapel. Stay far away!”

The congregation nodded and prayed for the strange being at the hill’s crest, prayed that it might be saved in the final days, or prayed that it might be destroyed swiftly.

“She looks old but tall,” said a little girl, braiding her sister’s hair. They stared out the front window, looking at the woman in the distance. Today, the woman held a cane. She was bent over it, but still waving.

“And she has long hair,” the other sister whispered back. “Good for braiding. She must have the most beautiful pleats down her back.”

“If she knows how to braid! Maybe she needs someone to teach her.”

The girls sighed together, imagining how wonderful it might be to run their fingers through long, silvery hair.

The schoolteacher wagged her finger at her class. “This is a lesson for us all. You need a community to find friendship and success. But you also need to open your minds to things that might be strange and unexpected.” She didn’t say what she was talking about, but even the youngest kids knew.

Then, one day, the woman was not at the crest of the hill. She wasn’t there the next day, or the day after that, either. The townspeople thought she might have died, so they prepared a boat to carry her body out to sea, as was custom.

Five young men volunteered to travel up the hill to find the woman’s body. They’d always secretly wanted to see what she might be up to in her secluded home.

After walking for a day and a night, the young men soon realized that the hill was much farther away than the townspeople had comprehended. It took them three more days to reach its base. It was not a hill, as they’d always thought. It was a mountain.

They climbed up its treacherous face and zig-zagged along its ridges, trying to find the best way to the top. As they climbed, the trees that had always looked like slim, gentle saplings from so far away appeared, in reality, to be taller and wider than the greatest redwoods. The flowing grass that always looked low and gentle was actually lofty and fearsome when whipped in the wind.

When they reached the peak, what had looked like a simple cottage was now a vast, rugged mansion. The handle to the door was higher than any of the young men’s heads. They craned their necks to look up at the mansion’s impressive windows.

They could have boosted themselves up to peer in.

They could have stood on one another’s shoulders to open the door.

They could have found the body inside.

But, silently, the five young men turned around and crept back down the mountain, back toward their homes, because one thing was for certain: if the townspeople truly wanted to find the woman inside and set her body out to sea, they were going to need a much larger boat.

We're gonna need a bigger boat

Said Noah as he led the goat

And elephant into the hold

This job was big, as he'd been told

But leading them in two by two

The hippos, rhinos, giraffes too

He saw his boat was way too small.

There's no way he could take them all.

He stood and looked and felt forlorn

He'd have to leave the unicorn.

The griffin and the minotaur

The dragons and the sphinx for sure

No room to fit the flying horse

It made him sad of course of course

But he couldn't get them all afloat

He should have built a bigger boat!

“We’re gonna need a bigger boat.” A Pink Dire Wolverine said as she started to pull up a net full of fish.

“Chill out, Drama Mama. We will be okay.” Another Purple Dire Wolf said as she was helping pull the net full of fish on board.

“I am serious, Flower.” Drama said as she pulled the net aboard with Flower.

They got it on board and gathered as many as they could and put them all into weaved baskets. They had filled all 50 of the weaved baskets with the fish from the net. They folded the net up and put it away. They rowed back to the shore and the Drama jumped out. She banked the boat and Flower dropped two baskets down as the male Dire Wolverines lined up to grab them. As the last two baskets were picked up, the leader Dire Wolverine who was snow white with a scar over his left eye.

“What a bountiful of fish. What kind are these beauties?” He said as he grabbed one and sliced it with nail.

“They are called Rainbow Trout, sir.” Flower said as she jumped down off the boat, next to Drama.

“Why are they this far from the Pacific side of the ocean? At least we will have food for us for days.” He said as he crushed the fish in his hand, causing blood to cover his hand.

“Actually, sir. We will have to go fishing either tomorrow or in a couple of days. There is only enough for maybe 4 feedings per... well... us. We need to know why you want us women to fish instead of the men that are young.” Drama said as she shook water from her ears.

“The water is rising and falling. We cannot go fishing now.” Flower added right after Drama had finished.

“I don’t care!! Go fish now!! We need more to feed our village of young ones.” He snarled as he pointed at the boat.

"We need a bigger boat!! We also need baskets!!" Flower snarled at him.

To Be Continued...

“We’re gonna need a bigger boat,” said John. He yelped as he ran out of the ocean that was oh-so-steadily flowing in. Our small vessel rocked and swayed under our feet. John danced away from the water while I tried to plug the hole.

I sighed. I’d tried fruit, cloth, tarp. It was hopeless. Another sigh.

“And how, tell me, do you expect to get a new boat?” I asked sarcastically. John ignored me and yelped again. I sighed once more. Our boat was beyond repair. I steadily reached under the seat and grabbed two life vests. I blew them up and handed one to John. He looked at it in horror and hesitated. I shrugged, dropping it into the water next to the boat. He screamed and dived in to get it. I grinned as he scowled at me, bobbing in the water. I put some fruit, the research, and our radio in the waterproof bag and double-knotted it to my jacket. I gave one last sorrowful sigh, and dived in to the ocean.

Once in the water, I tied our life jackets together. I looked back towards the boat, and all I could see was its mast, almost upright before it plunged under. All of that research we weren't able to save... I thought. I allowed myself one more sigh before we set to paddling into the open ocean.

"We're going to need a bigger boat" the man muttered, surveying the sea ahead from the flying bridge. Captain Gill Eagan, his graying hair tucked under a battered greek fisherman's, could not have know the full portent of his statement, but he would soon learn.

The yacht Scapegoat cruised towards the undulating mass of yellow. Soon, the few crewmen on deck could make out the distictive octagonal shapes of emergency life rafts, apparently bound togeather. Each raft seemed filled to capacity with well dressed but clearly helpless occupants.

It should be observed that in situations like these the strangeness of human fashioin choices are most clearly displayed. Captain Egan, dressed, as he were, in bright white boat shoes, white slacks and pressed white shirt, and, slightly at odds with the rest of the outfit, the stained, crumpled, off-white cap, none the less exuded an air of control and capability. Anyone dressed in that way would, for the simple reason that, on order to dress in such a manner, one must actually possess those qualities. An uncontrolable and incapable person would be unable to button the buttons, or restrain himself from removing the starched canvas shoes and throwing them at his fellow humans.

The induviduals in the rafts, however, exemplified the negative image, both figurativly and literally, of the captain. The castaways were all dressed in formal evening were, black tuxedos and dark formal gowns. And as a group (with the exception of a single raft harboring the carefully segregated, white coated waitstaff of what must have been a particulary wet dinner party, but thats beside the point), this well dress crowd emmited a pungent miasma of varried charater traits.

Some smelled of greed, this group defined among the men as those favoring the common tie to the bow tie. This is neccesary as it is too difficult to slightly loosen a bowtie, as might be neccesary for a glutton to gulp down a meal. Others emmited the odor ignorance. These could be catagorized among both sexs by the apparent lack of jewelry. Only a particulary ignorant induvidual would attend a life raft dinner party without at least bringing a watch. And there was even a whiff of intelegence (stonger from the region with the white coated waitstaff, but again, they do not come into our story). A carefull observer would notice that the regions in which this aroma contained a proportionally higher number of passengers wearing heavy boots with woolen socks (admitedly, though well dressed not all the cast aways were equally concious of the particulars of formal dress etiquette). Obviously anyone with the prescence of mind to bring footwear suitable for any climate was either a) intelligent, or b) an alumnus of a previous liferaft dinner party (they really could go just about anywhere).

The yacht slowed, and crewmen began to help dinner guests (as well as the waitstaff who do not impact this story) climb aboard...

To Be Continued... With more insightful observances of the human condition and additional information about the white coated induviduals who do not play any part in this tale...