It's a Mystery

Once upon a time in Muffin Land where bunnies were pink and green polka doted and bears were blue and wore bow ties there live a little boy called Shooy. Shooy was a little guy with sandy blonde hair and a stout frame. Wire framed glasses rested on his nose and suspenders held his britches up. Worn brown clogs kept his feet cozy.

Shooy was as sweet as boys came. He always listened to his father and mother and he was kind to all of the animals he met. As an only child Shooy had a lot of friends: bunnies, bears, puppies, and ponies too. All of his friends loved him very much and Shooy spent most of his time playing with them. In Muffin Land boys and girls didn't have to go to school they could play all day and run through the fields picking cotton candy and wild gummy bears. Oh, it was a glorious life. All of the children were polite and the animals were as friendly as could be.

Now, Shooy loved playing with his buddies all day long, their favorite place to play was in the Marshmallow Mountains where they could run and jump and land in a pillow of fluff. Sometimes they would fall so hard they would be buried by a landslide of fresh marshmallows and have to nibble their way out. Of course the marshmallows were full of nutrition, so there was no fear of consuming too much sugar.

One day as Shooy and Toodles the peach grizzly bear were running and jumping and plopping across Marshmallow Mountain they caught a whiff of a strange and curious aroma. Shooy and Toodles hopped up from their marshmallow beds and stuck their noses in the air.

"What is it?" Toodles said after a long sniff.

"Taffy?" guessed Shooy.

"Licorice?" suggested Toodles.

"Chocolate?" stabbed Shooy. But none of their suggestions seemed quite right. They just couldn't put their nose on it. The scent suddenly became even more potent as the wind started blowing harder.

"Toffee?" they kept guessing, but still they couldn't figure it out. So they decided to call a meeting of their buddies and crack the mysteriously foreign smell.

"Eeeio! Eeeia! Eeooooo!!" Toodles yodeled across Marshmallow Mountain.

"Gaaa Laa Faa!" they heard yodeled back. It was Buttons the pink and white polka dotted bunny.

"Hooo Haaa Heee!" They heard next. Fluffy glittery blue pony was on his way. Soon they would all be gathered together.

Before Toodles could return his yodel, "Joo Foo Soo" Buttons and Fluffy were hopping up and down on the marshmallow right next to Shooy and Toodles.

"Wow, that was quick!" Shooy marveled.

"Well, you know, we were only munching on some fresh gummy bears, nothing too serious to keep us busy," Fluffy said.

"Thanks for coming, Chums!" Toodles chirped. "We've got a mystery on our hands. Do you smell that smell?"

Suddenly four noses were sniffing the air above them. They all looked at each other, eyes wide. "What is that smell?" asked Buttons.

"That's what we want to know," said Shooy. "We've never smelt it before in all of our seven old years. It's a mystery and we want to figure it out. Will you help us?"

"Yes, yes," neighed Fluffy.

"Of course!" chimed Buttons.

"Great! Thanks! We were hoping you would say that," bellowed Toodles. "Say, where's Puddle the red puppy?"

"Hey, yeah, where is Puddles?!" Shooy exclaimed.

"We don't know, but he wasn't munching on fresh gummy bears with us in Lolly Meadow when you yodeled, that's for sure," Fluffy stated matter of factly.

Buttons quickly bobbed his head up and down in agreement.

"Well, that is very uncharacteristic of Puddles. He sure does love picking those fresh gummy bears," observed Toodles adjusting his red and white plaid bow tie. "We will have to find him and the mystery smell."

"I wonder why he didn't come when we yodeled?" wondered Shooy sadly.

"I don't know," said Buttons, "but we will have to find him before we find the smell."

"What a mystery. Two in one day. That's more than we've ever had before..." Fluffy murmured.

"What a mystery indeed," agreed Shooy.

And it was. It was the biggest mystery that Shooy, Toodles, Fluffy, and Buttons had ever encountered in the whole of their seven years. Only time will tell where Puddles is and what the new aroma floating through Muffin Land is...