At the end of the last story Benjamin did a discernment and decided the GRMPF was an outcast and not an enemy. So under the protection of Uriel the 23rd he hugged the GRMPF.
[Do you remember what happened next?]
Suddenly, instead of the GRMPF Benjamin found himself gazing at a boy his own age who looked a lot like him!
At first everybody stood in shocked silence. Then everybody talked at once.
“Where’d you come from?”— “Who’re you?” — “Who’re you?” — “Where am I?” — “Thanks be to God!” — “Thank you! Thank you!”
After a while everybody calmed down. Then Uriel the 23rd made formal introductions and everybody shook hands.
“I am Uriel the 23rd. I am a Protector and Discerner sent by Jesus. This is Benjamin.”
“My name is Benoni,” said the boy, “and I am very grateful to you both for rescuing me.”
“Benoni,” said Benjamin. “That’s a …” He was going to say, “That’s a peculiar name,” but then he remembered his manners and said, “That’s an interesting name.”
“Yes, it’s not a very common name, is it?” said Benoni.
“Yes,” said Uriel the 23rd.
“What happened to you?” asked Benjamin. “Did the GRMPF eat you?”
“No, the GRMPF didn’t eat me,” said Benoni.
“I am the GRMPF.”
“You are the GRMPF!” exclaimed Benjamin. “But that’s impossible! Boys aren’t GRMPFs.”
“Yes, Benjamin, boys are GRMPFs. I had a GRMPF in me, and I turned into that GRMPF. And you have a GRMPF in you too.”
“I do not!” said Benjamin. “Not me!”
But even as he said it, Benjamin knew he was wrong. He could just imagine what it was like to be a GRMPF. In fact, he thought, maybe it would be fun. He’d like to scare Billy! He’d like to growl at Billy and threaten to eat him up and chase him and chase him until he screamed and screamed and screamed. Wow! That’d be fun!
Just then he noticed that Uriel the 23rd was looking at him in an odd way.
“Well, maybe there’s a little GRMPF in me,” he said. “But how did it happen? How did you turn into a GRMPF?”
“I don’t understand it very well,” said Benoni. “I just want it never to happen again!”
“I know how it happened, Benoni,” said Uriel the 23rd. “Would you like me to tell the story?”
“Yes,” said Benoni.
“Oh, yes!” said Benjamin.
Here is the story of how Benoni became a GRMPF.
************
In Benoni’s bedroom, said Uriel the 23rd, on the back of his closet door is a full-length mirror.
[There’s one right here in my closet, too, thought Benjamin.]
Do you remember Snow White’s stepmother, the wicked witch? She looked in her mirror to admire herself. But not Benoni. Benoni looked into his mirror to hate himself. Benoni had a secret affliction. He was growing the hair of a beast! Other people couldn’t see the hair, but in that mirror he could.
As far back as he could remember, he had always had some of the hair. The first patch was on the back of his right shoulder, and he didn’t know that other people couldn’t see it until one day he asked his mother, “Why do I have hair on my shoulder?”
“Where, dear?” she said.
“Right here,” said Benoni, and pointed.
“I don’t see any hair,” said his mother.
“Oh, wait. Yes, I see a hair. You have a mole here, and a hair is growing out of it.”
But Benoni didn’t mean a hair. He meant a thick, dirty, tangled mat of hair. He never mentioned the hair again. But every morning he looked with dread in the mirror. Little by little, as he grew older, the patches of beast’s hair spread. At first they sprouted here and there on his back. Then some grew on his arms and legs.
“I deserve it,” thought Benoni. “I do so many bad things, and there’s so much wrong with me.”
A lot of people told Benoni there was something wrong with him.
“Why are you always so clumsy!” said his father, when Benoni dropped a glass and broke it.
Benoni believed what his father said, and a new patch of beast’s hair grew in the night.
“Why can’t you ever remember anything?” said his mother, when Benoni forgot to tell her what his teacher said.
Benoni believed what his mother said, and a new patch of beast’s hair grew in the night.
“Why don’t you ever pay attention?” said his teacher, when Benoni didn’t hear he because he was daydreaming.
Benoni believed what his teacher said, and a new patch of beast’s hair grew in the night.
“I don’t want you on my team,” said Billy, when the boys were choosing sides for a ball game. “You’re no good.”
Benoni believed what Billy said, and he believed more besides. Benoni believed all the boys thought he was no good, and a new, large patch of beast’s hair grew in the night.
Whenever Benoni saw a new patch of beast’s hair, he said to himself, “See, they’re right. There’s something wrong with me.”
One day Benoni’s mother kissed him and hugged him and said she loved him, and Benoni’s father said how smart he was, and even Billy said something nice. And that night grandfather told him a story and said how much fun he was. Benoni felt good.
[What do you suppose he saw when he looked in the mirror the next morning?]
The next morning a lot of beast’s hair was gone!
“How wonderful!” said Benoni to himself. “How did that happen?”
He looked and looked, and sure enough he didn’t have nearly as much beast’s hair as the day before! But then he thought, “It won’t last. There’s something wrong with me, and the hair will come back.” And right before his eyes he could actually see beast’s hair growing!
[What do you think — did Benoni really see beast’s hair growing? Or did he imagine it?]
I’ll tell you what I think. I think Benoni imagined it, and it was real. I think his imagination saw something real that you can’t see any other way. I think beast’s hair was really growing on him, but that the only way to see it was with Benoni’s inner eyes. I think the reason grownups could say such bad things to Benoni and couldn’t see the patches of beast’s hair growing is that the grownups had no imagination. Many grownups forget how to use their imagination. Benoni could see what was happening to him because he still had his imagination. That’s what I think!
But one day other people did see the hair! That was the day Benoni stopped hiding his secret and began to act like a beast.
“I’m no good,” he thought. “This is what I’m like.”
So he broke Billy’s toy truck, and he dropped daddy’s glass, and he lied to mother, and he hit the girl next to him in school. Everybody could see the beast’s hair now!
“Oh, what an ugly boy!” they said.
“I don’t want you to play with him any more,” said Billy’s mother to Billy.
Benoni’s mother and father punished him.
“Go to your room!” they said. “And don’t come out until you’re ready to apologize.”
But Benoni wouldn’t apologize. “I’m bad,” he thought, “and ugly, and dirty, and people don’t want anything to do with me. What use would it be to say I’m sorry, even if I am?”
Now the hair covered all of Benoni’s body. His face and his hands were matted with dirty beast’s hair. Benoni hated himself, and everybody shunned him.
And that is how Benoni became a GRMPF.
***********
There was a silence when Uriel the 23rd finished speaking.
Then Benjamin murmured, “Oh, how awful!”
“It was awful,” said Benoni. “I hated being a GRMPF, but I thought that was all I could be, and I was angry. I wanted to hurt people. So I growled, and I chased children until they screamed. That’s what my life was like until you came along, Benjamin, under the protection of Uriel the 23rd and hugged me.”
“It was the protection of God, Benoni,” said Uriel the 23rd. “I’m just his messenger.”
So Benjamin and Benoni and Uriel the 23rd talked and talked. As a matter of fact they got to be very good friends and had many adventures together. Maybe some day I’ll tell you another story about them.
Warner White