Once upon a time, there was a little boy named Marcus. He was a very little boy in the sense that he was three inches tall and lived under a toadstool in the middle of a swamp.

  Marcus liked living in the swamp. There was always fresh food for him to eat, fresh friends to be made and fresh features to be added to his toadstool house. He would sing merry songs enjoy life to the fullest. Never was there ever a moment where he did not feel happy.

  And then his whole world was turned upside down. As in, his little toadstool house had been uprooted and flipped over. This was, as he frequently never said, “totally not cool, man.” Such a sudden event left Marcus without somewhere to live. So, Marcus gathered as much as he could from the rubble of his house and set off on an expedition to find somewhere new.

  After walking for well over two minutes, and also swimming for about ninety seconds, Marcus reached a lily pad that appeared to be uninhabited. He knocked on the absence of a door and called out, “Does anyone perchance live in this lily pad?”

  “No!” came a response from inside. Marcus shrugged his shoulders and stepped onto the lily pad.

  “Oi!” the same voice yelled. “Who’s stepping on my lily pad?”

  Marcus, standing as tall as his three-inch body could, proudly proclaimed, “Marcus.”

  “Oh,” came the voice. “Marcus? Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.”

  “Is there a problem?” Marcus asked.

  “Not as yet,” the voice replied. “I’ve just lost one of my rooms. Have you seen it?”

  Marcus was puzzled. Lost a room? What utter nonsense.

  “I must sound like I’m speaking utter nonsense,” the voice said.

  “Yes,” Marcus said. “I’m very puzzled.”

  “I could tell,” the voice said, “from the noise you made.”

  “I didn’t make any noise,” said Marcus.

  “Exactly,” said the voice. “And you never will again.”

  And Marcus tried to open his mouth to speak, but couldn’t. In horror, he touched his face to feel his mouth, but all he felt was the absence of one.

  Oh, dear. I don’t like this story anymore. Goodbye.