Smooch A Silly Spider Day
The best part about February in Moonwater Meadow is that it isn’t January. This also means that the worst part of February in Moonwater Meadow is that it isn’t July.
We have several holidays to celebrate like vain groundfrogs looking for shadows (Feb. 2) and overflowing cups of hot chocolate after school (Feb.27). Valentine’s Day is in February, too, on the 14th. But there’s one holiday that’s worth a closer look. That day is February 13th. or Smooch A Silly Spider Day.
Moonwater Observatory once had trouble with the Sort-Of-Large -Telescope. The right longitudinal alti-mometer needed replacing. That’s an expensive piece of equipment that allows the right side of the telescope to raise and lower to study the sky. The left longitudinal alti-mometer was fine and dandy but it’s best to replace both together. The Meadow Gang tried to make a new part from scratch. That story is known as “The Time Clownley Bear’s Fur Took A Long Time To Grow Back”.
Then they had a better idea…
Over at Moonwater Pizza and Calzone the gang devised a fundraising plan. They would hold a dance and have fun things like a jellybean eating contest, a robot dance battle and a smooch booth in which sat Ollie Bug dressed as Cupid in purple pajamas with a crate of raspberry jelly-flavored lip balm. The most popular item on the ticket was indeed the smooch booth. No one was sure why because robot dance battles are pretty awesome.
Once word got round about the lip balm Ollie ended up with pasty, goopy smooch prints all over his head. It was some time before he got all the goop out of his fur. However, the Observatory got the new Right and Left Longitudinal Alti-mometer.
From that year on, the day became known as Smooch A Silly Spider Day and each year the gang raises money for the Observatory and other projects around Moonwater Meadow.
As for Ollie, he doesn’t mind getting pasted with balmy smooches. As long as the flavors are raspberry marshmallow, chocolate peanut butter and pepperoni pizza.
Oliver Bug is an adventurer, detective, inventor and gourmet chef residing in Moonwater Meadow. He can often be found in his workshop putting out small unintentional fires.
Tom Serafini is Ollie’s official biographer, illustrator and a sometime stand-up comedian residing in Brooklyn, New York. He has an affinity for banana pudding. His first illustrated picture book, Ollie Bug and the Icky Sticky Thing From Space, will be funded through a Kickstarter crowdfunding.
Sign up on the email list on this page to get notifications of new posts and other neat stuff.