The History of the Ear Men

Chapter 2:The Monkey Bars Mishap

The next day during the school lunch break, Catkaty was thinking about how her brother was always coming up with ways to streak, and she thought, Why not try it myself? Her family never made a big deal about it. She took off her dress, not paying attention to where it landed. Little did she know, it had fallen into a puddle of mud. The adults were busy, so she knew she wouldn’t be caught. She ran to the metal slide and slid down completely naked.

Because it was sunny, the slide was hot. She was so focused on the task of streaking that it didn’t even cross her mind. When she reached the bottom, her bare skin was red from the heat of the metal. She ran to the monkey bars and climbed to the very top. As Catkaty played, she thought about the story her family had told her the night before. She was excited to tell her friend about it and wasn’t paying attention to where she was putting her hands. One slipped, but she caught herself.

She decided to hang upside down, forgetting how she was dressed. One of her friends came to the monkey bars and asked if she wanted to go swing on the swings. Not realizing Catkaty was undressed. She did not see it because the sun was bright. She only noticed when a cloud passed overhead.

Her friend knew Catkaty’s family was easy‑going about clothing. In a small town, everyone had heard about her brother. When her friend realized Catkaty wasn’t dressed, she first looked around to make sure no teachers were watching, then asked where her clothes were.

Catkaty responded, “Yeah, I’ll be down in a minute. I just want to show you a few more tricks.” She decided to swing like a monkey from branch to branch and called out, “Look at me swing!” But right in the middle of a swing, she missed a bar and fell to the ground.

Luckily, she knew how to move safely and landed on her back beneath the monkey bars on the grass.

Her friend, being only eight years old, didn’t really know what to do. She didn’t want to get her friend in trouble for not being dressed, but she also knew the situation wasn’t good, especially when Catkaty cried out in pain as she tried to get up. The friend stood there for a few minutes, stunned.

Catkaty screamed for her friend to get a teacher, knowing she couldn’t move. Panicked, her friend ran to the teacher, who was scolding a boy at the time. “Catkaty fell from the monkey bars,” she said. “She says she can’t move.”

The teacher ran to the monkey bars and was shocked to see Catkaty lying on the ground. More worried about the injury than the dress code, she tried to convince Catkaty to see if she could sit or move at all.

Meanwhile, her friend ran off to look for the clothes, not knowing where to start. She found them in the mud pile just outside the school door. The dress was soaked in mud, you couldn’t even tell it wasn’t a brown dress, though the shape gave it away. She carried it to the teacher, knowing Catkaty couldn’t wear it. The teacher didn’t want to touch it; it was too dirty.

So they wrapped Catkaty in a blanket and went to the school office to call EMS. When the ambulance arrived, the playground went silent — all the children were watching, fascinated.

Catkaty said to her friend, “Don’t worry about me. My dad is a surgeon, he’ll fix me. So I’ll be running around like nothing happened.”

She had a child’s view that her dad could fix people. To her, it was like magic. Little did she know, it would put her in a purple wheelchair.

At first, she was excited to be in a wheelchair because then she would be like her dad. But as soon as she sat in her new chair, the magic took hold. The next thing she knew was that she found herself in Silla‑Tierra.