A while back, when I was still a young kid, Firebelly and I had an adventure that I’m pretty much bettin’ you all would like to hear about. What’s that? Who’s Firebelly? You mean to tell me you folks in this part o’ town ain’t ever heard of Firebelly? Well, then, let me tell ya all ’bout ’em.

The first time I met Firebelly I was only ten years old and living with my grandpa in a town very far away from here. An old, evil wizard by the name of Mon-day had just cast a spell on the town which turned every day of the week into a Monday.

When my grandpa realized what had happened, he took my hand and told me to repeat, very clearly, every word he was about to tell me. He recited a poem that he said would call forth a hero who would defeat the wizard and return our weeks to normal ones once I repeated it. The hero only would come if a child called him, my grandpa said, so I repeated the poem which went like this:

By the frosty beard of the Jolly St. Nick,

Whose time clock for Christmas has not missed a tick,

I call on the power of that fat king of jelly

to bring us our hero: Firebelly!

And just as I said this the sky turned a golden-yellow and behind me I heard a loud CHIRP, CHIRP, CHIRP! like the sound of a huge frog singing. I turned very quickly to see what it was, and, much to my surprise, I found a three-foot, light green-skinned, blue-eyed frog with a bright red, fat belly sitting there smiling at me. “Howdy do, do, do, young chap,” he said to me as he chewed on a piece of what appeared to be bubble gum. “What kin I do ya fer?”

“Well,” I said to him, “my grandpa here said you were a hero and could defeat the wizard, Mon-day for us. He’s turned every one of our days into a Monday.”

“Yikes,” Firebelly said, as his belly turned even redder than before, “that’s not a very good SITS-A-Q-A-SHUN to be in a’tall. I’ve had dealings with the wizard, Mon-day be-fer. I do thinks I kin remedy this here PREEE-DIC-O-MENT fer ya, though, but I need fer you an’ yer grandpa ta do EGG-ZAK-OO-LLYY what I tellz ya ta do. OK?”

“OK, Mr. Firebelly,” I said to him, “we’ll do what ever you say.”

“Ya don’ts gotta call me Mr,” he said, “just Firebelly will do. Now, here’s what I need ya ta do. I need both you and yer grandpa here to put yer right hands on my belly, don’t worry, it’s normal for it feel hot like that, and rub it in a circular motion. HEE! HEE! That kinda tickles! But it’s suppose to, so don’t worry none. Now, I need fer both of you to repeat this saying:

Today it is dark

Today it is cold

All due to a wizard

Or so we’ve been told

But now he must go

In a very quick way

Cause we simply can’t take

Another Mon-day

My grandpa and I did as we were instructed, and just as we finished reciting the saying, a black cloud of smoke appeared with the wizard, Mon-day inside it. He looked very sad and not scary at all. “Who is it who breaks my spell, calls me here, and returns the days of the week in this town to normal?” he said.

“Why it is I, yer frog friend from the sky,” Firebelly said to him. “Why don’t we go somewhere else and have us a few flies and a chat or two and let these here folks go back ta their reg’lar lives? Eh, Mon-day. Wadda ya say, ‘ole friend?”

“Well, since ya put things so nice and all, OK. I’ll go have a few flies and a few chats with you,” the Wizard said. “But I gotta tell ya, being named Mon-day, well, it just ain’t such an easy thing ta live with, ya know?”

“And I suppose bein’ a three-foot frog with a bright red, fat belly IS, eh?,” I heard Firebelly say as he put his short arm around him and led him into a warm, golden-yellow splash of light which, like them, soon vanished into thin air.

Well, anyway, that’s the story of the first time I met Firebelly. It wasn’t the last time, however, that I saw him. My grandpa told me whenever I or any other kid needed him, all we had to do was repeat this poem:

By the frosty beard of the Jolly St. Nick,

Whose time clock for Christmas has not missed a tick,

I call on the power of that fat king of jelly

to bring us our hero: Firebelly!

And he’d be there, lickity split, to help us out of any jam we were in. And he did help me, and many other kids, out of many jams over the years. But those, my friends, are stories for another day.

The End