Once upon a time, or so they tell me,

there lived a little girl who called herself Lee.

Now Lee was a person short, stout, and proud

with blazing red curls and a voice really loud

But alas, she was almost always in woe

for her grades in math class troubled her so

Sure, she always worked hard as she could, always doing her best

staying up all day and night just to study for a single test

But when she’d get them back, all she saw, to her dismay

marks as red as her hair and not a single “A.”

But then one morning her life suddenly changed.

A grizzly sight caused her to fly in a rage.

For though she thought she placed her textbook in a safe spot,

when she got to the place it usually was, a textbook there was not.

She upturned her house, as well as every other house in town.

For the next few hours, all the citizens lived life upside-down.

Until finally, she noticed something she hadn’t before,

abnormally large footprints leading from outside her door

to the base of Mt. Forbes, Lee held her head high.

At last, the culprit would be found, his trail high and dry!

Boldly she trekked to the mountain’s base

where she then met a figure with a hideous face.

For what unfortunate sight did Lee struggle to view

was an ogre in his underwear and his emaciated Emu.

The ogre had matted moldy hair and toenails five feet long.

His gut infested with sticky residue and his teeth were all sorts of wrong

He had the textbook clutched in his grimy grasp.

At this terrible sight, Lee gave a great gasp.

“Give that textbook back!” she shouted. “It’s mine!”

“Okay, but I need cash,” the ogre replied. “How bout a million and a dime?”

Incredulous at the deal she was proposed,

she leapt toward the ogre, nearly breaking her nose.

The two tussled and struggled, the book still in the ogre’s grip.

But all of a sudden, the ogre felt his butterfingers slip.

“Ha! Ha! Ho! Ho!” she laughed in glorious glee.

“Now it’s mine at last!” proclaimed proud Lee.

The ogre slowly fell before her, his eyes filled with tears.

This was the first time he was defeated in many years.

“Oh please, little girl,” the ogre begged in earnest.

“I just need to borrow it to study for a test.”

“A test?!” Lee couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“What do ogres need tests for? I thought you were supposed to be terrifying!”

“But I don’t want to be!” the ogre moaned. “Little girl,

I only want to be a mathematician, so I can do good in the world.”

“Okay,” Lee said. “For your information, my name is Lee,

and second, I can help you, you can trust me.

“Tell you what, I’m gonna give you a big surprise,

all you have to do is turn around and cover your eyes.”

“You mean it, Lee?” the ogre asked. She nodded.

“Don’t worry,” she insisted. “Your new life is just getting started.”

Gleefully, the ogre did as he was told, giggling he sensed an end to his strife.

“Oh boy! Oh boy!” he said in great joy. “This is the best day of my life!”

Then Lee took the book in her hand, lifted it over her head,

and she struck the ogre down until he was surely dead.

But the ogre’s arm twitched slightly, Lee thought it would never end.

She slammed his head hard for good measure, and he never moved again.

When she looked at what she done, she sat in thought

of what would happen should she get caught.

“There’s no way,” she said. “No way I’m going to jail!”

Thoughts of prison time were enough to make her skin turn pale.

So, she dragged the ogre’s body to the flat mountain top covered in snow.

She was leaving it there to rot, where no one would ever know.

And to make sure all the trouble was completely erased,

she held a bonfire, burning the evidence, leaving no trace.

The Emu, who sat by watching his master die,

sat amazed. He felt his soul could fly,

which it did. The Emu’s body lay dead with the ogre on the floor

and it, too, was thrown into the fire, making it burn even brighter than before.

Then Lee looked on; the deed was done. She began to walk away.

And everyone lived happily ever after…or did they?