The Story of Curious George and the Mina Bird

Once upon a time, there was a monkey.  We'll just call him George.

     George lived on an island and had never seen anything else but this place he called home.  One day, George became very curious about what was "out there" and decided to see the world for himself, so he built a raft, took it to the ocean, climbed aboard and pushed off.

     George didn't think about taking food or water, so when two days had passed, George thought he was hallucinating when he saw a school of fish swimming under his raft.  He thought, I'm so hungry; I'm so thirsty.  Maybe if I ask these fish for help, they'll feed me, or at least get me the heck off of this raft!  So George splashed around to get their attention.  The leader of this school popped its head above the water and-lo and behold!-it wasn't a fish, but a porpoise!  And, not just ANY porpoise, but an immortal porpoise....

A long time ago, a "good" wizard (we'll just call him Merlin) came across this pod whose members, up until then, were normal, mortal porpoises.  With him, he had his pet Mina bird, kept in an indestructible golden cage, and asked them for help.  You see, Merlin had an evil nemesis (we'll call him, oh, Asmodean,) that wanted that Mina bird-badly!  So badly, in fact, that it drove Merlin to seek protection for his Mina from this most unlikely of sources.  He told the porpoises his dilemma, and they agreed to help him.  They just had to tow the bird around, keep it company, and keep it safe (how they did this in the water is anyone's guess, but hey----this is fiction!).  In return for this service, he granted them immortal life.

    This worked well for several years, until Asmodean found them!  He came and stole the bird from the porpoises, and put it on one of his islands.  Now, this island was a well-protected island, for not only was it thousands of miles from anywhere, but Asmodean surrounded it with huge, stately lions.  BIG they were, 20-feet tall!

     Asmodean put the Mina bird in its indestructible golden cage in the geometric center of this island surrounded by these huge, stately lions, sure that nothing could breach the perimeter. 

     The porpoises assured George that they would tow him anywhere he wanted to go if he agreed to rescue the Mina bird. 

     Of course George agreed, so off to Asmodean's island they went.  When they reached the edge of the shore, George snuck off into the jungle.  Upon reaching the center, he nearly ran into a guardian lion, so he jumped into the trees, swinging from branch to branch, tree to tree, until he came upon the Mina bird in its golden cage in the center of the island.

     He shimmies down the tree, snatches the cage with the Mina bird in it, jumps back into the tree, and heads for the raft.

     Just as he was about to leap onto the raft, the island police arrested him.

Do you know what they charged him with?

Take a guess....

They charged him with:

Transporting Minas across stately lions for immortal porpoises!

Friends, you may now feel free to throw anything soft at me. (Jason threw a baby armadillo!)