Nasty Chipmunk Idiots’Books Volume XXIII
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Copyright © 2009
Nasty Chipmunk
By Matthew Swanson Illustrated by Robbi Behr
To being nasty.
Nasty Chipmunk stands in the branches of the tallest tree in the forest trying to decide who to offend. There is little to obstruct his view. He has gnawed off all the leaves and buds.
Nasty sees a smiling child and scurries down to bite its leg. By the time the child’s mother responds to its screams, Nasty is back on his branch, feeling better about the day.
Nasty’s habits include spitting and swearing at grandmothers. Elephants have tried to squash Nasty, but he is too fast.
Bored on a Tuesday, Nasty decides that nothing is as funny as a forest fire.
Nasty Chipmunk seems tiny and vulnerable. The lions attack. Nasty so offends them with crudeness that they die in disgust. Now Nasty is king. He cracks his back, neck, and knuckles, irritating everybody.
To celebrate, Nasty shaves his fur and adorns his body with obscene tattoos. “I really like me,� he says.
As king, Nasty accomplishes nothing. He lounges and demands, inspiring disdain. The rains of spring refuse to come. The canopy withers.
Does Nasty feel sentimental when witnessing shows of innocence, love, kindness, or grace? He writes his thoughts in a spiral-bound book, but none of us has been allowed to read it.
Nasty Chipmunk encounters his nemesis, Give Me Your Money Bunny. “I want to kill you, Money Bunny,” says Nasty. “I want to kill you, Nasty,” says Money Bunny. They admire one another tremendously.
Nasty and Money fight dirty until both are bloody. They call a truce. Nasty doesn’t honor it.
To wish himself a happy birthday, Nasty puts a salt lick in the center of the highway.
Nasty contracts a mysterious disease and loses all of his teeth. His sores attract insects. His breath repels entire ecosystems.
The end apparent, Nasty seeks a protĂŠgĂŠ. The masses gather for auditions. Nasty drowns them one by one.
Nasty dies alone and bony, bitter to the end, but forever the king.
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This Idiots’Books creation is the product of collaboration between Matthew Swanson and Robbi Behr. The animals offended in the making of this book were not actually offended, though we suspect that some of you might be.
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Matthew Swanson is a writer/harmonica player/surreptitious nose picker who, while camping with a group of friends in the Okefenokee Swamp, ate a can of Hormel chili and contracted a bout of airborne intestinal distress of such volume and offense that he was forced by his so-called friends to leave the tent and spend the night sleeping on the cold, hard floor of the campground restroom. Robbi Behr is an illustrator/fisherwoman/loogie spitter who used to have to spend the first days of each summer shoveling piles of porcupine poop that had been deposited in the garage over the long Alaska winter. When she was five, also in Alaska, she contracted trench mouth, which she describes as having been “pretty nasty.” They live in a barn in Chestertown, Maryland.
Also by Idiots’Books Facial Features of French Explorers (Vol. 1) Death of Henry (Vol. 2) Ten Thousand Stories (Vol. 3) Man Joe Rises (Vol. 4) Unattractive and Inadequate (Vol. 5) Richard Nixon (Vol. 6) Understanding Traffic (Vol. 7) Dawn of the Fats (Vol. 8) The Contented (Vol. 9) The Clearing (Vol. 10) George Washington Slept Here (Vol. 11) Last Day (Vol. 12) The Nearly Perfect Sisters of the Holy Bliss (Vol. 13) The Vast Sahara (Vol. 14)
The Baby is Disappointing (Vol. 15) Let Me Count the Ways (Vol. 16) Animal House (Vol. 17) After Everafter (Vol. 18) Floating on the Ocean (Vol. 19) Jericho (Vol. 20) The Last of the Real Small Farmers (Vol. 21) Tarpits and Canyonlands (Vol. 22) For the Love of God A Bully Named Chuck My Henderson Robot St. Michaels: The Town That Somehow Fooled the British
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Nasty Chipmunk Copyright © October 2009 by Idiots’Books Idiots’Books Volume 23 www.idiotsbooks.com See also: www.robbibehr.com www.thebarnstorming.com
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