High Muck-a-Muck

This is a story about a wooden puppet. It’s also a story about growing up.

Growing up is a mysterious business for anyone. When does it start? When does it stop? Have you got to make it happen or does it happen by itself? How come some “grown-ups” are tall enough to change a light bulb without standing on a chair but can’t help giggling at a man on TV wobbling a toy rabbit on a jelly?

Imagine how hard it would be if you had to grow up in just a few days like the wooden puppet in our story…

One moment you’re lying there asleep in a block of wood; the next, you’ve been chipped out and plonked on your own two new little feet. All at once you’ve got to learn things the rest of us would take years to get the hang of – eating peas with a fork, spelling rhinoceros, doing a handstand on the back of a galloping horse…

Let’s say you’re so clever you can do all that no problem. But somehow you still don’t feel grown up. How can I be finished, you wonder? How can I be more me?

Whether we’re made of flesh and blood or wood, what magic ingredient rounds us off as human beings?

Daniel Jamieson