There is a ruckus among all the plants as something is stealing their roots! Joshua and the Shimbly investigate.

1. Joshua and the Shimbly
Confront the Root Thief
by AJ Hunter

2. One afternoon Joshua was resting under a shade
tree, using his Shimbly petal as a pillow. When worn
as a cape the petal allowed him to fly.
As Joshua was about to fall asleep he heard
sound, like the whirring of a fan.

3. It was the Shimbly! It was flying
towards him like a helicopter.
It was the same Shimbly that gave
Joshua its petal in exchange for his
yellow handkerchief.

4. The Shimbly communicated by movement and Joshua
couldn't understand a single shake until the Shimbly's
dizziness went away.
"Joshua, there is a great aggravation going on!" Shook the
Shimbly, eventually. "Some dreadful creature is snatching
the roots from all my vegetation chaps! Lend us a hand?!"

5. Joshua and the Shimbly flew
off immediately to confront
this mysterious root thief.

6. "Y
ah
oo
ho
oh
oo
!"
While flying over Ship Wreck Cove a sudden
gust of wind hit the Shimbly and knocked
its yellow handkerchief completely off!
The Shimbly couldn’t fly with only three petals and
plummeted towards the cove. The Shimbly flailed for
help, but unfortunately Joshua did not see it.

7. Joshua was so focused on capturing the
subterraneous nuisance that he did not
notice the Shimbly was no longer with
him.

8. Joshua plunged after the beast but it swiftly
retreated into the ground. In a heartbeat, a
new hole appeared far from Joshua’s reach.
Every time Joshua went after
the monster it would escape and
taunt him from a fresh hole.

9. Joshua was getting very discouraged. He could
not catch something capable of moving that
quickly in soil.
Just as he was about
to give up he heard a
whirring sound...

10. It was the Shimbly! But
there was something
different about him...
“Ahoy, matey!” Shimmied the Shimbly. “Ya can’t
go a-plunderin’ after ‘em like that! Ya need the
right booty to lure him up to the poop deck!”

11. The Shimbly plunged one of its roots into the
ground. In no time the Shimbly squirmed violently,
“Shiver me tubers! The scallywag took the bait!”

12. “Avast! A kraken of the sandy loam!” quaked the Shumbly as
it raised its root from the ground. Latched onto its root was
a baby Rootster. “Be ye a-feared, ye scurvy odd dawg!”

13. Adult Rootsters only eat the roots of noncommunicative plants. Joshua figured that the
little Rootster was too young to know it was
stealing the roots of conscious plants.
Joshua took the Rootster away
from the Shimbly amid threats
to “flog” and “keelhaul” it.

14. Joshua taught the Rootster to tickle a plant’s roots before
taking it's roots. If a plant was ticklish it would miss the
root.
The tiny Rootster promised
to only take roots from nonticklish vegetation.

15. The
end.