I received the phone call at the worse possible time of day (note to the reader, there is no possible good time of day to call me). The phone rang several times, but I did not answer it, because my theory is never pick up the phone until the twenty-seventh ring—you know it’s important if the person on the other end of the line is willing to wait 27 rings for someone to pick up.

After Arthur had filled me in with the news that Jake had discovered the libraries secret to success, I had only one feeling: hunger. Man was I hungry. Of all the days to skip a hearty breakfast, I choose a day that now appeared to be a long one. All I could think about was what I would have for lunch. In retrospect, I probably should have been many other things: disappointed, angry, concerned…just to name a few. But man was I hungry.

Once I cleared my mind of hunger by eating six foot long sandwiches (hey, I said I was hungry), I was able to start thinking more effectively about what to do next. First thing was first, however, I would have to drive to the library tree distribution center and yell at everyone who might be willing to take the blame for the huge mishap. Blaming other people for something that wasn’t their fault was something I believed I was quite good at, but, as you’ll see in future chapters, it does not always turn out as successful as one can hope—more on this later.

I insisted that Ralph come with me. He was the first person I blamed. “If you would have been looking out instead of munching on a Skittle, then you would have seen the boy and stopped him.” Ralph said his job was to guard the tree, not go to the distribution center. So I put the tree in the back of my car and said, “The trees coming with me—if you want to protect it, then you’re coming with me.” So off the both of us went.

I should warn you here that it’s going to be a long car ride that will be twice as long with Ralph rambling on about strange trivia. I will spare you of this unpleasant discourse, and move instead into a day dream of sorts, in which I will imagine, quite factually, who the three-eyed people are and how they came to be.

Before I imagine any further, however, let me clearly state that all of it is complicated so don’t be surprised if you are at first doubtful or confused by it—but if your not confused or doubtful, then give yourself a pat on the back and be proud of yourself…you are one of the few that can just move with the stories pace and not be slowed down by the few technicalities of it. Okay? Okay.

So as I was saying, before I interrupted myself: the three-eyed men, who are more commonly referred to as monsters. Sometime ago (nearly 100 years), a group of men and women formed a group called Gatsby (named after the founder, whom they called “Great” and whom was the grandfather of the driver who found Jake). Together the group moved to a remote location in the San Bernardino Mountains in Southern California.

The group had one requirement for membership: you had to love peanut butter. They had reasoned that peanut butter had vitamins and minerals to make a person stronger and wiser. And so they began to eat it with everything—peanut butter pancakes, peanut butter on top of broccoli, and their personal favorite: a hot dog with peanut butter and mustard.

Before long, members of Gatsby began waking up in the morning discovering they had a third eye right on their forehead. Soon every member had grown one, and their children were being born with them also. The Great Gatsby, their wise leader, concluded that it must be their peanut butter diet that was giving them the extra eye.

Now at first they were concerned with the eye—they worried perhaps that it was a bad thing to have an extra eye. Before long, however, they realized the extra eye made them smarter than anyone else, because they could see things that other people could not see.

With a third-eye to guide them, they began inventing many wonderful things, such as three-eyed sunglasses, three-eyed binoculars, and a three-eyed t-shirt, which turned out to be the same as a two-eyed t-shirt. But their greatest invention of all was creating a tree that grew books.

They tried to sell their idea, but people were afraid of them, and as much as Gatsby and the others tried, they could get no one to see eye to eye with them—the extra eye made it impossible.

That’s when the three-eyed people met Salinger, who was the first two-eyed person to recognize the trees potential. He promised the three-eyed people that librarians would treat them fairly and be kind to them if only they would sell them the library trees. And so the partnership grew from the encounter, and the three-eyed people signed a contract to give libraries new books on weekly bases. In exchange, they were given twenty pounds of peanut butter per tree (money is no value to three-eyed people).

Now over the years, the three-eyed people have had other contracts. Many book publishers also receive trees, as did some colleges. But the biggest contractor of the trees until recently was libraries. I say until recently with good reason. The Internet has done good things for the three-eyed people. On the Internet, they can say they’re two-eyed, and people believe them. And so they started selling thousands and thousands of their books online. They even started a bookstore called Amazon (after the vast amount of trees in that region). Their first choice was BookTree.com, but that name was taken. Amazon was their second choice. They even hired an eccentric business man named Jeff Bezos to be their front man, so the public would be unsuspecting of who really was in control of the bookstore.

As a result of selling books they had money—lots and lots of money—enough for 800 years worth of peanut butter. They of course didn’t buy peanut butter with all of their money. The money they did not use to buy peanut butter, they donated to charities. Money really meant absolutely nothing to them. They didn’t have TVs or radios or cars (except for the vans) or any of those other things money tends to buy. They didn’t have anything. They thought the entire item behind all of the things money bought was quite silly. They were happy just having the bare necessities in life. I thought they were nuts and I still do—you’d have to be to have all that money and do nothing with it. They could have at least bought new clothes—they were always dressed so shabby. I guess I’d almost have to say there was a lesson in their lifestyle, but it’s too early in the story to talk about lessons we can learn, so just forget I said it. Okay? Okay.

So there you have it: a brief history of the three-eyed people. They’ll be more on them later, but for now it seems I am almost to the distribution center, and will thus end the day dream. Forgive me, but I’m going to have to leave you until the next chapter because I have to find a parking spot—it’s never a good idea to day dream while looking for a parking spot. Until we meet again in chapter six, farewell to you.