Newton the newt was a strange newt. For instance, he lived in a hole by a roadside lake next to a farm, and his best friend was a cow named Jim.

Newton also got the leftovers of Jim’s grass. It was delicious. One morning, he was drinking his coffee, and a bit of his dirt ceiling fell in it.

“Bad luck,” Newton muttered.

Five minutes later, Newton romped over the road to visit Jim.

“Jim! Dude! Where are you?”

Usually Jim answered with a friendly moo. Maybe he was still asleep? No, he never slept over six. It was kind of crazy, really. Still, maybe he was scared the farmer would let the other cows start grazing without him.

Newton looked everywhere. Jim was not there. When he was about to give up, he found one of the other cows.

“Hey, Jacob!”

“Mooo!”

“Have you seen Jim?”

“Moo. Moooo, moo moo moo.”

“Alright, thanks.”

This was troubling. Newton searched all over the area but did not find Jim. He was crying in his hole when a wise old gila monster clomped over to him.

The gila monster said, “What is your sadness?”

Newton replied, “I cannot find my only friend, Jim the cow.”

The gila monster said, “Ah, yes, I see him. Brown, is he not?

Newton nodded.

“I see him in the depths of the concrete jungle, eating through the goliath red fruit.”

Then, the gila monster disappeared in a poof of smoke. Newton stopped crying. He was puzzled by the words of the gila monster. To try to learn more about what the concrete jungle and the goliath red fruit were, he started reading human magazines.

After around a month, he finally found an ad that said, “Come see the big apple! Train tickets to see the concrete jungle on sale!” It was displaying a picture of New York City.

A day later, Newton stole some money from the farmer’s house and then took a ride on the train. Since he didn’t want the conductor to see him, he just put the money in his pocket. He slept his way into Grand Central Terminal. Then he scurried his way outside.

Before we go on, you should know that Newton was born with a strange phobia of loud or echoing places.

Now, when Newton entered Grand Central, he immediately and completely freaked out. He screamed so loud, and said some things that should not be said in Newtish, and made enough noise for even a human to spot a three inch long, camouflaged amphibian. These people did when Newton was rushing between people’s legs to get out of the train station.

As soon as he got out, Newton almost fainted in relief. He tried to thumb a taxi, which did not go very well, so he sat on the side of the sidewalk, trying to think of a place Jim would go.

Just then, a truck labeled “BOB’S GRASS AND OTHER GREENERIES” passed. Newton thought, grass! Jim loves grass! and then did a daredevil leap to the top of the truck, where he proceeded to take a nap.

The truck had stopped in Bob’s parking lot. Newton woke up, jumped off, and then stalked up to the garden. He had arrived just in time to see animal control drive off with Jim! Newton rushed to jump on the back of the truck, where he used his own head as a keyhole, opened the door, and rescued Jim. They ran off together and when they had gotten far enough, Newton asked, “Jim, how’d you get here?!”

Jim replied, “Oh, I don’t know, just took the 2:56 and went from there.”

Newton sighed. Jim never had an explanation for anything. They walked one more block until Jim moaned, “Oh, no.”

Newton looked to the other side of the block. There sat a loud diner, where a bunch of drunk men were staring at Jim. Suddenly, Newton understood.

The red-faced chef hunkered over to Jim, inspected him, and walked back to the diner. He came back out shortly with a bloody cleaver and a strange look on his face.

Jim was horrified and bolted down the block with Newton on his back, both of them screaming at the top of their lungs. The chef chased them until he had to stop for another sip of whisky. Jim and Newton finally lost the chef by using the time he was wasting.

Jim panted, “Where are we?”

Newton replied, “Atlantic, and it’s 11:00.”

It was great at night when no one was around, until the pair remembered that they had to somehow sneak onto a train in Grand Central. Just then, they heard a rustle. Jim looked down. Newton looked up.

“Put your hands up!”

“Where did you come from?”

“Wait… Jim?”

It was George, the long lost cow that had escaped from the farm years ago! He seemed to be leading an animal sewer gang.

George said to his friends, “Lower the harpoons.”

Newton asked, “Where did you get harpoon guns? Why are you here?”

He replied, “We, uh, found them. Also, Farmer Bob wasn’t giving me enough pasture time.”

“According to street pirate rules, you are our hostages. I guess, do you want to be taken to our lair, or do you want to be brutally killed?”

Newton said, “I think we would prefer option A.”

When they had arrived, they almost puked from the uncleanliness.

George said royally, “Welcome to my kingdom!”

Newton said, “Hey, George? We should probably leave. You know, back to the farm.”

George grinned wickedly. “Oh, no. The fun has just begun! Begun!”

Jim said, “Uh, you just said begun two times.”

“Yes! That is because I am calling the name of my giant, poisonous snake pet to eat you!”

Jim and Newton raced to the exit. Begun chased them through the sewer drain, out of the pothole, to the bus, after the bus, into an office building, out of the office building, back on the bus, and all over town.

The next morning, Jim and Newton had lost the snake, hiding in a garbage bin in front of a store with a newspaper in the window. The newspaper headline said, “GIANT SNAKE WREAKS HAVOC DOWNTOWN.”

After checking both ways, the pair sprinted all the way to Grand Central, where they caught the 12:36 train. It was a fairly uneventful trip, except for the time when a man reached under the seat, inches away from Jim’s face.

They arrived at the station, walked by the side of the road, took a grass break, and safely arrived in the barn.

Jim said,“Goodnight, Mooton.”

This was Jim’s nickname for Newton.

Newton replied, “Goodnight, Jim.”