He says to me:
“Tell a story about Remmy and Hammy.”
(We’ve been making up stories for a couple of weeks now about Hammy the hammerhead shark and his best friend Remmy the Remora fish. There’s also a Mako shark named Skate that showed up one time. I have hardly had the chance to write them down. One day we made the story up while we were walking to his friend’s house. A long walk. In the story, Hammy and Remmy went to buy a car — entirely Jonah’s idea — and they ended up buying a mini car which they drove all around the world under the water.)
“What is it about?” I ask.
“Remmy gets lost.”
And then he says, “I am telling you the parts of the story that you will tell with your mouth.”
(Expectation that I shall retell this story in its entirety after it has been divulged is duly noted.)
He continues:
“They were in the seaweed forest and then Remmy gets lost.”
“And then he finds a crab and he asks the crab if he knows which way in the seaweed forest his friend Hammy has gone.”
“What does the crab say?”
“The crab says Hammy went THAT way” (points).
“So what does Remmy do?”
“He goes. The crab follows him. And then they swim THAT way” (points).
“Do they find each other?”
“Yeah. And then that’s the end.”