How the Quokka Lost His Smile

I would like to introduce the Vault - a section with older stories that have been sitting in the file cabinet for one reason or another.

The first story is called "How the Quokka Lost His Smile". Some time ago, I was approached by a very talented artist, Maddy Shellabarger, who said she had a title for a story and asked if I would create a story around the title. The title she came up with was "How the Quokka Lost His Smile". I thought it was a wonderful title and wrote a draft of the story. A overall concept arc was having the story bookended by a wide, elderly animal creature who read stories that took place in a fictional garden-like town called The Grove. and this was just the first tale. The project was never completed, but here is the first piece with the wonderful artwork by Maddy.