- Here's the story:
- When Miss Franny was a little girl, her dad (Herman W. Block) was a rich man and told her she could have whatever her heart desired for her birthday.
- So she asked for a library (remember, her daddy had some serious moolah).
- Well, Daddy MoreBucks got it for her.
- The Herman W. Block Memorial Library was born, with little Miss Franny as the librarian.
- What does this have to do with a bear?
- Miss Franny was young a long time ago, back when Florida was wild. She claims there were not only wild animals, but also wild men and women. Geico caveman commercial moment.
- Okay, we're done. Back to the book.
- One day she was sitting in her library and saw a shadow cross her desk. Without looking up, she asked how she could help.
- The shadow thing didn't answer, so she thought it must be some kind of wild person, until a nasty stench reached her nostrils.
- She looked up into the face of a humongous bear—and we don't mean the friendly Yogi kind.
- What did she do?
- She decided to fight back, of course. After all, she's the one telling the story—not the bear.
- She took her book, War and Peace, screamed at Humongous Non-Yogi Bear, and hurled the book right at him.
- He left, but not empty-pawed—because War and Peace never came back. And of course, a bear reading War and Peace provided plenty of jokes in the years following.
- Everyone else who knows about Humongous Literate Bear is now dead.
- That part of the story makes Miss Franny sad. And Opal, too.
- Winn-Dixie will have none of such sadness, so he smiles at Miss Franny, who smiles back, and Opal offers to be friends. Miss Franny smiles more when she agrees.
- Enter pinch-faced Amanda Wilkinson.
- Ignoring Opal, Little Miss Snotty Pants comes into the library, asks (snottily) for a book, and asks (even more snottily) if dogs are allowed.
- "A select few," Miss Franny replies as she winks at Opal and walks away with Amanda (7.34).
- Yea! A new friend! Opal is ecstatic.