For Cortez, 

I loved you before I even knew you. I wish you a life full of adventure, love, and laughter. 

Love, 

Nana

Cortez was a simple chap; simply awesome, that is.

Cortez liked to say he had never met a tree he couldn't climb, a mountain he couldn't scale, a cave he couldn't conquer, or a bear he couldn't wrestle. Technically this was accurate because he'd never met a bear at all.

Cortez's only weakness was mornings. Mornings could turn this swarthy rogue into a smarmy rube in two shakes of a lamb's tail.

This was one of those mornings.  Cortez woke up on the wrong side of the bed. He was still tired when his alarm went off, his pajamas were all bunched up, and the sun was just too darn bright.

Cortez stumbled into the kitchen and poured a glass of the one thing that could right all wrongs: chocolate milk. He took one sip and spit it straight back out. 

"What is this swill?!" he hollered. Cortez turned the carton over. "Mama! This expired yesterday!" he gasped.

"Don't be dramatic, Cortez. It's still good," his mom replied.

"Good for gagging," Cortez mumbled.

Cortez put on his rubber boots and headed for the door. An adventure is what he needed to get out of this funk.

He headed straight for his top secret look out; the tip top of the highest tree on the highest hill on Cortez's road, Big Bertha.

He'd take a gander at the lay of the land from there.

Cortez made his way to Big Bertha and scurried up the limbs like a boss. 

He was just starting to cheer up and feel like his swashbuckling self when he saw it...

A piece of a shirt stuck to a branch at the top of the tree.

Cortez was perplexed. How could this be? He didn't know anyone else who could climb Big Bertha. The name 'Charlie' was written inside the collar. Who was this Charlie guy?

Cortez tabled his curiosity for the moment. From the top of Big Bertha he spied his super secret fort and gasped. There was a hat outside his fort. What rat fink had trespassed at his super secret fort? His fort was nearly impossible to find.

Cortez rushed to his fort to investigate. He picked up the hooligan's hat and looked at it. The name 'Charlie' was written inside this too, and one long hair was hanging from it. Beard hair no doubt!

Cortez ducked inside and found a piece of paper with a map on it. The map led straight to Calamity Cave where Cortez kept his most valuable treasure hidden.

 Cortez's cheeks turned red. This 'Charlie' fellow was going to get a piece of his mind. First he climbs Big Bertha, then he enters Cortez's fort, and now he was heading for Cortez's treasure! The nerve of this rapscallion!

Cortez flew to Calamity Cave and heard some music coming from inside. "Sweet beats," he thought forgetting for a moment that he was on an angry mission of vengeance. 

Cortez entered the cave and found a radio tuned to his favorite station lying on the ground, but there was no one around. 

Cortez breathed a sigh of relief when he pulled out his treasure box from its hiding place behind the rock that looks like a bear and realized that all of his treasure was intact. Every last marble. 

As Cortez left the cave he noticed a red gooey substance by the entrance. Against his better judgement, he licked it. How could it be? It was Grandma Linda's award winning strawberry jam. 

That's it. These shenanigans had gone too far! First this Charlie goon had climbed HIS tree, then Charlie had found HIS secret fort, played in HIS cave, and now Charlie is trying to move in on HIS Grandma? 

"Charlie ol' pal, you're going down," Cortez thought. 

Cortez ran to his grandma's house so fast his rubber boots almost melted. His mind was reeling. Who is this 'Charlie' nincompoop? Along the way he came to some conclusions.