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"If only, if only," the woodpecker sighs,

"The bark on the tree was just a little bit softer.

" While the wolf waits below, hungry and lonely,

He cries to the moo—oo—oon,

"If only, if only." It was a song his father used to sing to him.

The melody was sweet and sad, but Stanley's favorite part was when his father would howl the word "moon "

The bus hit a small bump and the guard sat up, instantly alert. Stanley's father was an inventor.

To be a successful inventor you need three things: intelligence, perseverance, and just a little bit of luck.

Stanley's father was smart and had a lot of perseverance.

Once he started a project he would work on it for years, often going days without sleep.

He just never had any luck. Every time an experiment failed,

Stanley could hear him cursing his dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-grandfather.

Stanley's father was also named Stanley Yelnats.

Stanley's father's full name was Stanley Yelnats III.

Our Stanley is Stanley Yelnats IV.

Everyone in his family had always liked the fact that

"Stanley Yelnats" was spelled the same frontward and backward

. So they kept naming their sons Stanley.

Stanley was an only child, as was every other Stanley Yelnats before him.

All of them had something else in common.

Despite their awful luck, they always remained hopeful.

As Stanley's father liked to say, "I learn from failure." But perhaps that was part of the curse as well.

If Stanley and his father weren't always hopeful, then it wouldn't hurt so much every time their hopes were crushed.

"Not every Stanley Yelnats has been a failure,

" Stanley's mother often pointed out, whenever Stanley or his father became so discouraged that they actually started to believe in the curse.

The first Stanley Yelnats, Stanley's great-grandfather, had made a fortune m the stock market.

"He couldn't have been too unlucky

." At such times she neglected to mention the bad luck that befell the first Stanley Yelnats.

He lost his entire fortune when he was moving from New York to California.

His stagecoach was robbed by the outlaw Kissin' Kate Barlow.

If it weren't for that, Stanley's family would now be living in a mansion on a beach in California.

Instead, they were crammed in a tiny apartment that smelled of burning rubber and foot odor.

If only, if only . . .