The 13-Story Treehouse    

The first book in the 13-Story Treehouse series by Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton.

Here's the plot: The narrator, a fictional version of the author, introduces himself and his illustrator friend Terry. Then they reveal they live in a tree—well, when I say tree, I mean treehouse—and not just any boring treehouse: it's a 13-story treehouse, which has a see-through swimming pool, a man-eating shark tank, a vegetable vaporizer, a marshmallow machine which fires marshmallows into your gob whenever you're hungry, a lemonade fountain, a games room, and so much more.

Andy then reveals how they get the ideas for their books. Sometimes they make them up, and other times they are actually real events—like this book, for instance. Andy goes downstairs to get himself some breakfast and finds Terry painting a cat yellow. And by painting a cat yellow, I don't mean painting a picture of a cat—Terry was actually painting a cat bright yellow.

Andy asks him why he is doing that. Terry answers he is turning the cat into a canary—or a catenary.

Andy tells him he is dumb as bricks because you can't turn a cat into a canary by painting it bright yellow. Terry proves Andy wrong by dropping the cat off the observation deck. The cat then grows wings and flies away, far, far away from the treehouse.

A knock on the door is heard. It's Jill, Andy and Terry’s neighbour, who is looking for her cat, Silky. Turns out the cat that Terry painted yellow was actually Jill's favorite pet—aka Silky. Andy says no, she's not there (which is both the truth and a lie), but Jill leaves after putting a poster on their tree, which is the least Andy and Terry could do.

Right after Jill leaves, Andy and Terry receive a call from their boss/publisher, Mr. Big Nose, who is very angry at Andy and Terry for not giving him the book they promised him by last Friday. Andy and Terry promise to get his book to him by 5:00 tomorrow.

After they hang up, they try to come up with ideas for a book. But Terry has only two drawings in his drawing folder: a drawing of his finger and a close-up of his finger. Since those are Terry’s only drawings, they end up having an argument on who can draw better. Terry and Andy each draw a knife, a worm, and a banana. Terry wins each time—until Andy, angry over not being a better drawer than Terry, nearly whacks him over the head with a giant banana that Terry made in the underground laboratory. But Terry grabs the banana first and knocks Andy out cold.

Terry pours a bucket of water on Andy to revive him from his knocked-out state. They come back to ideas for their book, and Andy reveals he has four words in his writing folders: “Once upom a time.” Terry points out it's action-packed—and he also points out that the word "upon" was misspelled. But before Andy can write more or Terry can draw more, Terry gets distracted by the stupidest TV show on the stupidest TV channel: Barky the Barking Dog.

Andy is dismayed and throws the TV out the window—nearly hitting Bill the postman, who has a package for a Master Terry. Terry grabs the package. Inside the package were sea monkeys.

Andy is very unhappy with this and reminds Terry that they have a book to write, but Terry assures Andy that the sea monkey hatching will be instant. Andy waits for Terry—for a long time, then a very long time, then a really long time—but Terry doesn’t show up.

To be continued…….