An Eensy Weensy Story

Thanks to all of you who read and commented on my first page of April Magic. It's on hold for now, while I try to figure out where I want the story to go. In the meantime I wrote a short little children's story, for fun. I haven't decided if it's just a good writing exercise, or something I want to refine and maybe send to a children's publisher, but I thought I'd at least post it here, and see if any of you like it! No title yet. If anyone has any cute suggestions for one, let me know!


He cast his many eyes up the dark tunnel that was his personal mountain to overcome. Reaching the end of that vertical tube of metal would open a world of opportunities to him. Food, glory, honor. He has no name, because spiders don't have names. They do however, have goals.

He wasn't a special spider. He was simply an ordinary brown spider, without special advantages like jumping, or a poisonous bite. He wasn't even large. In fact, he could even be described as eensy or weensy. Despite his insignificance, he dreamed big. His dream was to build a web to be proud of. From the corner of the gutter to the wooden siding of the big house, it would sparkle with dew from the morning sun. By mid afternoon it would be large and invisible to prey, promising an end to his hungry nights. Stunning even humans, they would pause to gaze at the glory of its geometric beauty, thinking it too perfect to destroy. He could already picture his almost living dream, there at the end of the tunnel. The tall, slippery, black tunnel that was the water spout.

Wayne sighed as he kicked his grass stained sneaker against a rock in the garden. His mood was as gray as the stormy clouds overhead. "Leonard" he mumbled, "Leonard the bully."

Scratching at the tears peeking out his eyes, he recalled the hurtful names Leonard screamed at him during the recess basketball game. Wayne had worked so hard, and practiced so long. Not long enough. He still stumbled over his feet, and missed crucial baskets. The other boys might have been more patient with him, if it weren't for Leonard. Leonard made laughing at him part of the game. Wayne gazed up at the basketball hoop above him. So high. So impossible. He'd never be good, and Leonard would never go away. It wasn't worth the effort to keep practicing. In frustration, he kicked his basketball across the yard. Running to go kick it again, he noticed a tiny spider by the foot of the ball. Lifting his foot to smash it, Wayne yelled, "I hate spiders! I hate basketball, and I hate Leonards!"

The spider scurried away, barely avoiding disaster that would come from Wayne's shoe. As he lifted his foot high to stomp again, the spider dodged into a crack in the cement. Eight legs flying, he made it to the water spout, and started his precarious assent. His goal and precious dream now combined with a desperate will to survive.

"NOOOOO!" screamed Wayne in frustration, "I hate you! I hate you Leonard! You wont win. I wont let you!!!"

Wayne ran around the side of the house for the garden hose. With a squeak from the pipes, he twisted it on so the water sprayed at full force.

Frantic were the spider's thoughts as he scrambled up the steep, dark tunnel. He had the will power to survive, and a dream to push him forward. He'd reach the top, and make his web, his web to be proud of. Even this hateful human boy wouldn't dare harm him then. Not when he saw his glittering, perfect, masterpiece. He could see something bright at the end of the darkness, and knew he was almost there. It was a shining source of hope, so very close. And then the water came. Great cold bursts of it, sending him crashing down the metal tunnel and swirling into a small pool at the base of the waterspout.

Standing over the tiny spider, hose in hand, was Wayne. Trembling in his shadow, the spider looked up, his many eyes giving him a dozen perspectives of this monster boy. Wayne glared back, seeing not the spider, but Leonard's mocking face. Just then a ray of sun peeked out of the clouds, filtered around the trees, and brought a soft yellow glow to the yard. Wayne could feel it warming his cheeks, and watched it reflect off the puddle at his feet. Relaxing his clenched fist that held the hose, he saw the little spider again. "You're not Leonard", Wayne whispered. Tossing the hose into the flower bed, he said under his breath, "You're me".

Slowly he bent down, picked up his ball, and turned back to his basketball hoop. The spider dashed to the safety of the shadows. He stared up the long, metal tunnel, a faint light sparkling at its end, and started climbing.

April Magic

I've had the beginings of a story running around in my head for a few years, and I decided it's time I stop daydreaming about it, and actually write it down. It's still a draft, so don't be too critical, but if this were the first page of a book you picked up, would you keep reading? Let me know what you think!

April felt the book slide from her fingers as she started to nod off. It hit the floor with a soft thud. She glanced at Mindy, her roommate. Sound asleep. Good. Her fingertips tingled slightly as she willed the magic to bring the book back to her hand. It was the painting on the dust cover that brought this one to April's attention. Delicately poised by a flower, was a tiny fairy, glowing slightly. The creature seemed much too pretty to be real, which is exactly why April bought the book. So far the story hadn't disappointed her. It was filled with rich descriptions of a beautiful land, and fantastic creatures. The very words on the page seemed to sparkle, and April felt instantly transported into a place more exotic and wonderful than the dull college dormitory where she lived. Her clock read 2:15 AM. She needed to stop staying up so late reading. It's not as if she didn't have other things she should be studying. College professors seemed to take pleasure in assigning weeks worth of material to learn each night. April often wondered how her peers managed it. How did they absorb all that knowledge and keep up with the heavy workload? She refused to find out. Her father had warned her against this. "Don't become dependant on the magic," he had said. "It feels like an extra hand, and very easily becomes a second nature you're barely aware of. Where would I be though if I hadn't learned to do everything on my own, with out its aid?"
April let out a soft sigh. She knew he was right. It was much easier than she had thought, discovering her new gift. The magic wasn't at all like it was in her fantasy books. Those stories described something wild, and hard to master. Magic was something with a mind of it's own, that daring warlocks tried to control. To April, it was simply an extension of her self. She controlled it as easily as she controlled her own limbs. It was special, but not exactly mysterious. She probably hadn't discovered all it's posiblities yet, but so far it seemed pretty simple. When she wanted something she couldn't reach, it came. If she needed to absorb the knowledge of a book for a test, she picked up the book, and let the knowledge seep into her mind. She wasn't a computer, with every sentence locked in her memory. Learning the book felt more like watching a movie she hadn't seen in awhile. Just as the distant memory of the movie becomes clear again, the lessons from the book would come to the forefront of her mind. It wasn't that way with every book she touched. She controlled it. When she wanted to learn the contents of a book without reading it, she did.
"I'm not lazy," April told herself. "I just want to be able to choose for myself what I spend all my time thinking about. If I tried to actually read every word in those textbooks, I'd never have time for this," she thought, while tracing the wings of the pretty fairy on the cover with her finger. She had this amazing mysterious skill, yet nothing about her life seemed magical at all. It still showed no resemblance to the fairy tales she couldn't get enough of.

Thou shalt not steal cont.

Many modern day leaders, particularly those in powerful government positions starting this new year, have written a new definition for stealing. They have reformed the commandment. It is now, "Thou shalt not steal, unless you or someone else is presented with difficult situations". It was tactfully done. They started with laws that required everyone to give a little out of their earnings to welfare programs that help the less fortunate. Most agree to this form of stealing. If everyone is donating, it's not really stealing, right? But that's not the current law anymore. The laws have evolved. Everyone does not donate. Only a few do. Only those who make more than a specified amount must donate. So "We the People" created laws, forcing not everyone, but just some, to give away their earned money to people who did not work for it. Stealing has been legalized. It's done in the name of sympathy, of course. No one enjoys watching others suffer. We all in some form or another have suffered hardship. We feel for those who suffer more. We want to help. After all, if we don't some people could starve. Others could suffer. A few may even die. So stealing is ok. It's ok as long as it reduces suffering. That's the idea being pushed anyway, and it's what today's children believe. During my discussion of A Single Shard with my fifth graders I presented them with a hypothetical dilemma. I said they had a loved one who was starving. When I asked if in that case they'd steal food, they all replied that they would. They all agreed there are conditions that make it ok.
I have to say I think Crane-man from A Single Shard would disagree with this new definition. "Stealing and begging, Crane-man often said, made a man no better than a dog". He would say we are teaching our children to live no better than dogs. We are teaching them that when the going gets tough, don't work harder, take from others. And if others wont give it to you, we'll make them. Who are those who have worked and earned enough for their food? They are the successful. Who are the ones we take from? Again, the successful. So we are teaching our children when life gets really hard, don't work to be successful, but rather take from the successful. We'll help you do it. Such a process does not build characters like those I read about in Linda Park's book. I like to think America was built on the shoulders of those who fought hardship. When their lives got difficult, they worked harder. They found ways to solve their problems. Sometimes they failed. But when the failed, they tried again. I'm sure they asked others for help. They didn't beg or demand it though. When requests for help were turned down, they kept working. They learned from their failures. They accomplished the impossible, and they became great. They taught their children to be great. Thanks to our revolutionary, sympathetic laws we are only coasting on that greatness, and through these new policies are teaching our children when they reach truly difficult challenges to stop working. They should stop working, bow their heads in defeat, hold out their empty hands, and expect them to be filled. Rather than work for dignity, sometimes, when life gets really hard, it's ok to stop being human. It's ok to be a dog.
I am fighting this new definition. My children will follow the original commandment. They will look at stealing as more shameful than digging through dirt and trash for their food. Instead of holding empty hands out to others and demanding help they will reach for the stars, and someday, I know they will grasp them.

Riannyn and Merrylee

Thou shalt not steal

I remember a discussion I had with some of my 5th grade students as a teacher. They were reading A Single Shard, by Linda Sue Park. The story takes place in a twelfth-century Korean village. The main character is Tree-ear, an orphan boy, living under a bridge with a crippled old man, Crane-man. Despite their extremely humbling circumstances, Crane-man proves to be a very loving and wise guardian to Tree-ear. Crane-man is not able to work or provide much for the orphan boy. However he teaches Tree-ear to survive by "foraging in the woods and rubbish heaps, and gathering fallen grain heads in the autumn." You and I would imagine these methods of finding food the lowest a human could stoop. The author suggests otherwise. Even lower than looking through the waste and discarded things of others, is stealing or begging. Searching the woods and sorting through trash is humble, but it is still working honorably for your meal. "Stealing and begging, Crane-man said, made a man no better than a dog. Work gives a man dignity, [and] stealing takes it away."
My students, just as you and I, immediately agreed that of course, stealing is wrong. In theory we all believe that. In theory. We understand working to save money for what we want is right. Stealing or begging is the easy way out, and it's wrong. It's taking something we didn't work for, and don't deserve. "Thou shalt not steal" is a very basic commandment we all understand and claim to have no problem with. However admitting stealing is wrong means working for our meals is the right course to take no matter how difficult, challenging, or humiliating that may be. Working for our bread is not always easy. However that is what makes the meal satisfying. Despite their challenges, Crane-man and Tree-ear were happy. They accepted help sometimes. Accepting help is ok. Forcing others to help you is not. The characters were true to their values. They never forced others to help them, and they never stopped working. They struggled, lived humbly to the extreme, and even suffered. Eventually Tree-ear grows old enough to find work, and better their situation. It is a story of hardship, perseverance, and greatness as a result of very hard, honest work.
I enjoyed this story so much because it told a story foreign to our modern practices. Today the common lesson is stealing is wrong most of the time. However if you're really hungry, or really tired, or your child is sick, it's forgiven. In fact we even teach that if your friends' children are hungry, or the man in the next town is sick, you can even steal for them. If the more fortunate are mean, stingy, and unwilling to donate or give charity, then it's our job to make them. Right? to be continued . . .