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Work is so unbelievably slow I could either scream or go broke shopping all the after-Christmas sales, neither of which is particularly productive. Whenever I’m slammed at work or with life-stuff I think of all the creative things I’d love to do. Some of the things I ponder doing is either manufacturing or publishing something that I could sell over and over and over. My current life involves re-inventing the wheel every day so you can understand how I might like the idea of designing something once and then being paid over and over again!

Since I was so bored today, rather than admonish myself for not tackling anything on my creative to-do list, I put my money where my mouth is and blasted out the following kid’s story. It needs a little, um, editing, but it’s still a fun little story! Let me know what you think! If the story has merit, I could start working on illustrations and layout! Seriously, constructive criticism welcome! (especially glowing reviews are always nice ;)

A Less-than-PC Fairy Tale (working title)

So, once there was this cute little bumble bee named Kudro. He was bee-ish in all the right ways; yellow and black stripedy sweater? Check! Cute little bouncey antenae? CHECK! 4 arms and 2 legs? Check! He even had a little yellow beanie on top of his little bee head!

Kudro was just a kid-bee. In human years he’d be maybe 6 or 7 years old. And being as their lifetimes are much shorter than ours, it’s really hard to say how old he really is. You know, like a 5 year old dog is really 35 in human years and not far off from a mid-life crisis. So in bee years, he was only a couple of weeks old, I suppose, but does it really matter? Now that I’ve totally confused all of us? Screw it, let’s just say he’s 6 or 7 years old and leave it at that.

He lived with his mommy and daddy and their pet flea, Roger. Every day Kudro flew to school with his little jar of honey for lunch with his little flea friend in tow. He was a pretty happy go-lucky fellow, so often he’d whistle or sing on his way, just minding his own business. But for every nice little bee there seems to be a bully lying in wait. The bully in this story? A mean-little prick named Jonathan (get it? A mean little bee that’s a real prick? Hahahah! Bee humor!) was Kudro’s own (ahem) bee in the ointment. Jonathan would hide out behind the hydrangea bush and leap out at the last possible second scaring the ever-living crap out of Kudro. He’d then proceed to take Kudro’s jar of honey and give Roger a kick before heading on his way. Kudro had tried many things to prevent this from happening. He’d vary his course, he’d go earlier or later, he’d take a PBJ instead of the honey but nothing seemed to work.

One day at lunch, his little bee friends noticed he wasn’t eating, but just sort of sitting there miserably looking through his notebooks. He and his friends, Chloe, Fred and Cecil had known each other since they were practically larva. Chloe was a real sweetheart, known for her kindness and pink dresses. Fred was so smart, it was scary! And Cecil could always be counted on for a laugh.

“What’s eating you, Kudro?” asked Chloe “cause you’re certainly not eating anything for lunch!”
“It’s that mean old Jonathan,” he answered “he stole my lunch this morning and I’m getting really sick of it!”
“He’s STILL bugging you?” exclaimed Cecil. This drew sharp looks from the others as it was such an obviously bad joke. Perhaps it wasn’t as bad as the previous prick and ointment jokes, but still, it was pretty bad. Now that I look at it, having “prick” and “ointment” in the same sentence is pretty funny. Perhaps not appropriate for everyone, but amusing nonetheless.

Chloe, Fred and Cecil all offered their sympathy and soon began making suggestions for solving Kudro’s problem. Chloe pulled out her notebook and they started jotting down all of the ideas, but Kudro was getting frustrated. He hadn’t asked for their help. It made him feel stupid to have other people talking about him as though he wasn’t there. He was starting to buzz in annoyance but the others were so busy with there brainstorming and diagramming it took him slamming his books onto the table and storming out before they realized it.

Every day the next week, his friends noticed his lack of lunch. There wasn’t much talking at their lunch table these days either. And Kudro continued to try to solve his problem on his own. Jonathan had even taken to taunting him at school by eating the purloined lunch noisily and slurpily. Even Kudro’s parents were starting to notice a change in his attitude, but when they asked how he was, all he’d say is “fine”

One morning, Kudro got ready for school, this time he tucked an extra sandwich in his sweater pocket and had the honey in his backpack. He and Roger headed out the door and through the garden to get to school.  His friends surprised him by meeting him at his gate and they all flew off to school together. Jonathan, as usual, jumped out from behind the hydrangea and startled the group of friends, but was himself so startled to not find Kudro by himself that he just sort of mumbled and looked at his shoes. Chloe asked if he wanted to fly with them to school. And as they went along, between Chloe’s charm and Cecil’s humor, they had both Jonathan and Kudro laughing. When they got to school, Cecil invited Jonathan to join them for lunch as he had brought extra honey-sandwiches for everyone and surprisingly, Jonathan joined them.

Each morning for a week Chloe, Fred and Cecil met Kudro at his gate and often Jonathan joined them on their way. No longer did Jonathan try to scare the crap out of them, and slowly he became their friend.

Kudro never said as much to his friends, but he realized that not all problems could be solved all by himself. By teaming together and using the best of each, any problem could be worked out. He always felt too awkward to thank his friends, but they could tell each time he brought honey to share, how thankful he really was.

One day, a few months later, Kudro was flying to school and his former nemesis suddenly jumped out from behind the hydrangea bush and scared the living crap out of him again. As Kudro was trying to regain his composure, he saw Jonathan handing him a jar of honey giggling the entire time. Kudro smiled. For a prick, Jonathan was a pretty funny guy.

The end
© 2007 Pagalina