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Saturday, May 6, 2017

Short story collection 2

1.
The Jam Maker and the Wizard

Once upon a time there was a Jam Maker called Hannie. Her jam was world renowned for its delicious sweetness that people used to come daily from everywhere to buy her jam. She made jam in various flavours like apricot, peach, strawberry, blueberry and many others, and because of that Hannie used to brag a lot that she was the best and not even a wizard could invoke a better jam with his magic.Once the town wizard heard of this, he became very angry. He took the form of a boy who needed to pick up jam for his mother. At her house, he pretended to be impressed by her and said, “Is it true that you said that you are better than a wizard?”Hannie lifted her eye brows and said arrogantly, “of course it is.”The wizard said ,”Don’t brag so much, if the wizard heard he will be angry.”Hannie said, “I can brag all I want and I’m not afraid of him. I bet the wizard can’t even beat me”. The wizard showed his true form and challenged Hannie to see who could make the best jam.Everyone in the town gathered to watch them compete. The wizard had only a regular jar while Hannie had lots of equipment like her jar lifting tong, lid, jar ,etc. When they started the competition, the wizard finished at a snap of a finger while Hannie was still crushing the fruits. The jam tester would only arrive by the next day once she had finished it.The next day they were waiting for the judge to choose a winner. Though he believed in himself, the wizard knew that losing would mean embarrassment for him. After tasting their jams, the judges decided on the winner; Hannie. She said, “Even if I turn a donkey into jam it would still taste better that your jam".This made the wizard very angry. He cast a spell to make her feel guilty for her rudeness and arrogance. It was too much that Hannie could not handle the shame she felt, so she went to a nearby forest and drowned herself in the river. The wizard had not expected her to feel so much shame that she would take her own life. Feeling sorry for her, he brought her to life. Since the amount of magic he could use to bring someone to life was small, he had to transform her to a smaller creature. He shrunk her size and gave her shorter yet more hair with strands of yellow and black until she became a small little bee. Now you can still see descendants of Hannie today, going about their work, bringing more sweetness to the world.


 2.
Athena and Coranithus

Once every year the city of Athens would experience terrible trembles and shudders. The sky would turn black as coal and hail would fall knocking people to the ground and leaving them unconscious. Everybody feared going out and the city was like a ghost town. This terrible happening was believed to be Coranithus, the ancient half crow and half Snake, demanding an innocent girl’s life in return for a safe city.So every year the people of Athens sacrificed a young girl in a bid to save their city. However, this did not seem to work as still Coranithus disrupted city life once a year. Desperate, the people of Athens begged King Stradivari to sacrifice his daughter, Princess Athena, to Coranithus. They had come to the conclusion that Coranithus was after a special girl in particular and who was more special than the King’s daughter.Every year the people begged but every year the King refused. Until one year, when the princess was the only girl still alive. King Stradivari was not pleased, he loved his daughter dearly and did not want to lose her to the deadly Coranithus, so he came up with a plan. He decided to send his daughter to fight Coranithus. This way there was still a sliver of a chance that he would see her again. When the day arrived, King Stradivari kissed his daughter on the head, placed a jewel encrusted sword into her hands and watched her walk away to the dark and dingy lair of Coranithus. Athena herself was not scared of Coranithus. She knew exactly how to defeat him. When she was out of eyeshot of her father she chucked her sword into a pile of rocks and listened to the twang as it broke in half. She would not be needing the sword as she was not intending to fight. However, she was not intending to surrender either. As she came closer to Coranithus’ lair, Athena picked up a handful of mud and smeared it all over her face. She then killed a passing hare, and rubbed the blood into her hair. Wrinkling up her nose at the smell, she smiled. If this didn’t work then nothing would. After several more minutes of walking she arrived at the home of Coranithus. Coranithus was waiting for her. His cold, beady eyes, watched her as she approached him. Suddenly, he staggered back in shock, his claws reached for his nose but underestimating his own strength he ripped his nose to shreds. Blood spurted out of his nose turning his shiny black feathers into a sea of red. After a few minutes of staggering around he fell to the floor lifeless. Athena smiled smugly. She has been right. Coranithus’ nose had been overpowered by the hideous smell of hare blood and mud that he could not bear it. That was his one weakness his strong sense of smell could not cope with too much odour. Victorious, Athena hurried back to Athens to tell her father the good news. When she had told her story a banquet was prepared and everyone partied all night long. As for Coranithus he was never heard of or seen again. It seems what he thought of as his strength had backfired and became his weakness.



 3.
Phineas and the Fox


In the town of Chiddybang there were two kinds of people, the leaders and the followers. Phineas, a young town’s boy, was a follower. He was always getting into some sort of trouble and never became what his father wanted him to be, a leader. His father, Trophicles, was a born leader. He constantly got Phineas out of the worst circumstances and fought off many of the town's worst troubles, like the Cyclops and the Worm. He had high expectations of his son doing the same. So Phineas, not wanting to let his father down, searched for the best opportunity to show his dad, and the rest of the town, that he could be a leader, too.In the next week, the town began to run out of most of their food supplies and needed somebody with great title and rank to go and collect some berries and hunt for some deer in the woodlands directly out of the village. Phineas eagerly raised his hand and said he’d go into the woods and show everyone the potential he had to be a leader. Trophicles, knowing of the troubles of the forest, had then warned him to watch out for the sly fox. The stories of the fox had sounded so gruesome and terrible that Phineas trembled at the thought of crossing the face of the ferocious fox. He could still remember, five years ago, of his next door neighbor going to collect food and never coming back. Phineas was going to make sure that he did not end up as a slave to the terrible fox, so he went on his way with extra caution.While on his way into the forest he had many thoughts circulating throughout his mind. What if he couldn’t finish this tall task? What if he’d never see his family or friends again? Why was he doing this? Then he reminded himself, he wanted to make his father happy. He’d just have to be swifter than the fox and accumulate all of the food he was asked to acquire. The fox, on the other hand, wasn’t going to let anyone come through the woods without him overseeing it. He had a reputation for being able to persuade anyone into doing anything he wanted with just the twinkle of his eye. He was swift, smart, and always ready for a tasty meal and he loved to play with humans who came through the forest. Phineas had almost collected the berries and hunted all the deer he could until he heard a voice. The voice started slow with a lull, but then it sped up and the voice began singing. Knowing of the tales of the fox, he closed his eyes so he would not see the fox’s eyes twinkle, and he held tighter to his belongings. The fox had come all the way up to Phineas, just close enough to touch, when he felt a jolt and screeched. Phineas, almost crying, slowly opened his eyes only to be astonished but what he saw. Trophicles had predicted his son would be in danger and had come to the rescue. With his godly, but mortal, strength he took the fox by his tail and slung him away as far as the eye could see. Phineas, happy to see his father, gave him the greatest of hugs and promised him he’d one day be as great as him. As for the fox he was thrown far, far into the sky, breaking his body into a billion countless pieces leaving sparkles and gleams throughout the sky. The sparkles can still be seen, but they only appear at night because if there is light the fox will not be able to hide from Trophicles. But he still seems to persuade others that he is the most beautiful of sights in the sky and that if you wish on one of his gleams all of your dreams will come true.









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