Stories

WHO DID PATRICK'S HOMEWORK?

Patrick never did

homework. "Too boring," he said. He played baseball and basketball and Nintendo instead. His teachers told him, "Patrick! Do your homework or you won't learn a thing." And it's true, sometimes he did feel like a ding-a-ling. But what could he do? He hated homework. Then on St. Patrick's Day his cat was playing with a little doll and he grabbed it away. To his surprise it wasn't a doll at all, but a man of the tiniest size. He had a little wool shirt with old fashioned britches and a high tall hat much like a witch's. He yelled, "Save me! Don't give me back to that cat. I'll grant you a wish, I promise you that." Patrick couldn't believe how lucky he was! Here was the answer to all of his problems. So he said, "Only if you do

all my homework 'til the end of the semester, that's 35 days. If you do a good enough job, I could even get A's." The little man's face wrinkled like a dishcloth thrown in the hamper. He kicked his legs and doubled his fists and he grimaced and scowled and pursed his lips, "Oh, am I cursed! But I'll do it." And true to his word, that little elf began to do Patrick's homework. Except there was one glitch. The elf didn't always know what to do and he needed help. "Help me! Help me!" he'd say. And Patrick would have to help -- in whatever way. "I don't know this word," the elf squeeked while reading Patrick's homework. "Get me a dictionary. No, what's even better. Look up the word and sound it out by each

letter."

When it came to math, Patrick was out of luck. "What are times tables?" the elf shrieked. "We elves never need that. And addition and subtraction and division and fractions? Here, sit down beside me, you simply must guide me." Elves know nothing of human history, to them it's a mystery. So the little elf, already a shouter, just got louder "Go to the library, I need books. More and more books. And you can help me read

them too." As a matter of fact every day in every way that little elf was a nag! Patrick was working harder than ever and was it a drag! He was staying up nights, had never felt so weary, was going to school with his eyes puffed and bleary. Finally the last day of school arrived and the elf was free to go. As for homework, there was no more, so he quietly and slyly slipped out the back door. Patrick got his A's; his classmates were amazed; his teachers smiled and were full of praise. And his parents? They wondered what had happened to Patrick. He was now the model kid. Cleaned his room, did his chores, was cheerful, never rude, like he had developed a whole new attitude. You see, in the end Patrick still thought he'd made that tiny man do all his homework. But I'll share a secret, just between you and me. It wasn't the elf; Patrick had done it himself! The Story of a Young Artist Suzie goes to her art class Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. She always looks forward to those days when she can do creative things all afternoon.

She loves making bowls and cups out of clay. Last month she learned to put pottery into a hot oven, called a kiln, to make it hard and strong. After the pottery has cooled down from the kiln, sometimes she paints it with all different colors. Bright colors are her favorites, although sometimes she likes to paint in "earth colors," like brown and dark green. What Suzie likes best about art is the good feeling she gets when she has finished working on a piece of art. And then when she takes it home to show her parents she feels so proud of what she has made. On Wednesdays Suzie does something else that she really enjoys. On Wednesday afternoons she writes articles for the school newspaper. When she first moved to her school, she wrote an article about how it feels to be a new student in a new school. Her second article in the newspaper was about a teacher at her school who had just finished writing a book. Suzie asked the teacher what it feels like to be a published author. And then she shared what she found out with the rest of the school. Another time she wrote an article about why she thought the school should have two short recesses a day rather than one long recess. Lots of her friends thought that this would be a good idea too. Many teachers also agreed with Suzie's suggestion.

Would you believe the principal of the school asked everyone in the school come to a school assembly to have a vote about Suzie's suggestion? The principal at this school always felt that students should help decide how the school should be run. During the vote, each person in the school had one vote. Each of the teachers had one vote. And each of the students had one vote. Together, the school decided that two short recesses would be better than one long recess. And all of happened because Suzie wrote about her idea in the school newspaper. On the day the newspaper comes out, the first thing Suzie does is to check where her article is in the newspaper. And each month, at the beginning of her article, are the words: By Suzanne Jefferson. On the way home from school yesterday, Suzie got to thinking about how much art and writing are the same. In art class she thinks of creative things to make, and then spends a lot of time making it look just right. And when she writes articles for the school newspaper, she thinks of creative things to say, and then spends a lot of time making it sound just right. And when she has finished writing a really good sentence, she feels almost as if she has made a beautiful piece of art. Suzie rushed home so she could write something short before dinner. She already had lots of ideas for next month's newspaper. And she wanted to make sure that none of her

creative ideas floated away before she wrote them down permanently on paper.

Saul's Question. Saul needs to know how many feet a caterpillar has. He didn't even have to think about it. He went straight to the public library with his question. He walked straight up to the young man at the big desk in front of the library. "I have a question about caterpillars," Saul said. "Are you the right person to talk to?" The friendly young man smiled and said, "Not really. My job is to sign out books from the library. The best person to talk with would be someone at the reference desk. They will surely help you find an answer to your caterpillar question." So Saul sauntered over to the reference desk in the other room and walked right up to the desk. "I have a question about caterpillars," Saul asked politely. The reference librarian smiled and said, "Tell me your question and I'll tell you how to find an answer." The reference librarian really looked as if she knew a lot about a lot of things. She

looked as if she knew the answer to hundreds and hundreds of questions. Saul spoke up loud and clear, "I'm writing a report about caterpillars for school. I need to find out how many feet a caterpillar has." "Hmmmmmm," said the librarian. "That sounds like an interesting question. I bet we could find the answer to that question if we looked for it together." Saul was so glad that she was going to help him find the answer to his question. Sometimes the library seemed like such a big place that a little boy could get lost forever in between two big stacks of books. "Let's go over and look at the encyclopedia first," said the helpful librarian. "We can look in the encyclopedia with the letter 'c' on it. Since the word caterpillar starts with the letter 'c', the best place to look in the encyclopedia would be in the 'c' book." This sounded like a fine idea to Saul. He was secretly hoping to find a big color picture of a caterpillar, but he didn't say anything to the librarian about his secret wish. So the two of them walked over to the shelf with the encyclopedias. Saul helped the librarian find the book with the letter 'c' on it. The librarian helped Saul lift the heavy book off the shelf. Together they were going to find the answer to Saul's caterpillar question. As the librarian flipped the pages of the encyclopedia, Saul could see the book had many, many color pictures. The book also had lots and lots and lots of writing beside the pictures.

"Here it is!" shouted the librarian. I found the place about caterpillars in the encyclopedia. And sure enough, right there on the page were three whole paragraphs about caterpillars. And a picture too! A color picture of a caterpillar. You could even see the caterpillar's face. Would you believe the caterpillar's face looked like old Mr. Olgar at the grocery store? Of course you had to use your imagination to see the resemblance. Now while Saul was dreaming of imaginary caterpillars and grocery stores, the friendly librarian was carefully reading everything the encyclopedia had to say about caterpillars. "Here's what we've been looking for," the friendly librarian said. "It says here that a caterpillar has twelve different parts, and that each part has three legs. Gee, that sounds like a multiplication problem to me," she said. "But I'm afraid my arithmetic is a little rusty these days. They completely forgot to teach multiplication at library school. Perhaps you could help me with this part?" Saul thought it over and decided he could lend a hand at this point. Besides, he was pretty handy at doing math problems in the classroom. In no time at all Saul whipped out his trusty pencil. He yanked a piece of scrap paper out of the trash can beside the desk. He wrote the multiplication problem exactly as it was supposed to look.

Then he took a deep breath and got to work. The friendly librarian peered over his shoulder as if she might be able to learn a little arithmetic, too. " Thirty-six!" Saul blurted out. "A caterpillar has thirty-six legs." And with that, the librarian slammed the book shut and walked off with a big smile on her face. Saul was feeling might fine himself.

The Great Ping Pong Ball Experiment. The Nile river is the longest river in the world. It starts out in Lake Victoria, in the middle of Africa, and flows nearly four thousand (4,000) miles north to the Mediterranean Sea. Lake Victoria, where the Nile starts, is the second largest freshwater lake in the world. The only lake that is larger is Lake Superior, in between Canada and the United States. Now nobody knows for sure who first suggested the great ping pong ball experiment. It might have been dreamed up by some absent-minded, daydreaming inventor. Or, it could have been thought up by some great scientist. Or, it might have been thought up by a little kindergartener in Kalamazoo, Michigan. But the important thing is that somebody thought of it. And before long, people all over the world were talking about it. The newspapers printed stories about it. Television stations did special feature stories on it. And, everyone, just everyone,

expected that the great ping pong ball experiment would happen right on time. What exactly was the great ping pong ball experiment anyway? How was the experiment to be performed, and what was it supposed to show? The great ping pong ball experiment took place to show just one thing. The purpose of the experiment was to show that a small, frail ping pong ball could travel four thousand miles down the longest river in the world. The experiment would end when the ping pong ball reached the capital city of Egypt, Cairo. At that time, a kindergarten student from one of the schools in Cairo would reach down into the Nile, and pick up the ping pong ball that had been thrown into the river way back at Lake Victoria. Two months. That's how long the ping pong ball would have to travel from Lake Victoria to Cairo. To add some zest and excitement to the experiment, the ping pong ball was to be thown into the top of the Nile River on November 1, 1999. The entire world would then watch to see if the ball could travel the length of the Nile before midnight, December 31, 1999. But the journey would be a dangerous one for a small, frail ping pong ball to travel. The ball would have to survive at least nine large waterfalls. It would have to survive being thrown against rocks and boulders. It would have to survive getting stuck in the papyrus reeds by the side of the river. And most importantly, it would have to survive getting swallowed by any hungry fish along the way.

People would follow it all along its long journey. Scientists would follow it by driving along roads that travelled parallel to the Nile river. They would keep careful track of how far the ball had travelled each day. Sometimes they would even circle over the ping pong ball in a helicopter, making sure that the ball was safely travelling downstream. Once a week people all over the globe would turn on their televisions to see how far the ping pong ball had travelled in the past week. The television studios would have a large map of Africa on the wall, with an arrow pointing to where the ping ball was on that particular day. It would be an elegantly simple experiment for the people of planet Earth to perform. For two months, the attention of the world would be focussed on what was happening to a ping pong ball travelling down the Nile river. The outcome of the great ping pong ball experiment would not change the lives of many persons living on this planet. But perhaps, just perhaps, the experiment itself would help people realize that in some ways the planet Earth is just a small, frail ping pong ball traveling through space. An Ordinary Mother. Katrina Katrinka was like any other ordinary mother with two kids, a stationwagon, and a 6O foot tall crane in her back yard. The crane just showed up one morning. A construction company was building an apartment building down the street. One day the company went bankrupt, and left their crane in Mrs. Katrinka's

back yard. They just went bankrupt, and left her with a 6O foot tall crane in her back yard. Mrs. Katrinka didn't know what to do at first. But then she had an idea. She called the sanitation department in her town to come around and pick up the 6O foot tall crane. If you have an old couch, an old table, an old refrigerator, or an old washing machine, you can call the sanitation department, and they'll come around and pick it up. You can guess what the sanitation department had to say about Mrs. Katrinka's crane. "Sorry, ma'am. We don't pick up 6O foot tall cranes. Old couches, old tables, old refrigerators, and old washing machines are fine. Large, 6O foot tall cranes are not fine." Mrs. Katrinka was not the type of ordinary mother who lets a 6O foot tall crane sit around in her back yard. No, sirree. Not that type of ordinary mother at all. So she bought a large wrench, and climbed up the tall 6O foot crane. She carefully climbed out onto the horizontal part of the crane, and unbolted one of the end sections. She happily climbed down and carried the steel section into her basement. Her neighbors peered over the fence, wondering what on earth could this ordinary mother be doing with a steel section of crane in her basement. What the neighbors didn't know was that Mrs. Katrinka also bought an excellent power saw. This saw could cut through the toughest, hardest steel. Day after day, Mrs. Katrinka would take one more section from the crane, carrying it carefully down into her basement. And

night after night, she cut those sections up into little bits. These little bits of steel were easy enough to hide in her regular trash. Some of the bits she stuffed in empty cans of tuna fish. Other bits she stuffed in the middle of over-ripe watermelons. And other bits she hid inside old smelly socks. But it's hard to hide a full 6O foot crane in your day to day trash. You could hide a 2O foot crane, or a 3O foot crane. But a 6O foot crane is just too big to easily hide in the trash. So Mrs. Katrinka started painting the sections of crane she took down each day. She painted them, and then welded them into interesting sorts of sculptures. When her basement became too full of sculptures, she set the sculptures out in her back yard. It didn't take long for people to flock from all over the neighborhood to see Mrs. Katrinka's sculptures. One day, one of her neighbors walked right up her front steps and asked if she might buy one of the sculptures. Well, Mrs. Katrinka didn't know what to say. She didn't make the sculptures to sell. She made the sculptures because it's hard to hide all the bits of a 6O foot crane in your trash. On the very day that she took down the last section of the crane, the man who used to own the construction company came back to pick up his crane. "Sorry, sir," Mrs. Katrinka said. "The crane you left in my back yard is no longer here anymore. It's hiding in empty cans of tuna fish, over-ripe watermelons, and old smelly socks. If you want to put it back together, you'll

have to go looking through lots of empty tuna fish cans, overripe watermelons, and old socks." "Well, ma'am," said the construction company man. "I really shouldn't have left that 6O foot crane in your back yard. It wasn't the right thing to do, and I'd like to apologize to you." Mrs. Katrinka looked the man up and down. He looked as if he was genuinely sorry for what he had done. "Oh, all right," Mrs. Katrinka said. "If you'd like to take home some of the 6O foot crane you left in my back yard, it's sitting right over there in those six sculptures." "Six sculptures?" said the man, in wonder. "Yes, six sculptures," replied Mrs. Katrinka. "Mrs. Olney down the street bought the seventh sculpture last week for $2OO." "Well, the least I can do is buy the other six sculptures, at the same price," the man whispered gently. "No. I'm sorry. That won't do," replied Mrs. Katrinka. "I can't sell all six of those sculptures. They mean too much to me now." "But I tell you what. If you want to buy five of them, I won't complain too loudly about that. You can't expect me to give up all my wonderful sculptures to some stranger who left a 6O foot crane in my back yard." "Yes, ma'am. It's too much to expect an ordinary mother to give up all six sculptures she made from a 6O foot tall crane that a total stranger left in her back yard."

As Mrs. Katrinka took the man's money, she laughed, "Besides, I need to keep at least one sculpture to show my grandchildren. They'll never believe this story if I didn't have at least one of the sculptures left to show them..." The grasshopper and the toad
Grasshopper and Toad appeared to be good friends. People always saw them together. Yet they had never dined at each other's houses. One day Toad said to Grasshopper, "Dear friend, tomorrow come and dine at my house. My wife and I will prepare a special meal. We will eat it together." The next day Grasshopper arrived at Toad's house. Before sitting down to eat, Toad washed his forelegs, and invited Grasshopper to do the same. Grasshopper did so, and it made a loud noise. "Friend Grasshopper, can't you leave your chirping behind. I cannot eat with such a noise," said Toad. Grasshopper tried to eat without rubbing his forelegs together, but it was impossible. Each time he gave a chirp, Toad complained and asked him to be quiet. Grasshopper was angry and could not eat. Finally, he said to Toad: "I invite you to my house for dinner, tomorrow." The next day, Toad arrived at Grasshopper's home. As soon as the meal was ready, Grasshopper washed his forelegs, and invited Toad to do the same. Toad did so, and then hopped toward the food. "You had better go back and wash again," said Grasshopper. "All that hopping in the dirt has made your forelegs dirty again." Toad hopped back to the water jar, washed again, then hopped back to the table, and was ready to reach out for some food from one of the platters when Grasshopper stopped him: "Please dorit put your dirty paws into the food. Go and wash them again." Toad was furious. "You just don't want me to eat with you!" he cried. "You know very well that I must use my paws and forelegs in hopping about. I cannot help it if they get a bit dirty between the water jar and the table."

Grasshopper responded, "You are the one who started it yesterday. You know I cannot rub my forelegs together without making a noise." From then on, they were no longer friends. Moral: If you wish to have true friendship with someone, learn to accept each other's faults, as well as each other's good qualities.