The Nick Klaus's Fables (5 page)

“Eat me alive, when in just one blow I can chase you
away?” said the toad, wiping the smoke from his face. Taken aback,
the snake of smoke thought an instant: “In that case, I’ll wrap
myself around your neck until you suffocate.”

“Around my neck? Everyone knows that toads don’t
have necks.”

Greatly bothered, the snake of smoke went back to
lingering on the ceiling. “I’ll find a way to eat you,” he said,
meandering around the lights.

“What kind of snake are you? A boring snake?”

“I’m a flushing snake!” answered the smoky snake.
The smart toad sneered so loud that he dropped his cigar in the
bowl by accident. He leaned down to pick it up, grabbing the
flushing handle as he did, without noticing the snake of smoke
coiling around it. Suddenly the toad realized that the bowl was
nothing but the mouth of a giant water snake. The giant water snake
was sucking the toad down into the swirling water. “Help me, snake
of smoke!” he shouted.

“I’m sorry, with your cigar in the water, I too now
have to disappear,” replied the snake of smoke, watching the toad
swirling down the throat of the giant water snake.

The Plough Horseplay
(#16)

A plough horse decided to go on vacation for the
first time in his life in a big city. Upon his arrival, outside his
hotel, he spotted a bunch of thoroughbreds playing basketball on a
court. Having never seen this type of work where he was from, he
headed their way. Watching them, he said: “I’d like to learn your
trade to hone my skills and bring back to the country.” The
thoroughbreds looked at each other in surprise and discomfort. One
of them, who did not want to upset him whispered: “Ok, but only for
a while.”

The plough horse was over the moon. When he
reappeared the following hour, the thoroughbreds took a quick look
at him and shook their heads in dismay. The plough horse’s shorts
were sagging. His hooves tripped on them in their stride. His shirt
was dangling and getting hooked on his ears.

Resigned, the thoroughbreds ignored him and fast and
furious started to jump and leap and spring and shoot on the
basketball court. The plough horse watched helpless, though he
eventually caught the ball. Right away, he rounded his shoulders,
lowered his head close to the ground and labored towards the basket
slowly, as if he were towing the entire court. The thoroughbreds
watched, shaking their heads in disbelief.

“Why don’t you go and play in the fountain?” shouted
one of them. “Or leapfrog with your sister?” said another one. But
the plough horse was at work and heard nothing of their pokes.
Reaching below the basket, he stopped, sweating and out of breath,
holding the ball. The thoroughbreds waited, thinking he was going
to throw them the ball. But the plough horse waited longer. Seeing
that no one was moving, he then said: “I’m holding the ball under
the basket. That will be $1 for my toil.”

The thoroughbreds shook their heads again, this time
in despair.

“Aren’t you going to pay me?” said the plough horse,
hoarding the ball. The thoroughbreds huffed and puffed as they run
out of patience. “You’ll get $1 like everyone else, once you get
the ball to stay in the basket,” shouted a frustrated thoroughbred.
The plough horse glanced at the basket, noticed the hole at the
bottom of the net and burst out laughing. “Foolish city horses,
you’ll never get paid. Your basket is too wide for your ball, it
will never stay,” he said and with that he plodded away.

The Blueberry Dad
(#17)

An excited young boy carrying two fishing rods ran
to his older brother and dragged him to the backyard deck.

“Come on, let’s go fishing.”

“What’s the urgency?”

“I’ll tell you once we get there,” said the young
brother boarding a canoe.

Soon the two boys were in the middle of the lake.
Without waiting, the young boy threw his line into the water.

“What’s the emergency?” asked the older brother.

“Dad lives at the bottom of the lake.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I heard Mom say so on the phone. He had been stuck
there for years she said. With so much baggage that no one could
pull him out of it.”

The older brother took a deep breath and
contemplated his brother’s face, which was tearing with
anticipation. He smiled back at him.

“He’s been down there for a while, hopefully he
hasn’t moved away. But we can’t fish him with a hook and a worm.
That will hurt his mouth and make him sick. Do you remember what he
loved best?”

“Blueberries,” screamed the young boy, waving his
arms.

So the boys went to the store and bought two cartons
of blueberries.

Back at the lake, they tied the blueberries at the
end of their lines, and the younger brother tossed the rest of them
over board. The fish tasted them and too fussy swum away.

The sun was coming down, and no father appeared. The
older brother seeing his young brother looking sad: “He may just be
sleeping.”

They decided to go back home for the night.

They were sitting for an early dinner, when they
heard a knock at the door. There standing at the door, a fiery bull
in a dripping suit, with a tie and horns that stuck out of his hat,
carried two gigantic suitcases.

“Hey, may I come in?” he said to the two
brothers.

“Daddy!” squealed the young brother. Delighted, he
invited the father in. The older brother looked befuddled.

“Wait, wait,” shouted a voice from outside. “Don’t
close the door.”

Another bull in a drenched suit, with a tie and a
hat and two huge suitcases, rushed to the entrance. “Can’t lock me
out of my own home. I want more of those berries you brought. Such
a fancy treat.”

The younger brother clapped his hands in delight. So
the puzzled older brother let him in as well. He was about to close
the door when a third bull walked out of the lake, water dripping
from his suitcases and pooling in the hems of his pants.

“Save me a bowl of blueberries,” he shouted, racing
towards the house.

Soon the third bull and his messy shoes joined the
other two on the sofa. A fourth one knocked on the window and
waved. While still another was just emerging from the muddy
water.

The young brother ran to the fridge and
grabbed a bowl of strawberries.

“Come,” he said to his brother. “Maybe
grandma and grandpa have been in there too waiting for their
treats.”

“But Dad is allergic to strawberries.”

In the meantime, one of the dads had gotten
up and was gaping at them from the kitchen door.

“What’s going on in there?
Bickering? Hiding from your homework? Bring me a beer and go and
play outside.”

Once outside the boys stared at the window
with anger, watching the blueberry dads eating all the food and
drinking all the drinks from the fridge. “What you say we go back
to the lake and fish out all these blueberries.

Worm Pumpkin Pie
(#18)

Once upon a time a family of worms lived
inside a cozy pumpkin tucked into a muddy field. One day, as the
parents went out to fetch food, the offspring ventured to peek
outside through the entrance hole. They shrunk in horror as they
spotted a family wading their way across the field. The children
were boisterous and bouncy, crushing everything in their wake. They
shouted “Halloween, Halloween.” The eldest of the worm offspring
screamed: “We must abandon this pumpkin. Danger is on its way.”

“No let’s wait until mom and dad come back,”
suggested a sibling.

“No time. They’re going to carve out our
house with knives, so sharp that we’ll never survive, but in slices
and dices.”

Believing the eldest sibling, the worms
slithered out of the pumpkin as fast as they could. The entrance
hole was too narrow and the escape slow. All made it out, except
for the youngest worm, who didn’t believe a word of it.

“That’s just a ghost tale big brothers tell
to scare little kids like us,” he challenged. So he stayed behind
and got carried away as the pumpkin was loaded onto a truck.

Soon the pumpkin lay on the kitchen table.
The little worm inside pricked up his ears, waiting with
confidence. Only he started yelling at the top of his voice when he
saw that knives were whizzing by his rings and cutting holes into
the pumpkin’s rind.

“Brothers, sisters, you were so right,” he
called out. But the deaf children laughed and screeched, delighted,
as the worm squirmed about to avoid being chopped in slices.

Per chance, the pumpkin was put outside the
front door, bright with a candle inside. The heat was intense like
a sauna, and the worm baked and agonized to breathe. Per chance
again, the wind was strong and blew the candle out. Seeing a way to
escape through the pumpkin’s mouth, the weakened defiant worm
slipped out with relief. It was crawling towards the front garden
lawn when the plate below the pumpkin cracked. The pumpkin rolled
and bounced down the stairs, and squashed the little worm to
paste.

The Monkey and the
Donkey
(#19)

Once a dreamy monkey took a fancy to see the sea.
Not knowing where it was, he got lost in the forest. He hiked and
leaped from tree to tree for a couple of days. Exhausted, he came
across a donkey, looking pretty docile and bored, grazing in a
glade. The monkey approached and asked the donkey if she would
carry him to the sea. The donkey shook her head no. She was not
interested in going anywhere. “I like where I live, and what I eat
here is plenty.”

“But if you come with me, you’ll have plenty
more. And instead of sleeping under the stars, you’ll sleep in a
castle made of stars.” Seduced by the prospect, the donkey raised
an eyebrow. Feeling confident, the monkey ventured to climb on her
back. However, the donkey would not move. She still had doubts and
had no need for a castle of stars.

“And your castle will be full of carrots
too,” quickly added the monkey.

“Carrots, what are they like?” said the
donkey, inspired. She had never tasted one before.

“Let me show you.” The monkey tied a carrot
at the end of a rod and dangled it in front of the donkey’s head.
Upon seeing the juicy, fresh carrot, the donkey tried to catch up
with it. But as she stepped forward to bite it off, the carrot
escaped her eager teeth and moved forth with the monkey. The faster
the donkey ran, the faster carrot escaped.

“Soon enough, you’ll be able to taste it,”
shouted the monkey, only too happy to be able to cross the forest
and get to see the sea.

After several days, the exhausted donkey
stopped walking.

“What’s the matter, donkey? We’re not there
yet,” yelled the monkey.

“I’m starving. How much farther is this
carrot castle? If only I could taste it, to see if I like it. Then
I’ll know if I’d like to go.”

“You’ll love it,” simply answered the
monkey.

They walked and walked. Soon the sun
disappeared, entire days passed, and the wind tore the leaves off
the trees. And then the rain came in troves, along with ankle-deep
snow.

Finally, they came to the edge of the forest
and reached the blue sea. The donkey raised his head: “Where is
that castle full of carrots? I see none.”

The monkey did not like what he saw either.
Just water and sand as far as the eye could see, with nothing to
eat or where to hide from the sun.

“We’re not quite there, yet,” mumbled the
monkey stretching, as if he had just woken up. “It is hiding beyond
this hill over there,” he said pointing at a tall dune in the
distance. The donkey glanced over and looked back at the dangling
carrot in front of her nose, not so motivated now. The fresh
spotless carrot had braved much bad weather and looked rather sad.
It had all shriveled. Herself hungry, the donkey dug her hooves in
and sat. The monkey almost lost his balance.

“If this castle’s going to look like this
carrot, I’m not going anywhere!” she said, turning towards the
monkey, clinging to her neck. Afraid to be stuck by the sea and
starve, the monkey unhooked the decrepit unsavory vegetable and
handed it to the donkey. “Look, it tastes very nice,” said the
monkey, his voice shaking.

Slowly, the donkey nibbled on the pitiful
carrot, her face covered with frowns. The monkey waited, with a
smile a mile wide.

“You think you can trick me so easily,” she
blurted out, kicking the monkey off her back. “This carrot is as
unsavory as your castle. I’m afraid but you’ll have to walk
back.”

The monkey looked around in a panic, begged
and pleaded with the donkey. But the donkey had pride, and she
turned her rump around and walked away. Quickly, however, she
realized that she did not know which way to go and got lost. On her
way down to the sea, she only had her sights on the carrot and the
castle by the sea.

The Horse With Three
Legs
(#20)

Once upon a time a little girl playing in a
field found herself a long way from home. She came across a horse
running down a hill in the distance.

“Good,” she thought delighted, “this horse
can give me a ride back home.” She approached the brown sweaty
horse and realized that he only had three legs. How strange that
was for it did not seem to prevent him from jumping, reeling,
frolicking, trotting, and of course galloping up and down the hill.
The little girl stared at the horse and said bluntly: “What have
you done with your fourth leg?”

The horse put on an unpleasant air of
surprise on his face. “What fourth leg?” he said.

The little girl frowned. She was not ready
to let this horse have the last word, especially not a horse with
three legs.