Herbert Nagel

A fairy tale

Once upon a time there was a fairly intelligent grasshopper. It was fairly intelligent because it could read quite well. It especially liked stories about animals. It could also sing and dance very beautifully.

One day it read a story about a grasshopper and some ants. That grasshopper danced and sang all summer, but, oh dear me, in winter it had no food. So it went to the ants who had been working like mad all summer and asked them for food. But the ants just said: “Go away, you crazy, lazy little fool!”

Our grasshopper who, as you remember, was fairly intelligent, because it could read and who also liked reading and dancing very much, had an idea.

“I will read and dance and sing for money”, it said to itself. And that was exactly what our little grasshopper did. It read out the most fantastic stories to all the other animals, it sang the most beautiful songs and it danced like it had never danced in all its life before. And it earned quite a bit of money.

 

Until one day when it read out the story of two beavers. One beaver was hard-working, it worked day after day, hour after hour, minute after minute and it didn’t enjoy many breaks. Then it died, never having had any fun, never having danced, never having sung a single song in its entire life.

The other beaver, however, enjoyed the sunshine, the cool water tickling down its fur on a hot summer day. It also enjoyed playing with the beaver girls or beaver boys – depending whether you’re a beaver boy or beaver girl – which it did for a very long time and when it was time to say goodbye it said goodbye with a happy smile on its face.

 

“Oh dear me”, shouted our grasshopper. “That beaver had got more fun than me. I want to have even more fun than that beaver.” So it took all its money, went to the next airport, took the first flight to Mallorca, caught a taxi to Ballerman 2378 and got drunk.

Unfortunately alcohol is very expensive and when you are drunk you do not see the thieves that steal what is left of your money. Moreover, you cannot sing and dance beautifully and read out stories for money when your brain is swimming in alcohol.

 

So our grasshopper was thrown out of Mallorca. It was put on a plane and came back to its home – in winter!

Normally, because of global warming, there is not much snow where the grasshopper lived and it is not really that cold. But that year winter was terrible. There was snow everywhere and it was deadly cold for more than three months.

As the grasshopper didn’t have any money for central heating it froze to death.

Moral: Choose wisely.

By H. Nagel

 

P.S. I hope, although school can be very hard sometimes, that the time you spent at this school has been pleasant and that you have learned all the things which you will need in the future. All the best and take care.