The Tale of the Foul Mood

Illustration by Madison  Age:  5  Paris, TN

          Audra the duck sat on the pond.  She wasn’t swimming.  She was just sitting there.  Earlier that morning while she was getting her breakfast off the bottom of the pond, her leg had been caught in an old net next to the shore.  When she tried to get loose, she pulled it so tight around her leg that it made a big, bad sore.  Now it hurt to swim, and it hurt to walk.  This was not a good day for Audra.

            While she sat thinking about how much her leg hurt, Emerson the dragonfly flew up and called, “Good morning, Audra.”

            Audra made a very angry face at Emerson.  Then she put her bill in the water, sucked up some water, and spewed it at Emerson.  Emerson barely had time to dodge the spray of water.  “Go away!” Audra yelled and turned her back on Emerson.

            Slowly Audra paddled to shore and limped up the path away from the pond.  Before long she came up behind Hayden the turtle.  He was heading away from the pond, too.  Audra came up beside Hayden and shoved him into the grass.  “Get out of my way!” Audra yelled at Hayden and continued down the path.

            After she had limped a few more feet, Xavier the frog suddenly jumped from the grass into the path before her.  This startled Audra.  She bit Xavier on the back leg and left him crying in the path.  Then she limped up the path until she reached a small clearing.  She sat down in the soft dirt and stuck her bottom lip WAY out.

            Meanwhile, Emerson, Hayden, and Xavier slowly crept up the path toward Audra.  They were afraid to get too close.  She might do something else mean to them. 

            Audra heard them coming, and suddenly she felt even worse.  She knew she had not been nice to her friends today.  She started to cry miserably.

            When her three friends heard her crying, they cautiously crept closer.  Emerson came even closer and asked, “What is wrong with you today, Audra?”

            For a few minutes Audra didn’t answer.  Then she quietly said, “Today has been a bad day.”

            Now Hayden and Xavier came closer.  Hayden asked her, “What happened?”

            Audra slowly told them all about the net and how she hurt her leg.  As she told the story she began to feel better.  When she was done, she showed her friends her big, bad sore spot on her leg.

            “Wow!  That must really hurt,” Xavier said.  “But now my leg hurts, too.”

            “I am so sorry I bit you, Xavier,” Audra apologized, “and I’m sorry I spit water at you, Emerson and that I pushed you off the path, Hayden.  I haven’t been very nice today, have I?”

            Her three friends looked at her and then looked at her leg.  “It’s okay, Audra.  You were in pain, but next time just tell us instead of being mean to us, okay?” Emerson said.

            “Okay,” said Audra.  “Hey, can we play something that will let me just sit here?”

            “Sure,” said her three friends at once.  For the rest of the afternoon they played games that let Audra sit.