The yellow snake’s tale

Yellow Snake

Leona was playing with the long slippery green snake. She pushed its head among the cushions and pretended it was going underground to find some treasure. Then she crawled right into the cushions after it. Only her feet were left sticking out behind. Ben was cheering her on.

Leona looked like she was having fun, and Yellow Snake felt a bit left out. He didn’t really want to rummage in the cushions but he did want to have something to do.

He squirmed around on the hard blue stool where Ben had left him. “They always take the long green snake,” he said sadly. “It’s because I’m all bendy and yellow and not very long. I can’t stretch as far as Green Snake.”

A voice behind him said, “Well at least you’re not scary like Green Snake.”

Yellow Snake coiled himself up and poked his head round to see who’d spoken. He was astonished – the voice belonged to the huge hairy, scary monster who didn’t have a name.

“Are you saying you’re scared of Green Snake?” asked Yellow Snake in surprise. “Why, you’re a hundred times more frightening than he is!”

“Oh no I’m not,” the monster growled. “Everyone knows I’m a monster so they just laugh at me. I can’t scare anyone now. But the green snake is sometimes nice and sometimes spits poison at me. That’s really frightening.”

Yellow Snake felt very sorry for the monster with no name. It was bad enough being a monster. It was horrid having no name. But if a monster couldn’t scare people, that was very bad indeed.

“Shall we play together?” he asked the monster.

It was the monster’s turn to look surprised. “No one EVER asks me to play,” he said. “I don’t even know how to play proper games.”

“We don’t have to play proper games,” said Yellow Snake. “We just have to have fun being ourselves. You could try to catch me, and use your axe and pretend to chop me up!”

The monster gave a hairy, leering grin. “And you could escape every time I nearly catch you,” he said. Then he paused and looked worried. “What if I really catch you and am about to chop you up? I’m very good at catching things as small as you.”

Yellow Snake had a think. “Well, it’s only a game, so you’ll have to give a loud horrible chuckle just before you catch me. That will frighten me off. And I’ll slither away fast. I’m good at that!”

So Yellow Snake and the monster with no name played chasing and escaping all the time till Ben and Leona had stopped playing around in the cushions. They had so much fun slithering and chopping that they were quite surprised when Ben came over and said, “Time for bed, you two. Sorry we left you out. We’ll all play together tomorrow, so you won’t be bored.”

He put Yellow Snake and the monster with no name into the toy tray and left the room with Leona.

When everything in the playroom was quiet and dark, Yellow Snake coiled himself up ready to sleep and said to the monster, “I wasn’t bored! I was much happier slithering and escaping from you than having to burrow for treasure in a silly old cushion. What about you?”

But the monster with no name didn’t answer. He’d fallen fast asleep already!

The moral of this tale is that you are often much happier being yourself and doing what you’re good at.