55. The Snail and the Cheetah

Quince blossom

 Here's the story my grand-daughter told me as we were sitting on deck chairs in the shade of my quince tree this afternoon.

"Once upon a time there was a Snail who was friend with a Cheetah. They were very different but they were very good friends.


One day they met a Little Fairy who offered to grant them a wish. So they said they wanted to swap being what they were, the Cheetah wanted to walk slowly and the Snail run very fast. Unfortunately the Little Fairy disappeared before she could grant the wish and forgot even to give them her mobile phone number. Luckily they knew where the fairies' castle was so they started walking in that direction.


They walked for two weeks, Snail pace, the Cheetah by his friend the Snail. At one stage they saw two round towers in the distance, with a bridge up high between them. The Cheetah bounced, ran and got there in no time forgetting about his friend the Snail. As for the Snail he eyed a field of lettuces nearby and hurried to a crunchy one, eating at leisure. Meanwhile the Cheetah, realizing his friend was missing, started looking for him everywhere dragging his nose in the grass. He came to the patch of lettuces and running fast past a lettuce provoked the Snail to jump high and fall on his back. He didn't like the feeling of something crawling on his back until the Snail came to his forehead and fell on his nose and on the ground.


They were happy to be back together and realised that they didn't really want to swap being what they were. But, as they didn't want to have come all this way for nothing, they decided to go and visit the Fairies' castle anyway.


From outside it looked quite ordinary but once inside they saw that each wall was of a different colour and highly decorated. In the middle there was a kind of small village all in black and white and that's where the young Fairies were taught how to become proper Fairies. They met the Little Fairy again who was quite a debutante really and she said they had just arrived for a party. It was the beginning of their long holiday starting at Easter and lasting for a long time. They all looked for chocolate eggs together. The Cheetah found 11 eggs, the Little Fairy found 10 and the Snail found 5. They added all these chocoloate eggs and ate them sharing them.


Then the mother of the Little Fairy said it was time for dinner. They all said they were not hungry because they had eaten too many chocolate eggs..."