There were once two sisters, Wendy and Sunni, who were always
in competition with one another. Constantly trying to figure out who was the
fastest, strongest, or smartest. One day they decided to figure out who made
friends the best because there was a new family moving in across the street.
The family had a little girl about their age so the sisters chose her as their
new friend to make. Their older brother J.J., having overheard them make their
little bet, reminded them:
“Kindness effects more than severity.”
Wendy just scoffed at him and told him to butt out and to quit
being such a weirdo before heading across the street. Sunni disappeared inside
leaving J.J. to watch Wendy’s attempt at making a new friend. She went right up
to the new little girl and said, “You’re my friend now! We are gonna go over to
my house and play!”
Wendy grabbed the girls hand to bring her across the street
but the girl resisted. This caused Wendy to pull harder and insist more but the
girl kept her feet firmly planted. Eventually, Wendy let go of the girls hand,
whipped around, and snapped, “Fine! I didn’t want to be friends with you
anyways!”
Wendy ran back over to the yard and stomped up the steps to
where her brother was sitting on the porch. She sat down next to him in a huff
with a pout on her lips and her arms crossed just as Sunni came back outside
with a plate of cookies in one hand and a glass of milk in the other. She
skipped across the street and right up to the neighbor girl, without spilling
any milk somehow, and introduced herself, “Hi, I’m Sunni! I live across the
street. What’s your name?”
“Barbara. Are those chocolate chip?” The girl asked pointing
at the cookies.
“Yup! My mom just made them so they’re still warm and gooey.
I also brought milk so we could dunk the cookies in it.” Sunni replied as she
thrust the glass out towards her new friend. Barbara took a cookie from the
plate, dunked it in the milk, and sat down on the edge of the porch so her legs
hung off. Sunni sat down next to her with the plate between and they began to
chat. After they finished their cookies, Sunni brought Barbara across the
street and introduced her to Wendy and J.J. From there the three girls
continued to play and went on to be great friends even if Barbara and Wendy got
off to a rocky start.
Author’s Note: This is based on The Wind and the Sun, a fable
about a competition between, you guessed it, the Wind and the Sun to see who is
strongest. They decide the best way to figure this out is to see who can get
the traveler on the road in front of them to take his coat off the fastest. The
Wind goes first and blows as hard as he can to get the traveler to take his
coat off, but it seems to have the opposite effect and the traveler just keeps
pulling it tighter to keep warm. So the Wind gives up and now it’s the Sun’s
turn. He shines brightly warming the traveler up enough that he immediately takes
his coat off. The moral is that “kindness effects more than severity.”
I was trying to write this differently with the girls in
high school and having a competition to see who made the most friends but it
was coming out more like The Tortoise and the Hare in message and in story. I
decided to make the girls younger and only have them try to make one friend. I
think it’s pretty straight forward other than that. I hope you like their punny
names (Sunni and Wendy) and I made their older brother J.J. for Joseph Jacobs,
the folklorist who these fables came from. It turns out Barbara means travel in
Greek and she is supposed to be the traveler from the original story so that is
where that came from. I discovered I really don’t like retelling fables because
I just want to write these long complex stories with a ton of dialogue. I loved
reading them though but this will probably be my only fable story.
Bibliography. "The Wind and The Sun" from The Fables of Aesop by Joseph Jacobs. Web Source.
