A teatime story
Sixteen Months ago the Littlest Star was born at a teatime special in the church where I work. Since then we have held a number of such events, each with a ‘freshly brewed’ story. Today’s on a Spring theme, is below. Feel free to use it, or indeed to illustrate it!
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Sara was bored – bored, bored bored. Its not that she minded staying with Auntie Anna – its just that there was nothing to do. The telly was broken and Auntie Anna had no toys; so she was sitting with her chin on her hand counting every single raindrop as it ran down the window. One, two, three, four… She was nearly at one hundred when a hand tapped her on the shoulder.
“Bored” asked Auntie Anna kindly. Sara just nodded her head – too fed up to speak.“Would you like to come on a treasure hunt?” asked her Aunt. Sara looked up, puzzled. “Why don’t you come with me, she said, and we’ll find the smallest alarm clock in the world and a thousand apple trees”.“But its raining”, wailed Sara.“I know, but the trees are inside”
For the next half an hour, Sara looked in absolutely every place she could think. She looked under the sofa – and found an old 5p coinon the floor. She looked on the top of the Kitchen cupboard and found an old crumpled paper hat. She looked in the cupboard where the hoover was kept and jumped with fright when she felt something tickly which turned out to be a feather duster. She looked at the very back of the bookshelf and found a picture of her dad when he was a funny squidged-up baby.She even looked under the sink where it was all mucky and spidery, and found one old glove. But there wasn’t an alarm clock, not anywhere…and definitely no trees.
“Do you give up?” asked Auntie Anna, and Sara nodded with the biggest PUFF you have ever heard. After a drink and a biscuit, her Aunt turned over all the apples in the fruit bowl, and took out the rosiest one she could find. “Look” – she said, cutting it open. “In here there are one, two three, four, five pips.” “If I plant each one, and each one grows 50 apples next year, how many is that?”. Sara thought hard and said “250”.Her Aunt nodded. “And if each of those 250 apples has 5 seeds, that’s 5 more lots of 250 apple trees to plant.” Sara’s eyes grew wider at the thought “You cheated”, she laughed – that’s MORE than 1000 trees in the end”.Her Aunt nodded.
“But what about the alarm clock” she asked. ”Where is the miniature alarm clock”? Auntie Anna took one of the apple pips and handed it over. Sara shook it. .but it didn’t rattle. She held it up to her ear…but it didn’t tick. She held it right up close and looked as hard as she possibly could…but she couldn’t see any hands.“Inside every apple seed God has put a tiny alarm clock” Auntie Anna explained. “When the seed falls into the ground it sleeps down there until just the right moment comes along. Then off goes the alarm clock, up pops the seed, and a tiny new apple tree starts to grow”. “Does it do it with orange pips too?” asked Sara, picking an orange out of the fruit bowl. “And what about these”, she asked, shaking a packet of seeds she found on the window ledge. “It works with every plant and tree you can think of” Auntie Anna explained. “That’s why we love the Spring, because it’s the time when all the alarm clocks go off and everything wakes up.”
“Talking of waking up”, she said, “its time we put our boots on and went outside. Its stopped raining now and I want to see if my plants have woken up”And with that, the two of them went off outside to pick their way through the alarm clocks and see which plants were awake”
