Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, there were two identical twin mice, who lived lives similar to you and I. They lived in a mansion mouse house in between the wall of a little cottage located out in the heart of a great big city. Every morning the two mice would wake up and go out scavenger hunting and see who could bring back the biggest and best treasures. Then they would sort through their new found fortunes and decide who would earn the point for a day. This was a little game they had been playing for years. The only catch was that they were not supposed to take items that had not been thrown away because that would be stealing and their mother always told them not to steal. She warned them that bad things would come to those who were dishonest and took advantage of other people. Bruno, always wanting to do the right thing and please his mother, only looked for goods in trash cans and often found great treasures and good dinner items. But Roger, on the other hand, always wanted to be the best and have the most to bring home, so often he would return with new items he had taken from the house which had not been thrown away. Bruno had a suspicion this was occurring but Roger never confessed to his dishonesty. Years went by and Bruno’s points were much, much lower than Rogers.
Because Roger found it so easy to steal from others and lie about it, the crime started to escalade. Stealing small things, turned into stealing a great deal of bigger items. With these items, he would sell them to other mice on the “cheese market”. The cheese market was how mice traded and sold illegal stolen goods to one another, and rarely got caught by the big cats. Bruno, had a distrust in his brother because often times Roger leave a lot later than Roger and return many hours earlier with goods Bruno knew would never have been thrown away. Bruno decides he needs to take initiative and find out by Roger is becoming so distant and losing his morals and promises to his family. Bruno plans for the next morning to follow Roger to find out what he is up to.
Bruno left the house before Roger, just as he had for the past couple of months, but on this special day he hid by the garbage can until his brother left. He kept his small little beady eyes on Roger, scurrying behind him far enough away as to not let Roger catch on that he had a follower. As soon as Roger turned down Mafia Blvd., Bruno knew his brother was in deep with the “cheese market.” Bruno followed him into the underground warehouse and kept his eyes on his twin. Roger did his trading for the day and left the warehouse. He left just in time, because not a moment after he scampered away, he heard the dreaded cats come into the warehouse. He knew he would not be seeing some of his trading partners again tomorrow. That’s how it went one day everything was normal, but in an instant your life could be taken away. Bruno, was not as lucky, for he witnessed the whole scenario. The goods his brother had just traded were taken by the awful cats and the lives of three of the mice were taken as well. Bruno felt horrible but also thankful that it was not his brother he had been killed.
When Bruno arrived home with nothing because he had been watching his brother all day, Roger knew something had happened. He questioned Bruno and his brother refused to give details of his day. Bruno asked Roger questions about how he got all his goods and again Roger lied. But then next day Roger was not so lucky, now the cats knew where the “cheese market” was located and the trades were never safe again. When Roger went to trade his goods, one of the cats caught him and held him hostage until he gave out all the other names of his fellow trading mice. The cats soon found all the mice and took all their goods and ruined their family’s lives as well. With the help of Bruno and some friends, Roger managed to escape from the cats trap. From that day forward, Roger decided that no amount of goods was worth ruining his family or taking his own life. Roger and Bruno, from then on, went out everyday together to look for food supplies and goods, only that had been thrown away and lived happy long lives because they were honest and had family on the top of their priorities.
2 comments:
Great story Kali! I loved how you were able to keep a child-like tone that a good fable should have, and still talk about black market cheese and the like.
For stuff you can work on: I think that in developing your writing style you should focus on the show not tell aspect of description and plot. Maybe you didn't think it was appropriate, but some dialog would be awesome. Thanks and good job!
Kali, your story has such a cute tone to it. I especially like how you use the “cheese market” as an equivalent to our contemporary concept of the “black market.” This parallel helps make your fable’s message very comprehensible for the reader. One thing to watch out for in the future is words that don’t actually mean what you probably intended. An example of this is your use of the word of escalade in the first sentence of the second paragraph. Escalade is a type of car, and I’m sure you meant to say escalate. Also, try to work on making your sentences more fluid; the way you structure your sentences can be a little awkward at times (i.e. the last sentence of the third paragraph).
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