Henry and the Magic Tomato
Once upon a time, there lived a young boy who went by the name of Henry. Henry was the youngest son of Farmer Foo and Madam Foo. They were not really rich even though Farmer Foo and Henry’s two older brothers worked in the fields planting and nurturing tomatoes all day long, making the most use of the sun. During this time, young Henry would stay at home, helping his mother do odd jobs around the house such as knitting, churning butter and cleaning after the dog. Henry didn’t really like his chores, and wanted to join his father and brothers out in the fields. Although Henry was only eight, he thought that he could ‘cut it’ out in the fields. When he raised the suggestion to his family, offering his help, his whole family, including the dog laughed at his silliness. Not to be discouraged, Henry used the jeers and taunts as motivation to prove his family wrong.
The very next morning, after that incident, Henry ventured out into the tomato fields at the crack of dawn. He rose before anyone else in the house did. Dragging a shovel and a hoe along, Henry finally reached the fields after 25 minutes even though the fields were only a kilometre away from his cottage. Breathing heavily and wiping off the sweat on his brow at the same time, he saw that the fields were empty and only little weeds were growing where there was suppose to be tomato plants. Henry concluded that his father and brothers only just finished weeding the fields and those little weeds must have grew during the night. Seeing the opportunity to earn his keep, he started uprooting the weeds. Although the mighty sun shone it’s rays on him relentlessly, and his weapon of choice, the shovel was twice his weight, Henry told himself that he wasn’t going to slow down nor stop working. The weeds were being uprooted at a rate of one every two minutes.
After a very long period of time, Henry finally finished the task at hand. He collapsed under a small tree and admired his work. He smiled and chuckled to himself, imagining his family’s reaction when they see his great work. A combination of fatigue and the hot sun made Henry doze off quickly in the shade of the tree. “WHAT IN THE WORLD?!?!?!” shouted Farmer Foo. Henry woke up, startled. He look towards the fields the see his father and brothers there, pacing up and down while cursing at the same time. Henry couldn’t understand what made his family so angry. Hiding behind the tree trunk, he heard snippets of the conversation going on between his father and brothers. When Henry finally realised the severity of his actions, it was too late. He had dug up the entires year’s crops! He had mistaken the growing tomato shoots as weeds!
Henry started to panic. His family has now lost its only source of revenue. Henry knew he couldn’t go back. He would probably be sold as a slave as punishment for his mistake and he didn’t want to work for someone his whole life. So Henry did the only reasonable thing a little boy the age of eight could have done, and that was to run away from home. With tears in his eyes, he traced out a short letter to his family in the mud at the base of the tree, explaining himself. After calming himself down, he got up, took one last look at his angry family in the fields who were still swearing at the top of their voices, turned around and walked into the forest that surrounds the fields.
And that is the story of poor little Henry, who made a big mistake while trying to help his family that ultimately forced him to leave his family and set out on a magical adventure. Oh, he does meet a talking frog along his journey, save a princess from certain death, vanquish a evil witch and find a magic tomato which will be the solution to poverty around the world, but that’s for another day.
My essay, that i wrote in 20 minutes. How much would you give it? It would be interesting to see how much you'll give meand compare to what my teacher will give me...( : Yes...i'm actualling handing it in as homework. ( :
I discovered today that one of my major pet peeves is people using 'I love you' in different languages as his/her nickname in Msn. WOW. So you know whats 'I love you' in french, korean, japanese or in Welsh for all i care. Its kinda stupid to profess your love to someone in a foreign language that you may only know a few words off. Instead of the gibberish, why can't we just stick to the old favourite 'I love you'?
