STORY ONE

Waddle meets Berenicia bug.   Word count = 1253

"Ooh! Golly! The sun is shining," said Waddle to no-one in particular, "I must get up and have breakfast!"

The blue sky above smiled down on him. He felt so good this morning.

 "What's for breakfast?" he wondered, and then.........."Oh dear, what do little ducks eat? I'm not sure! Where's my Mum? She'll know! She knows everything."

He stretched his little neck, trying to see over the grass blades, looking for his Mum but could see nothing. "Where are my brothers and sisters? They were here last night. Maybe they've already had their breakfast and gone off exploring without me?"

His little tum started to rumble, he was that hungry. "Must find something to eat! " he mumbled, looking around; sideways, anyway he could twist until all of a sudden he quacked, "Aha! Here comes a bug."

He opened his beak to grab the bug, but the bug wasn't having that!

"Oi! Who do you think you are?" it said. "Find someone else to eat!"

Waddle jumped back in fright. "A bug...that talks? How about that! Where did you learn to talk? I've never heard a bug talk before".

"I've been to Bug School," answered the little bug, with a voice as full of pride as a little bug could make it! "Look" it said, and pulled out a School Certificate from an inside jacket pocket.

Well, being only a very little bug, it wore very tiny clothes with very teeny pockets in them. So, by the time it had unrolled its certificate for Waddle to look at, it was a VERY SMALL certificate indeed!!

Waddle thought to himself a few very quick thoughts, like "What's a certificate?" and "Can I eat it?" then "How am I going to see what's on the certificate? What am I going to say?" He looked VERY closely at it. So close it was almost right in his eye. He squinted through one eye, then he saw, in VERY small writing: "CERTIFICATE GIVEN TO BERENICIA BUG FOR HARD WORK". He blushed a little bit. "It" was in fact a "SHE" bug, but he had to admit to himself "She's got lots of clever in her!"

"What else did you learn at Bug School?" asked Waddle. "Oh, and before I forget, nice to meet you Berenicia."

"Likewise!" she answered, and continued "The first thing we get taught is how NOT to let a duck eat you. Then we learn to talk, run very quickly when ducks comes by, hide under grass when birds come by and how to count the feet on a cow."

A puzzled look came over Waddle's face. "Why do you count the feet on a cow?" he asked.

"Well, it works like this," said Berenicia.  "Do you know, first of all, what a cow is?"

"No," said Waddle.

"It's a gigantic, huge, big hairy thing. It eats grass. Bugs live in grass," Berenicia said, "Am I getting the message across to you?"

"Keep going," said Waddle.

"It makes the ground shake when it moves. It has horrible, big feet that sound like Bash, Bump, Crash on the ground! Are you scared yet?"

"Nope," said Waddle bravely, but he really wasn't sure whether to be scared or not.

"You should be," she said. "Anyway, as I was saying, it eats grass and bugs live in grass. So, we get taught in school to count their feet so that..."

"You said that already" interrupted Waddle.

"I'm still talking, don't be rude" said Berenicia.

"Sorry," said Waddle. This whole feet-counting business was getting a bit much for him.

"Well," continued Berenicia " because bugs are so small, we're born with very sharp eyesight and, because we can see so well we can see the cow coming before it gets too close to our homes."

"Quack, I mean, sorry," interrupted Waddle, feeling slightly silly for quacking in front of her, "but I just heard my Mum over by the pond. I had better catch up with her before she thinks I've run away, or that I'm hiding from her"

"Wait," called Berenicia as Waddle dashed off in the direction of the pond, "What about counting the cow's feet?"

"It's no use to me at all," called back Waddle as he ran on, " I can't count. Huff, puff, oooph, whew." He panted as he dashed, as fast as his little feet would carry him, closer and closer to the pond.

"Wait Mum, wait for me," he called out in the loudest "peep" he could manage. "Strange?" he thought, "It looks like Mum is getting even further away from me? How can that be? I'm running so very fast, my feet feel hot and sore!"

Now what Waddle didn't know, was that his Mum, his brothers and sisters were actually swimming on 10 Gallon Puddle, the "giantest" big pond in Two Tree Thicket. Being so young and, of course, so low and close to the ground, he couldn't see far enough ahead of him to realise, that that was where his family members were.

So, still huffing, puffing, ooophing and whewing madly, he ran flatfooted into some very strange stuff! He had never seen it before! What was it?? Where had it come from? Who put it there?

He couldn't feel the ground under his feet any more! And, he had a problem going in the direction he wanted to go. What's more, he suddenly noticed, the wind was gently nudging him AWAY from his Mum, who he could barely see in the distance. "Only one thing left to do," he thought, and stopped in his tracks, wondering nervously to himself "What CAN I do? What is it that Father does every time he sees something scary??  He runs around in circles, flaps his wings like mad and makes a lot of noise - Quack, quack, Quack, quack, Quack, quack - over and over again, as loud as he can, hoping the scary thing will go away! He's got a word for doing all that! I must find out what that word is!" All this while, he kicked his little legs madly, just to get moving.

He suddenly noticed, "Wait a minute! This stuff is not so bad after all. I'm still moving! It feels sort of jolly, like being on a cloud in the middle of the rain. A little on the cool side, but not too cold. And, look! Here comes Mum! Hooray!" and he called out "Here I am Mum, can you see me?"

Moments later his Mother swam up to his side, smiling as wide as only Mother could smile! "Why Waddle," she quacked, "whatever are you doing?"

His brothers and sisters crowded around him, quacking excitedly "We've been on the Puddle, we've been on the Puddle, quackety, quack, quack."

"Oh, Mum" he "peeped." "I've been so hungry and I've met Berenicia, a bug that talks and counts feet on a cow and has been to bug school," he quacked all in one breath. The whole family quacked with laughter, his Mother saying gently, "We always go for breakfast on 10 Gallon Puddle, every day. This morning, you were still fast asleep, so we went off on our own. You must have woken up and found we were gone. It was brave of you to go out on your own you know. There are scary creatures in Two Tree Thicket."

"Mother" asked Waddle, "what is that stuff you just found me in?"

"Oh, that!" she replied, "That's only water".