Storytelling Week 7: Balancing the Scales

Sarah seemed to have it all together. She was organized, got good grades in school, worked a steady job, was popular and very well liked. She worked hard and took pride in her accomplishments. She was also extremely kind and overwhelmingly generous in giving to other people and unfortunately there were some people who took advantage of this fact.

One day while walking home she spotted some money on the ground. Immediately she grabbed it and began searching the area for someone who might have dropped it. She was unable to locate a single person and so she decided to take the money home and decide what to do with it there. A local ruffian saw this and decided to approach her. He offered her a cheap ring, a worthless trinket he had found in exchange for some of the money she had found. He expected her to completely brush him off and continue on her way but instead she accepted the deal. She handed over half of what she had found in exchange for the trinket. The man, surprised but delighted all the same walked away whistling a pleasant tune.

A few weeks later he came across the same girl. She had been carrying a bag of apples which had apparently spilled with the apples rolling all over the sidewalk and the majority into the fenced yard nearby. He approached her and offered to help her pick the apples in exchange for a few of them. She gladly accepted but explained her dilemma with her inability to climb the fence into the neighbors yard. The man simply hopped the fence and told her not to worry that he would get them and toss some apples back to her. However he only selected to toss back the ones that had been bruised, muddied, or squashed in some way. He pocketed all the good ones and made a show out of eating one in front of her.

Sarah grew angrier and angrier by the minute. Suddenly an idea came to mind. "You know, that was some pretty impressive fence hopping earlier. I bet you can't do a flip back over it."

"Watch and learn," he called back.

But as he went to do the flip he forgot about how slippery the ground was from rain the night before. He slipped in the mud on his way to do the flip and instead of landing on the ground he went face first into the fence and then over. The result of his flip meant that several apples tumbled out of his pockets. Sarah gathered them up quickly and shoved them in her bag. The man struggled to his feet and shouted profanities at her. He grabbed her bag, pulled it off her shoulder and smacked her across the face. Sarah stumbled back and took off running.

When her friends found out what happened they became determined to balance the scales and give the man just what he deserved. They devised a plan for the next time Sarah ran into the man and then set it into action. Walking down the same street she had encountered the man as before once she saw him she let something slip out from her bag and pretended not to notice and continued walking. The man went to investigate what she had dropped thinking it might be something of value to him. It was a small round object roughly the size of the egg and as he was trying to figure out what exactly it was it exploded and enveloped him in a cloud of foul smelling gas. He coughed and sputtered, attempting to run away from the area. He ran exactly in the direction her friends predicted and as he ran he tripped over something. This something turned out to be a hornets nest! They swarmed and stung him all over. He scrambled to his feet and once again started running. He tried to run into a building to escape the hornets but unfortunately he failed to notice how low the doorway was and hit his head knocking himself out cold.

Sarah and her friends watched the whole scene unfold from a distance. Afterwards Sarah continued to work hard and show kindness to others, but she never let them take advantage of her kindness.

(An emakimono, or picture scroll of the original fairy tale)

Author's Note: This story was inspired by The Crab and the Monkey. In the original story the monkey takes advantage of the crab's willingness to share but when she outwits him he beats her nearly to death. Her friends help her get revenge when he comes back and attempts to steal fruit from her. In my story I lessened the severity of the beating and ended with the ruffian being knocked out instead of being killed as he was in the original. I attempted to keep my changes closely tied with the progression of the original.  

Bibliography: The Crimson Fairy Book by Andrew Lang, illustrated by H. J. Ford (1903).