THE BEE AND THE FORBIDDEN FLOWER

Written by: Lucia Nante

In a beautiful field of flowers there was a hive of one thousand bees. When Spring was almost over, the Queen bee realised that her descendent, the young Queen bee was ready to accept responsibility for the hive. So now was the moment to transfer the young bee her position. After she had taught the traditions and social behaviour of the group, the old Queen would leave the hive and the young Queen would create a new hive.

One day, the Queen told the other bees of her plan of to transfer her kingdom to the young Queen. The young Queen knew the plan and asked some of them to go with her to create the new hive.

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There was a little bee called Nala who saw the opportunity to leave and have new adventures. She had been told about the group of bees (swarm) that were to leave to build a new hive far from there.

Nala, like the others, had received the necesssary instructions on how to respect the queen at the new hive. One of the rules attracted her attention, it was about a big colourful flower with lots of pollen in which it was forbidden to land. Continue reading…

THE SWEET LEMON

There once was a lemon called Littlelemon who lived in the refrigerator of a Spanish house. This lemon was so sweet that when the family saw it they decided to save it to make a wonderful cake.

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Littlelemon realized he was special, but he didn’t want to be different and so he started to cry because he just wanted to be normal, like other lemons.  “Buaaaaaaah, I just want to be a normal lemon, buaaaaaaaah,” he cried. Continue reading…

THE CACTUS AND THE ANNOYING BIRD

In the heart of the Bardenas desert in Spain, there lived a green cactus named Thorny. Since Thorny was a plant and couldn’t move, he would spend his days looking at the world around him.

Thorny was a large cactus with large thorns.  There was also lots of space between his thorns, and so small birds could land on his thorns without getting pricked.

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On the outside Thorny looked dangerous, with big thorns and tough skin, but on the inside, he was full of water, which was a big surprise to many.

The desert birds knew that Thorny had water inside, so for a few days they flew around him. Continue reading…

FLEUR AND THE PHOTOSYNTHESIS

Once upon a time, there was a white daisy called Fleur who lived in a very big field full of other daisies. All the plants had a very important function in life, and that was to perform photosynthesis.

Fleur was a very young plant, but she was also very intelligent because from the moment she was born she never stopped observing the actions of a yellow daisy that lived beside her.

One day, when she was just a little daisy, Fleur asked the yellow flower: “Yellow daisy, what’s photosynthesis? The other plants say that’s what we do.” And the yellow daisy answered: “Well, photosynthesis is when we plants absorb the light from the sun and water from the ground to feed ourselves and grow. That way we also help the nature maintain its balance.”

Short stories - Fleur and the photosynthesis

“But how do we help it maintain its balance? What exactly do we do?” Fleur asked, for she was very curious. Continue reading…

THE HAM SANDWICH AT THE BEACH

Once upon a time, there was a ham sandwich called Sandy, who was taken to the beach in a bag every summer. But Sandy was fed up because every time she went she would get covered in sand, particularly when there was a lot of wind. Not even bags could prevent it from happening.

The ham sandwich usually went to the beach with her friend the tomato, who also thought the same thing – the beach was disgusting!

One day, a little girl realised that the ham sandwich and the tomato were suffering from all the sand and said to her parents: “Mum, dad, don’t you see that every time you bring sandwiches and tomatoes to the beach, they get filled with sand? It’s our food and it deserves respect!”

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To the family’s complete astonishment, the ham sandwich suddenly began to talk and said: “Parents, you should be proud of your daughter. She is able to put herself in someone else’s shoes, and that’s very important. I am food, so I deserve respect, and I especially don’t need to have sand all over me!” Continue reading…

THE LION AND THE WIND

There was once a very special lion called Simba who lived on the African savannah. Simba would play in the plains, running and jumping with his friends the leopards and other lions in the area. Simba had a very special gift, for every time he roared he created such a strong wing it seemed like a hurricane.

On the savannah where Simba lived there were lots of kinds of animals: giraffes, elephants, hyenas, etc. and even though it wasn’t a particularly green place, there were lots of species of tree and plants.

One day, as Simba was playing with his friends, they saw enormous machines destroying part of the plain by digging into the earth. “The humans are building oil wells…” said one of the wisest lions.

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Day by day, the men built more and more oil wells, destroying the local nature in the process.

Simba had fewer and fewer friends with whom to play, and fewer plains in which to run about, and he knew that it was the men that were causing it all.

So he decided to ask the wisest lion in the area for a solution. The wise old lion said: “The only solution is for the men to stop using petrol, and use renewable energies such as wind instead…” Continue reading…

THE LITTLE TANNED CRAB

Once upon a time there was a crab that lived on a beach in southern Spain. The other crabs called him Croqui, because he loved to cover himself in the sand, a bit like a croquette.

Croqui loved sunlight and when summer came he went mad about getting the best place on the beach to sunbathe. He was always very tanned, but he never listened to the older crabs’ advice.

The adult crabs always told him to put on sun cream to stop himself from getting sunburnt on his shell, but he would say that it wouldn’t do him any harm.

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One splendid hot summer’s day, Croqui was sunbathing when suddenly he began to smell burning. “What could that be?” he thought. Then he realised that smoke was coming from one of his claws, and that it was scorched. So he raced into the sea to cool off. Continue reading…

LEWIS AND THE GREY SMOKE

There was once a little boy of 6 years old called Lewis. One day, as he was looking out of the car window on his way to school, he discovered that a large mass of grey smoke was forming just above his dad’s car.

Somewhat alarmed, Lewis looked at the other cars on the road to find out if they too had a cloud of grey smoke chasing them. To Lewis’ surprise, all the cars travelling on the motorway had the grey smoke hovering around them.

So Lewis asked his father: “Dad, what’s that grey smoke above our cars?” Lewis’ father was a little surprised by the question, but answered: “Well, Lewis, it’s called pollution.”

“Pollution? What’s pollution?” asked Lewis, waiting intrigued for his father’s answer.

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“Well, for example, it’s that grey smoke you can see above our cars. Cars that run on petrol or diesel give off gasses into the atmosphere, which are very bad for all living beings and the planet too. Today you can see a lot of the grey smoke because it hasn’t rained for a long time,” answered his father.

Lewis spent a while pondering on this, and began to put two and two together. If the grey smoke was bad, and it was all because of cars, then why were there so many cars on the road?

“Dad,” said Lewis slowly, “If the grey smoke is pollution and is bad for us, why are we going to school in a car?”

“So I can get to work on time, son. The bus or metro would make us late,” answered his father. Continue reading…

COLIN, THE SPANISH CUCUMBER

Once upon a time, there was a cucumber called Colin who had been born on one of the beautiful fields in southern Spain. Colin the cucumber had been in the earth for many days since he was just a little seed – until today, the day he was picked by the farmer.

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Each of the cucumbers grown all over Spain are closely examined, then sorted out and packaged to be shipped out later. That’s how Colin and his cucumber friends were going to get to the supermarkets and from there to people’s homes.

Together with the other cucumbers from his field, Colin was placed in a box by the farmer and put into a refrigerated van to be transported to Germany, for Spanish cucumbers are very popular there.

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When the cucumbers arrived in Germany, Pablo the truck driver unloaded them into a warehouse that the Germans had prepared for storing the vegetables. Suddenly Colin felt something sting him, but he couldn’t see who it was… Continue reading…

THE MONKEY AND THE ROCKS

There was once a monkey called Monty who lived on an island that was largely inhabited by other monkeys. The most important scientists on the planet had figured out that climate change would affect this island very badly, almost sinking it completely.

So each of the monkeys decided to build a house on the highest part of the island to protect themselves from the floods on the day the disaster would come. Monty had designed his house to withstand a very big flood, and this required very big rocks.

All the monkeys built their houses in just one day, and then spent the rest of their time playing cards and enjoying their new homes. They all laughed at Monty, because while they had already built their houses, Monty had only drawn some plans. But Monty was convinced that his house could survive any flood and although it might take a long time to build, it was worth the wait.

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So Monty moved only one big stone a day, which meant that his house took shape very slowly and the other monkeys continued to laugh at him. But Monty didn’t care, and went on building his house stone by stone.

After a few months, when the other monkeys had got tired of playing cards, Monty finished his house and very proudly threw a big party to which he invited all the monkeys on the island. Continue reading…