The next day Hennie still laid only one egg. “It takes a while to produce two eggs,” she clucked. “Keep the feed coming, and soon you’ll have your two eggs.”
Mrs. Lean’s stomach growled. She took the lone egg and went into the farmhouse to fry it sunny-side up.
Hennie ate a double serving of corn every day that week. By the end of the week, she was round as a Butterball Turkey, but she still laid only one egg a day.
Soon the overstuffed chicken was too pooped to walk into the yard and peck around. She lazed around in her nest day after day, until one day—nothing! Not a single egg.
Mrs. Lean peered into the coop. “Look at you!” she said. “You can hardly move. And I’m wasting down to skin and bones. I must have an egg today!”
“Tomorrow I will lay two,” Hennie said. “I promise.”
But there were no eggs the next day. Or the day after that. Mrs. Lean had to eat cracked corn instead.
“What about me?” asked Hennie.
“The more you eat, the fewer eggs you lay,” said Mrs. Lean.
“I’ll be laying double yolkers soon,” said Hennie.
“Fat chickens are good for only one thing!” said Mrs. Lean as she closed the coop and locked the door. “I’ve always liked fried chicken better than eggs anyway.”
A word from your storyteller: It’s possible that Hennie immediately squawked out two fat eggs. It’s also possible that Mrs. Lean wasn’t carrying an axe when she returned to the coop. But…this is a cautionary tale about being greedy.
THE END
HOW TO ATTRACT AN ELF
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Elves are much smaller than humans and usually only show up in groups of two or three. The best way to attract them? Think small. Try luring elves to tea with this recipe, which makes three tiny cakes.
WHAT YOU NEED:
SUPPLIES
οSmall bowl
οWhisk
οSpatula
ο6- or 12-cup muffin pan
INGREDIENTS
ο¼ cup unsalted butter
ο½ cup plus 1 tablespoon flour
ο¼ cup buttermilk
ο1 small egg
ο½ teaspoon vanilla
ο½ cup sugar
ο¼ teaspoon baking soda
ο¼ teaspoon salt
ο½ cup whipped cream (optional)
WHAT TO DO:
1.Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2.Use a bit of butter to grease three cups in the muffin pan. Then dust those cups with a little flour. Fill the muffin cups you’re not using about halfway with water.
3.With an adult’s help, melt the rest of the butter on the stovetop or in the microwave.
4.Whisk the buttermilk, egg, vanilla, and melted butter together. Add the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt. Stir the batter until it’s smooth.
5.Divide the batter equally in the three muffin cups. Then bake the elf cakes for about 22 minutes (or until they’re set).
6.In the movie Elf, Buddy the Elf says, “We elves try to stick to the four main food groups: candy, candy canes, candy corn, and syrup.” So, after the cakes cool, top them with whatever you have on hand that comes from one of the four elfin food groups.
Serve Elf Cakes with Magic Tea (page 101).
οοο
THE ELF OWL
An elf that hoots? Who knew!
•The elf owl is tiny—about the size of a sparrow.
•It nests inside natural cavities and woodpecker holes found in cacti in the southwestern United States and Mexico.
•If captured, the elf owl will play dead until it feels safe.
•In winter, the elf owl heads south. Why? The moths, crickets, and beetles it eats can’t survive the cold.
BURN, BIRDIE, BURN
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You may have heard of the phoenix—the bird that lives forever by catching fire and rising anew from its ashes. Turns out that quite a few cultures share this myth.
THE BENNU
PLACE: Egypt
LEGEND: The Egyptian Bennu was a golden bird that looked like a heron. When the world began, it popped up from the “primordial mud”—the gooey origins of all life. The Bennu was favored by the sun god, Ra. It spent a lot of time flying around gathering bits of myrrh—resin from a thorny tree. Why? To build its own funeral pyre. Every 500 years, the Bennu settled onto its pyre and burned itself to ashes. Three days later, it rose from the ashes to start the cycle again.
THE FENG HUANG
PLACE: China
LEGEND: The Feng Huang ruled over all other Chinese birds. It had a colorful tail like a peacock and a sleek head like a pheasant. In the beginning, there were two Chinese firebirds, one male and one female. They stood for the yin and yang of life—the balance in all things. In time, the two birds merged to become one—a female. She became the symbol of the Chinese empress. Unlike other firebirds, the Feng Huang was born from fire only once and lives forever, so she doesn’t have to burst into flames again and again.
THE SIMURGH
PLACE: Persia
LEGEND: In Persia (now Iran), this fiery bird was said to be so old it had seen the entire universe rise and fall three times! The Simurgh was huge: big enough to carry off a whale. It had a dog’s head, a peacock’s body, and a lion’s claws. In one legend, thousands of birds race for a single feather of a Simurgh. The 30 who complete the race find themselves trapped in its nesting place. They then realize they are part of the Simurgh—one with the world, at peace, and immortal. (Another version says they became one with the Simurgh because it ate them.)
THE ZHAR-PTITSA
PLACE: Russia
LEGEND: Glowing like a bonfire, Russia’s Zhar-Ptitsa was a magical bird with red, orange, and yellow feathers. The Zhar-Ptitsa could light up the night sky, protect or heal with its magical feathers, and drop pearls from its beak as it sang. But this firebird was a bit of a thief. Night after night, it flew into the king’s garden and snatched some of the golden apples of eternal youth that grew there. So a stable boy baited a trap with the bird’s favorite treat: cheese soaked in beer. The bird chowed down and then wobbled drunkenly around the garden until the boy caught it.
MOVIE MAGIC
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Your eyes aren’t the only things being bamboozled at the movies. Sound-effects technicians called “foley artists” know all kinds of tricks to fool your ears, too!
RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981)
We Hear: A giant stone ball chasing Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) out of a cave.
Actual Sound: A Honda Civic coasting on gravel.
JURASSIC PARK (1993)
We Hear: T. rex ripping apart an ostrich-like dinosaur called a gallimimus.
Actual Sound: A dog attacking a rope toy.
TITANIC (1997)
We Hear: Rose (Kate Winslet) clinging to a makeshift raft in ice-cold water while her hair freezes.
Actual Sound: The popping of ice crystals that have formed on frozen celery. “It worked out magically,” said sound designer Christopher Boyes.
LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS (2002)
We Hear: The huge Uruk-hai army yelling war chants and banging their chests before attacking Helm’s Deep.
Actual Sound: 25,000 rowdy sports fans during a cricket match between New Zealand and England.
ICE AGE (2002)
We Hear: The mammoth walking through snow.
Actual Sound: A log dropping into a pit full of dirt and pebbles.
HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS (2002)
We Hear: A mandrake’s deadly screams in Professor Sprout’s class.
Actual Sound: A very hungry one-month-old baby crying, mixed with a woman’s screams. The sound designer said the sound was “exotic enough so that you think, Hmm, I’ve never heard anything quite like that before.”
LEMONY SNICKET’S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS (2004)
We Hear: Aunt Josephine’s (Meryl Streep) ho
use tumbling off a high cliff into Lake Lachrymose.
Actual Sound: This one is real. The filmmakers actually dropped a large dead tree on the house!
SPIDER-MAN 2 (2004)
We Hear: Doctor Octopus (Alfred Molina) moving his tentacles around or retracting them.
Actual Sound: The foley artists rolled and threw around motorcyle chains to make the sound of Doc Ock’s arms moving. But when he retracts his tentacles (pulls them back into his body), that’s the sound of heavy-gauge piano strings being pulled across metallic objects.
THE BOY WHO CRIED CELEBRITY
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An Uncle John’s Totally Twisted Tale
ONCE UPON A TIME...there was a boy who moved from Boring, Oregon, to Brooklyn, New York. After a week of being called the “Boring Boy from Boring, Oregon,” he thought of a way to make himself seem more interesting: Celebrities. If he could show everyone photos of himself with stars (the celebrity kind, not the sparkly kind), they’d definitely be impressed.
At school the next day, the boy showed a photo to the kids at his lunch table. “Look who I had lunch with yesterday,” he said. “Jackie Chan!”
The boy sitting next to him snorted. “You’re standing in front of a poster for a Jackie Chan movie,” he said. “See? It says ‘Coming Soon’ right behind your ear.”
So the boy brought in another photo. “You’re not going to believe this,” he told the kids in history class. “Lady Gaga dropped by my house last night!” He showed them the picture.
“You’re right,” said the girl sitting behind him. “We don’t believe it. Wanna know why? She wore that meat dress to the MTV Video Awards two years ago. If she was wearing a two-year-old meat dress, you wouldn’t be sitting that close to her.”
“Eew.” Several kids pinched their noses shut.
The next day, the boy brought in a photo of himself with Tom Cruise.
“Okay, but for real,” he said, pointing to the man in the grainy photo. “Tom Cruise!”
“Are you kidding?” said the class bully. “No way is that Tom Cruise! That guy isn’t much taller than you.”
“Tom’s five foot seven,” said the boy. “He just looks taller on those big movie screens.”
That night, his friend Bill came over. The boy told Bill how everyone made fun of him when he showed his celebrity photos.
Bill nodded. “They think you’re crying wolf,” he said.
“Huh?” The boy scratched his head.
“You know. Like in the fairy tale. This kid wanted attention so he kept saying, ‘Look! A wolf!’ when there wasn’t one.”
“But—”
“And then, when a real wolf came to town, the kid yelled ‘Help! Wolf!’ but nobody believed him.”
“What happened?” asked the boy.
“The wolf ate him.”
“Bill, this is not helping,” said the boy.
“Tell you what,” said Bill. “I’ll make a video of the two of us together and post it on YouTube.”
“Really?” said the boy. “Thanks!”
The next day, everyone at school was talking about the video. “Great video of you and Bill Murray!” said one kid, trying not to grin.
“Yeah. It’s almost as believable as the one with Bill Murray washing dishes at that college student’s party,” said another kid.
“Or Bill Murray reading poetry to those beefy construction workers,” said a third kid.
The girl from his history class shook her head. “Only the Boy from Boring wouldn’t know that Bill Murray sightings are the biggest urban legend in Brooklyn,” she said.
“Huh?” The boy’s mouth gaped.
“Dude, Bill Murray stories are a dime a dozen. In every story, Murray shows up and does stuff with people, and then he says ‘Don’t tell anyone. They’ll never believe you.’ But Bill Murray doesn’t really do any of those things. That’s what makes them urban legends.”
Just then, Bill Murray stopped by the school to see if the video had helped his friend. He was on his way home from rehearsing an off-Broadway production of Peter and the Wolf, and he was still wearing his wolf costume. When he saw all the kids making fun of his friend from Boring, he was so upset, he ate them. (But don’t tell anyone. They’ll never believe you!)
THE END
οοο
Twenty-five percent of Icelanders believe that elves “probably” or “definitely” exist.
BET AND THE BEAUTY
BY MICHELLE R. WEAVER
U.J.’S GUIDE TO ENCHANTED PLACES
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Writers dreamed up these places. But anyone can visit!
Emerald City: The capital of Oz may be the greenest city ever. A soldier with green whiskers guards the gate. Inside, people with greenish skin wear green clothes, hats, and shoes. What do they drink and eat? Green lemonade and green popcorn. (The Wonderful World of Oz by L. Frank Baum, 1900)
Cloudcuckooland: This Greek city was built in the clouds for birds, not people. Flocks of pelicans built the wall that surrounds the city. Saying someone is “living in Cloudcuckooland” means they’re hatching foolish plans—like building castles in the air. (The Birds by Aristophanes, 414 B.C.)
Territory of Tuck: Look for this land in the Sea of Slops. It’s right between the Mountain of Messes and Wastepaperland. The people who live here like to sell poisoned sweets to children. (The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley, 1863)
Neverwhere: Have a taste for cat stew? It’s the favorite dish in this candlelit world located below the streets of London. But brush up on rat language before you go. You’ll need to speak it. Why? Because rats are rumored to be the most helpful creatures to be found here. (Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere, 1996)
Toyland: Nursery-rhyme characters such as Little Bo-Beep live in this country. So do toys with names like Big Ears and Miss Fluffy Cat. What lies beneath this happy land? Bogeyland, where crocodiles and hairy creatures with claws live. (Noddy Goes to Toyland by Enid Blyton, 1929)
Gort Na Cloca Mora: Cross a field strewn with boulders until you reach the edge of a forest. Knock three times on the biggest tree you find. When the leprechauns answer, follow them into their underground world. (James Stephens, The Crock of Gold, 1912)
Pumpkin Island: This island is home to the notorious Pumpkin Pirates. Huge pumpkins grow here. The pirates hollow them out and turn them into boats. Then they sail to sea to prey and pillage. (True History by Lucian of Samosta, circa A.D. 200)
The Midgewater Marshes: These swamps are infested with insects too tiny to see. But you can hear them! They make such a racket they’re believed to be the evil cousins of crickets. (The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien, 1954)
Zuy: The elves of this kingdom have grown rich trading goods like leopard skins, music boxes, starch, and…suppositories. (Kingdoms of Elfin by Sylvia Townsend Warner, 1972)
THE BOY WHO LOVED DRAGONS
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What do you get when you cross dragons with a kid who likes to doodle? Read on!
BORED BY BOOKS
When Christopher’s mom first tried to teach him to read, he refused. He preferred doodling dragon pictures and making up stories about them. He daydreamed about dragons all the time: during trips in the car, in the shower, even while he was pretending to do his homework. Most people didn’t think his obsession with dragons would take him very far.
Christopher spent his teen years making up tales about the dragons he loved. He started one story with this question: “How might a young man find a dragon egg?” Then he asked, “Where was the egg? How did it get there?” Next he gave himself a “wild challenge”: write a whole book about a boy and his newly-hatched dragon. He finished the first draft when he was 15 years old.
A ROAD SCHOLAR
Most writers have a tough time publishing their first novel. Not Christopher. Why? Because his dad published the book and had 10,000 copies printed. Then the family hit the road. At the time, Christopher was 19. Inst
ead of going to college, he dressed up like a medieval storyteller and gave readings at bookstores. But pretty soon he was worried. His parents had quit their jobs and invested almost everything they had in his book. “As the saying goes, we really bet the farm,” Christopher said. “It was down to the point where if we didn’t sell enough books, we didn’t have food on the table.” His parents were even thinking about selling their house to raise money.
A DRAGON’S HOARD
What happened next may seem like a fairy tale, but it’s true. A famous writer named Carl Hiassen bought Christopher’s book in a store in Montana. Hiassen loved the book so much he gave it to his editor to read. The editor loved it, too. Before he knew it, Christopher had gone from worrying about money to accepting a six-figure advance from a publisher. (The exact amount isn’t public knowledge, but six figures means at least $100,000.)
Christopher’s first book made The New York Times bestseller list and sold more than 12 million copies. Its title? Eragon. That’s right—the boy who loved dragons is Christopher Paolini. So far, he’s written three sequels: Eldest, Brisingr, and Inheritance. In 2006, Eragon was made into a movie that grossed $249 million worldwide.
What does Christopher think about his success story? “If I wrote a book where all this happened to one character,” he says, “no one would believe it.” And that medieval costume he wore? “It will take some extraordinary event to ever get me back in that thing.”
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