The Day Charlie Cricket Stopped Chirping
MINI MINI STORIES
Charlie the Cricket had always been a noisy little fellow.
Every evening, as the sun disappeared, he would find a nice spot in the grass and begin chirping.
Chirp. Chirp. Chirp.
One night, Charlie noticed that all the other creatures were very quiet.“Perhaps I'm bothering them,” he thought.
So he decided to stop chirping.
Well, he tried to, anyways.
First, he held his breath.
His cheeks puffed out.
That didn't work for very long.
Then he hid underneath a large leaf.
Chirp!
He was sure the forest heard him anyways.
He stuffed a little piece of grass in his mouth.
Chfffirp.
That sounded even worse.
Finally, Charlie squeezed himself between two rocks and tried very, very hard not to make a sound.
For the first time ever, Charlie was completely quiet.
He felt proud of himself.
At least at first.
Then he felt sad.
Because the meadow seemed kind of strange.
Frodo the Frog stopped and looked around.
“Something's missing,” he said.
Owl tilted her head.
“I think you're right.”
Charlie peeked out from between the rocks.
He noticed that even the dancing fireflies seemed to blink a little slower.
He took a deep breath.
“CHIRP!”
He quickly covered his mouth.
But Frodo the Frog smiled.
“There you are!” he said happily.
Charlie looked around.
Nobody covered their ears.
Nobody told him to be quiet.
Charlie crawled out from between the rocks.
“I thought I was bothering everyone,” he said.
Frodo chuckled.
“Bothering us? We love to hear you chirping!
You set the tune for our evenings.”
Charlie thought about that for a moment.
He grinned and went back to his favourite spot in the grass.
Chirp. Chirp. Chirp.
The meadow sounded right again.
And Charlie was happier than ever.
That day he learned an important lesson:
Assuming you know what people think can make you sad for no reason at all.
A little something to think about
In this short story, Charlie thought everyone was bothered by his chirping. But when he stopped, he discovered that the meadow wasn't the same without him. The creatures missed his singing.
The moral:
Sometimes we worry about what others think. But we don't really know what they're thinking unless we ask them.
Can you think of a time you worried about what people thought of you, but it turned out to be okay?
