Week 7 Story:
The Girl Who Never Wanted to Age
Author’s Note: This story was based off the of the Ozaki Unit from the Asain Fairytale section of the Un-Textbook. Specifically, form the story The Man Who Did Not Wish to Die. This story is about a man who fears death and begins to change his lifestyle. In the process of this change, he remembers a story of King who also did not wish to die. This King decided to find an elixir of eternal life, and on his journey to obtain this elixir, he is put in a situation where he gets what he wishes for, but it doesn’t turn out the way he had hoped. I wanted to make a change so that the story follows a child. I think that most kids go through wanting never to grow up and staying young forever. It’s to keep the type of storytelling method similar while also making it a bit more of a modern approach.
Once upon a time, there lived a young girl named Sophie. She loved to dance, sing, and play all day without responsibilities. She could run all the way to her clubhouse and hide out for the day with her own mental company. She could stay outside and make mud cakes in the leftover puddles from the rain with her family dog all afternoon. She was satisfied waking up and munching on cookies, chips, ice-cream, and any delectable junk food she could reach. Life to her was perfect. She never wanted her fun to end. One night, as her family has gathered for dinner, Sophie decides that she doesn’t want to eat the chicken and veggie platter that her mother had made for her.
“I don’t want this. I want cake instead!” Demanded Sophie.
“Sophie that’s enough. Finish your dinner, and then you can have dessert.” Said her mother.
“No. I won’t eat vegetables. I hate them!” Sophie said as she threw her plate from the table onto the floor.
“That’s it!” Exclaimed her mother. “To your room, now! You can go to bed without supper!”
“UGH! Adults are no fun!” Sophie screamed and ran to her room. Tears were streaming down her now rosy, flustered cheeks. “I never want to be like mommy. I want to eat sweet all day and play outside whenever I want and never have to brush my teeth!” After much pacing, crying, and diabolical scheming, Sophie had tired herself out and fall onto her bed to sleep.
Crash! A loud sound wakes Sophie from her slumber. Wiping away at her eyes, she tries to focus on what the sound was. Crash! The noise happened again. She leaps from her bed to slowly open the door and listen. It had been daybreak, and with the light shining into her house from the windows, she tried to look for who made the noise.
“Take that! And that! And this!” Said a voice from downstairs. As curiosity consumed her, Sophie ran down the stairs to find two young boys fighting each other with kitchen spatulas.
“Aha! I’ve got you now. Any last words?” The voice from before matched the voice coming from this boy.
“I surrender! Spare me!” Shouted the other boy.
“Who are you? Why are you in my house?” Yelled Sophie from a distance. “Your house? This house is everyone’s house. No one has their own house here.”
Sophie became puzzled. She looked around to see that all her family photos were gone. She searched for the rest of her home and to not her astonishment; her family was not in it. “Are you new here or something? Only adults have their own house, but there are no adults here. We can have any house we want!” Said the first boy.
Sophie takes a look out of one of the windows and notices all the children outside playing, running around, and doing all the things she loves to do herself. “There are no adults here? That’s impossible!”
“Well, it is here! Come on; we’re going to play outside!”
Sophie ran outside with her new friends and spent days eating all the junk she wanted to, continually playing outside with the other children, and going to bed whenever she wanted to. As the day went on, she noticed that she was not feeling too good. Her body had become sick from all the sweets Sophie had consumed. Her constant fun outside without any clean up had caused her to get infections in any of the scrapes she had earned running around. She had grown tired from avoiding sleep to play with everyone because she didn’t want to feel left out. Sophie’s health had taken a dramatic turn for the worse.
“Hey, Sophie! Want some cake?” Said one of the children.
“No, I don’t. I don’t feel good. Do you have carrots or crackers maybe?”
“Ew of course not! None of that can be found here silly. Here eat more cake!”
All the children started eating cake and trying to force Sophie to eat as well. The more they got her to eat, the sicker she became. She got so ill that she ended up vomiting up all of the forced cake and passing out on the floor.
A few hours had passed by when Sophie awoke to a soft knock at her door. She was in her bed after passing out on the floor with the other children. After a moment, you could see Sophie’s mother walk into the room. Sophie nearly leaped for joy when she saw her mother before her.
“Mommy! I’m so sorry! I want vegetables now please.” Sophie exclaimed as she ran to wrap her arms around her mother. Confused at the sudden change in behavior, her mother pushed the child back to her bed so that she could sit beside her.
“Sophie,” she said, “You cannot throw food onto the ground like that. What I make for you, I do because I want you always to be happy and healthy. You can’t be that way if you eat cake all of the time.”
“I know mommy. Trust me, I don’t think I’ll want to eat cake for a while” Sophie says as she grips her stomach. “I want to be healthy too. I won’t do that again.”
Sophie had learned during her dream that she might like what she usually does, but she knows that she may not want to do these things all of the time. To be a healthy kid, Sophie needs to develop a balance in fun and responsibility.
Image: Pinata Cake (Food Republic)
Bibliography: Japanese Fairy Tales by Yei Theodora Ozaki
