The Beetle and the Crow

“The Beetle and the Crow” is one of the outstanding stories of the first biannual International Short Story Contest 2018 written by Shasmeen Mitra Ganesh, Sri KDU Primary School, Malaysia.

The Beetle and the Crow

Once upon a time, there was a little beetle who lived in a tree hole. The beetle was called Bumble.

Bumble was very busy stacking her food for the day. She was a clever beetle who always found new tricks to gather her food for the day.

Just then, a hungry crow saw Bumble and said, “Mmm…..yum, a scrumptious beetle for lunch.” The crow hasn’t been able to get any food since morning because of the rain and was starving.

The crow was thinking of ideas to get the beetle to come out of its tree hole as his body was too big to go into the hole.

The crow then said,“Ahah! I have an idea.” The crow shouted to the beetle and said,“Hi there, little beetle, a woodcutter wants to chop down your tree! You should come out of that hole at once if you don’t want to go down with the tree.”

Bumble was terrified upon hearing the warning of the crow but Bumble, being her usual self, started thinking. Her little bright brain was shouting “LIGHTBULB” but she kept it in, hoping her plan would work.

Then, Bumble said,“Alright, I will jump down from the tree.” Instead of jumping down, she threw a tiny little twig down the tree. The crow chomped on it and immediately started spitting. He said, “Ewww! I just ate a rotten twig.” The crow then asked,“Why did you do that?” Bumble smartly replied,“Once, I saw a crow ate another beetle at a branch of a tree, since then I never trusted a crow again.”

The crow burst into tears and flew away and never came near the little beetle again. Bumble felt proud for tricking the hungry crow and not becoming his victim.

Somehow, an ant found out about Bumble’s doing and word spread throughout the forest. Bumble became known for her intelligence and caution of predators.

We should be like Bumble, a small being but she knows how to protect herself. As the saying goes, once fooled, shame on you, twice fooled, shame on me.