Week 14 Storytelling: A Lesson About Death

One night, a mother named Clara was trying to put her two children to bed in their room. They were boisterous and bouncy, and they wouldn't hold still long enough for them to fall asleep.

"That's it! I've had it!" Clara cried. "So long as you don't keep your father and I awake, I don't care whether you sleep or not."

She shut their door and went into her bedroom next door. She she was getting ready for bed, she told her husband about her day with the children. Clara was homeschooling her children, and had spent all day teaching them lessons about how different baby animals are born. She had taught them that birds lay eggs, and mammals have live young.

"Tomorrow," she said, "I'm going to teach the children a lesson about death."

What Clara didn't know was that her children were listening on the other side of the wall.

The little girl, Hannah, looked at her brother, Jacob, very seriously.

"Mom's going to kill us for not going to bed on time!" Hannah said.

"Surely not," Jacob said. "Maybe we misheard her."

"She said she was going to teach us a lesson about death!" Hannah cried. "We had better run away or she's going to kill us!"

Jacob wasn't all that convinced, but Hannah's panic was catching, and soon, Jacob was worried too. The two children packed up a few belongings and quietly sneaked out of the house.

Outside in the cold night air, Hannah and Jacob glanced around. They decided left was as good a direction as any, and they started walking.

Suddenly, the heard a dog barking and snarling. They looked over their shoulders to see a great Saint Bernard was chasing them down the street.

(Image Information: "Female Saint Bernard Dog" by ZaGerald, 2008.)

"Run!" Jacob yelled. The siblings took off running down the street. Jacob was sure they wouldn't be fast enough, but just as the dog started gaining on them a car came out of no where. It swerved to avoid hitting the children and the dog. It squealed to a stop in the middle of the road, putting a barrier between the kids and the dog.

The driver of the car got out and ran toward the dog.

"Oh thank goodness you're alright, Muffin," the woman said, patting the dog's ears.

"Be careful!" Hannah said. "That dog tried to kill us!"

"He wasn't trying to kill you. He was just trying to catch you," the woman said. "When I saw two children walking down the middle of the road at night, I got so nervous. So I sent Muffin to bring you back. I'm sorry if he scared you. But why are you out so late at night?"

"Our mother said she was going to teach us a lesson about death tomorrow!" Hannah cried.

"That's an odd thing to say. What did she teach you today?" the woman asked.

"About how animals are born," Jacob said.

"Well, that's life! Tomorrow's lesson will probably be about how animals die," the woman said.

"Ohhhh," Hannah and Jacob said together.

"Now, children, let me take you home to your parents. They must be so worried," the woman said.

The next day, the mother was so thankful to have her children back home that they took the day off from lessons entirely and played board games instead.

The moral of the story is two-fold. Don't listen in on people's conversations, and once you think you see your future, it changes because you now will have a different idea of how to reach it or hide from it.

Author's Note: This story was inspired by "The Monks and the Butcher," from the Heptameron of Margaret, Queen of Navarre, translated by Walter K. Kelly, 1855. In the original story, two monks stay the night at a butcher's house. There is a mix up over the difference between the word for monks and pigs, and the monks fear for their lives. One climbs out the window and runs away, but when the second one jumps from the window, he hurts his leg. He hides in the butcher's barn, and when the butcher comes the next morning to slaughter a pig, the monk absolutely freaks out. Eventually, the whole thing turns into a funny story about a misunderstanding.