Short Story 3

Xiao Zhuang and the BIG Sunflower

Xiao Zhuang, having watch her favourite TV programmes several times already, felt bored and began to look forward to another adventure.

Soon, she came to her daddy and said" Daddy, can we have another adventure?"

"Why of course, my little one. How should we go about starting an adventure?" daddy asked in return. "Get the little magic box?" came the quick reply from Xiao Zhuang.

Daddy went away for a while and was back promptly with little magic box in his hands. "Do you want to guess what would be inside this time?" Asked daddy.

"Eh.... a magic wand and something else?" answered Xiao Zhuang, hesitantly.

"Good try, but not quite right." With that, daddy opened the box and within it, were some coloured seeds and a small shovel."

With many question marks inside her head, Xiao Zhuang followed daddy to the porch outside. Daddy dug a small hole in the soil on the ground with the shovel, and drop the rainbow-coloured seeds into it, and covered them back with soil.

Interestingly, a small rain cloud came by and showered onto exactly this small plot of soil where the seeds were planted!

A small sapling started to appear out from the soil, which grew into a sunflower plant, and it grew and grew, first as tall as Xiao Zhuang, then as tall as daddy, and no sooner, it was reaching way up into the sky, into the clouds... The sunflower could not longer be seen from where Xiao Zhuang is standing.

"My little one, what shall we do next?" asked daddy.

"Climb this?" was the reply from Xiao Zhuang, based on her knowledge of "Jack and the Beanstalk" storyline.

"You are absolutely correct!" said daddy cheerfully.

Without wasting anymore time, both Xiao Zhuang and daddy had their hands and legs on the plant, climbing it diligently, not knowing where would this lead them to.

After a seemingly long time, they arrived at the level of the clouds. Surprisingly, the clouds were fluffy but yet were able to support Xiao Zhuang and daddy standing on them.

Xiao Zhuang was very excited and started to jump around. Then, she heard some sounds from above, which sounded like puppies barking. She turned her head to look above and lo and behold, she saw with her own eyes, puppy angels flying in the air! These puppy angels each has a pair of white wings that flap gently, allowing them to fly from place to place.

One of them, which looked very much like little Max, flew towards Xiao Zhuang and asked if she would like to fly with them.

She sought approval from daddy by looking at him with sparkling eyes, who without any hesitation, nodded his head with approval.

The little Max puppy angel took out a magic wand and spoke "Dreamy Dreamy Dreams come true!" and with a little smoke and a flash of light, a pair of while feathery wings appeared on Xiao Zhuang's back.

In the blink of an eye, Xiao Zhuang was zooming from place to place with the puppy angels, flapping her brand new pair of wings, with great ease and control.

She really enjoyed all the flying and chasing after each other with the puppy angels. And when time literally, "flew" by, it was soon time to go back.

However, looking down at the plant all the way from the clouds to the ground, she could not imagine that she will have the strength to climb down, especially after all the flying.

"Daddy, can you carry me down? Please...?" was all she could muster her energy to say.

"I have an even better idea." said daddy with a grin. With that, he used his hands to shovel some clouds and started to mold them into something. The object which daddy was working on soon took shape and it appear to be a two-seat aeroplane.

"There, this will do just right." said daddy while putting in the final touch of a steering wheel in the cloud aeroplane.

Daddy carried Xiao Zhuang onto the aeroplane and she waved good bye to the puppy angels and thanked them for a splendid time together. The puppy angels waved excitedly back and said that she will always be welcomed to visit them again.

The cloud aeroplane flew quietly down from the clouds without a sound. The objects on the ground became bigger and bigger as the aeroplane went closer and closer to the ground.

Without Xiao Zhuang's knowing, the wings on her back also began to disappear.

When the cloud aeroplane landed and both daddy and Xiao Zhuang have disembarked, the cloud aeroplane morph into a ball of cloud and flew back to join the bigger clouds...

A grumbling sound came from Xiao Zhuang's tummy. "Daddy, I am hungary..."

"I guessed so, with all the exercising that you did just now. Wait over here, I will be back in a moment."

Xiao Zhuang soon hear some chopping sound followed by a loud THUD!

Daddy has chopped down the Sunflower plant and gathered all the Sunflower seeds together. Each sunflower seed is as big as Xiao Zhuang...

Daddy picked up one of them and said "Let's get mommy to help cook this seed, it will be enough for us to eat it for weeks! We will share the other seeds with everybody else."

With Xiao Zhuang on one hand and the sunflower seed on the other, daddy carried them back home from another exciting adventure.