Once upon a time, there was a little leopard named Fern. Her favorite color was blue. She was a princess and was very creative. She was two and loved the color blue. Everything in her room was blue. Then, one day, she met a beetle. This beetle was a shiny green, mixed with some blue and yellow – but mostly green.
“Hi!” said Fern. “I love your shell!”
“Thank you,” said the beetle.
“Can I play with you?” asked Fern.
“Sure,” said the beetle. “What do you want to play?”
“We could play… tag!” suggested Fern.
“Great idea,” said the beetle.
“By the way,” asked Fern, “what’s your name?”
“My name is Shiny,” answered the beetle.
“Cool,” said Fern. “My name’s Fern! Anyways… tag, you’re it!”
She scampered off through the trees.
“Hey, wait up!” called Shiny. “I can’t run that fast, you know! But….” said Shiny to himself. “I can fly!”
He took off flying very fast. After a long time, he found Fern. She was sitting on a tree stump. The beetle decided to jump out and scare her. So he quietly landed on a leaf and climbed his way down to the forest floor. Silently he crept over to the log where Fern was.
Suddenly, he jumped up onto the log and yelled, “BOO!”
“Aaaaah!!” yelled Fern.
“Relax,” said Shiny. “It’s just me!”
“Uh oh,” said Fern, and scampered off through the trees again.
Shiny took off flying after her as fast as he could again.
He saw Fern right in front of him. He reached down and…
“Tag, you’re it!”
“Hah!” said Fern. “Oh, by the way, how did you get to me so fast?”
“I flew,” said Shiny.
“I didn’t know beetles could fly.”
“Of course beetles can fly,” said Shiny.
“I was just distracting you,” sang Fern, and jumped up and tagged Shiny.
“All right,” said Shiny. “Can we have a little break? I’m tired.”
“Sure,” said Fern. “By the way, why are you green? I thought blue was the best color.”
“Nope, it’s green, for sure!”
“Why?” asked Fern.
“Oh, because green is the color of everything. It’s the color of plants, it’s the color of flower stems, it’s the color of grass, it’s the color of unripe mangoes, it’s basically the color of everything.”
“Ohh,” said Fern. “Well, do you want to go home and have a snack?”
“Sure,” said Shiny. “But where is your home?”
“You don’t know where my home is?”
“Nope.”
“Wow. Well, come on, I’ll show you.”
Soon they arrived at Fern’s castle. It was just a plain old wooden castle, and they didn’t have a lot of money, but they were still very happy.
“So this is my house…” said Fern. “Oh come look at my room!”
“Okay,” said Shiny.
So Fern led Shiny upstairs.
“This is your room?” said Shiny. “I expected it to be more, um, colorful.”
“Oh,” said Fern. “Well, blue is my favorite color. Anyways, do you want to go have a snack?”
“Yes!” cheered Shiny.
So they went downstairs where Mama Leopard was sitting on the couch, reading a book. She looked up when Fern and Shiny came bursting down the stairs.
“Oh hi Fern,” she purred. “Who’s your new friend?”
“This is Shiny,” Fern answered. “We’re wondering if we could have a snack.”
“Of course,” meowed Mama Leopard. “Which do you want: mangoes or bananas?”
“Mango please,” said Fern. And at the same time, Shiny said, “Banana please!”
“Which one?” meowed Mama Leopard.
“Umm,” Fern and Shiny looked at eachother.
“I’m okay with mangoes,” said Shiny. “But I’d still rather have bananas.”
“Well,” purred Mama Leopard, “it seems that Fern wants mango, but Shiny would rather have banana. Hmm… oh I know! I’ll give you guys both!”
So Fern and Shiny seated themselves at Fern’s table while Mama Leopard grabbed a big fancy plate and cut one banana into quarters on one half of the plate, and on the other half, she cut a mango into quarters.
“Mmm,” said Shiny. “This is a very good banana!”
“I know,” meowed Fern. “And the mango is really good too!”
“Thank you,” purred Mama Leopard. “Shiny, would you like anything to drink?”
“Yes please!” said Shiny.
“Me too mama! I want something too!,” meowed Fern.
“So would you want plain water or something else?”
“Plain water please,” Fern and Shiny said at the same time.
So mama leopard got them two cups of water.
After they were done eating and drinking, Fern said to Shiny, “Hey wanna go play outside?”
“Sure!” said Shiny.
So Fern and Shiny played Hide and Seek the rest of the evening.
“Okay,” said Shiny when they had finished playing hide and seek. “Well… oh! My mom’s calling me, I better go home. Bye!”
“Well,” meowed Fern when Shiny left. “Shiny is very funny. But I think I’ll make my color green. Blue has been my favorite color ever since I was a little kitten, so I think now I should make it different.”
And green has been her favorite color since then, and still is green.
So when you ask Fern what her favorite color is, she’ll say,” Green – I love green.”
The end.