yet another story

Why we have snow
by matsuko

the great dragon decided it was time to move. he had been living in the same house for over 1000 years, and was starting to get tired of the scenery. so he packed up everything. his earth-shaking smoothie maker, his furniture, everything that he had in his house. he then moved to a new house that was about halfway across the sky. as he was moving all of his boxes and furniture and everyhting, he saw a sign for a dust/leaf/snow blower and thought that maybe it would be good to have one. "who knows, there might be a lot of trees where i'm going, and get lots of snow in the winters. i dont want to be spending my whole days raking leaves and shoveling snow!" unfortunately, the Great Dragon was too busy at the time to buy one. he forgot about the dust/leaf/snow blower for a long time, never passing the store. it was a lot closer to his old home than his new one. it changed seasons, and was no longer summer, but suddenly was fall. the great dragon's new home did indeed have a lot of trees, and, since he didnt remember to go get the leaf blower, was spending a lot of time raking up the leaves. a lot more than he would have liked to have. he decieded to try blowing them into a pile with his lungs. sadly, as he was trying so hard, he ended up setting the leaves all on fire. "i wish i hadnt done that. i had wanted to use those leaves for compost, and help my new garden grow next summer." so, he had to come up with a new idea. he tried to use his tail, instead of a rake, but that just scattered them more, and make it take a lot longer. so, he just settled with raking up the leaves. then winter came. he tried to blow and make fire and melt away the snow from his sidewalks, but it just turned into ice, and was more of a hazard. he tried making it all into snowdragons and snowunicorns and the like, but he ran out of room in his yard for them all. eventually, he just settled for shoveling his snow, like all of his neighbours. one day, he decided to go back and visit some of his old neighbours, and see how they were doing. as he was headed home, he passed the store selling the dust/leaf/snow blowers. "ah ha! just what i needed all this time. if only i had remembered, then i wouldnt have broken my arm when there was ice on my walks, or wasted all of those wonderful composting leaves. i'll have to get one, and try it out!" so get one he did. next time it snowed, he started up that snow blower. and what a wonderful job it did! he had his walks clean and free of snow and ice within 15 minutes. one thing he didnt notice was that it created quite the wind down on earth. come the next snow storm, the great dragon was prepared. this snow storm was HUGE! it dropped about two feet of snow. the great dragon was ready for it. he took out his snow blower, and started to clear his walks. this time, it took a LOT longer. he stopped to rest, and looked down to earth, to see what was going on there. he noticed that it was really really really windy, and it looked like it was snowing there too! "well, what a coincidence" he thought. i wouldnt have thought it would be snowing there, especially since it isnt snowing here any more. as he kept watching, it suddenly stopped snowing. "odd. snow doesnt just suddenly start, and suddenly stop like that. not down there. well, i had best get meself back to work. i still have more of my own sidewalks and driveway to worry about." as he got back to work, he kept an eye out on what was happening down on earth. he noticed that as he was using his snow blower, it suddenly started to snow on earth. "maybe i should stop. i dont like to give the people my snow. they have never had any, and wont know what to do with it all. but what can i do with all of my snow? i guess i'll just keep on making snowdragons and sometimes snow unicorns. maybe i'll only use the snowblower when i'm going to have company. i know that wont happen much, so it will only inconvinence the people on earth every once in a while. that would be good" so, every once in a while, the great dragon gets a gues to his house in the winter. some years, he gets more guests, and so we get more snow, but on other years, he gets hardly any visitors at all, and we dont get much snow at all.

Why We Have Earthquakes

note: this was written before the other great dragon story, and gave me the idea for the other one. this one was a creative writing assignment in my 12th grade humanities class for SLCC.



The Great Dragon really loved to eat smoothies. He would eat them all day long, for every meal, and for snacks. He ate them almost non-stop. The only problem was that he didn’t like having to be away from home so much to eat them. The only place that the Great Dragon could get them was at the local smoothie shop named “Heavenly Smoothies: The best place to get smoothies above the ground.” Besides being away from home so much, the Great Dragon was running out of money to buy them, and the maker was running out of supplies. The Great Dragon decided to buy himself a smoothie maker.
The Great Dragon went to Floor Mart* to get himself a smoothie maker. While at Floor Mart, the Great Dragon had a hard time finding a smoothie maker, so he asked for help. None of the employees had heard of a smoothie maker, but instead suggested buying a blender and, while he was at it, he could buy his own ingredients for his smoothies, then he could decide what flavour to make. He liked this idea, so the Great Dragon bought everything he would need to make a perfect smoothie, plus a few extra things. When the Great Dragon got home, he made himself the best smoothie that could ever be made. The only problem was, when ever the Great Dragon had a smoothie, it made the earth shake from all of the ice that had to be crushed up. He wasn’t sure what he should do.
The great dragon thought that maybe he could try eating all of the ingredients all together as one big mouthful without crushing everything up in the blender. He tried it, and found that it tasted almost as good as it did when he mixed it up in the blender. That is how the Great Dragon now eats his smoothies, and he can eat them in the comforts of home, while spending less money on the ingredients, than on an already made smoothie.
However, sometimes he just cant get away from remembering how much better the blended smoothies tasted, and just has to have one blended up. Whenever he blends up the ingredients for his smoothie, there is always an earthquake.


* Thanks to BJN, my sister, for letting me use her idea for Floor Mart.

Why We Have Stars

The Great Dragon hated the dark. Absolutely hated it. So, he decided to fix it so that night wasn’t so dark. He took a trip to Floormart,* such a nice helpful place that it was, to take a look around, see what they had to offer. They had lamps, both big and small, but they were too bright. They had night-lights, but they were too bright too. Luckily, they had a special going on in their pets department on electric eels. So, the Great Dragon bought an electric eel, hoping that it would give off just the fright kind light to make it bright enough. It wasn’t nearly as bright as the lamps and the night-light.
When it got to be dark, out came the electric eel. It gave off light for a few seconds while it was moved. After it was settled in his tank, the eel didn’t give off any light. The Great Dragon went over to poke the eel to see if that would help and make a glow, even for just a few minutes. “OUCH!!! That eel hurts when it shocks, and it doesn’t even give off any light! What a waste.” Frusturated, the Great Dragon went to sleep, hurt and upset.
Next morning the Great Dragon took the eel back to Floormart for a full refund.
The Great Dragon wandered around town, trying to get ideas as to how to light up the night, without making it too bright. He was wandering around the local park when it started to get dark. Out came the fireflies, blinking on and off and giving out just the right amount of light. “Bingo!” the Great Dragon ran home, and grabbed as many mason jars as he could carry. Back at the park, he gathered up hundreds of fireflies and took them up to his home in the clouds. He released them, and they flew to the sky, up so high that the fireflies got stuck. They couldn’t come down, so to this day, they are still up there, giving off just the right amount of light, so that the night isn’t so dark for the Great Dragon

* Thanks to Bonnie Jean for the idea of Floormart