Category: FEATURED REGULARLY

This is based on a true story. On the theme of yesterday’s date, here it is.

There was a little boy, and he went on a trip with his family. He was six years old. He had a sister who was 13 and a brother who was 10. The whole family went to Washington DC. They went because they wanted to see the museums, and they wanted to look at the White House.

They drove for a whole day to get to Washington DC, and when they got there, they drove to their hotel, put all their bags in the room, and went to dinner near the hotel. After dinner, the father drove the car around a very spacious area where there was a big rectangle of water, and there were many large white statues. His father told the children that they would go up close to the statues in the following days. Then it got dark, and they went to their rooms and slept.

The next morning, they got up early and went to the first museum. This story is about that museum – it was the FBI.

The whole family went into the FBI museum, and it was very dark, and there were guns in cases, and places to have your fingerprints fake-taken, and a lot of important signs on the walls that his sister read to him. The little boy stayed close to his Mom and his Dad, and sometimes, he stayed close to his sister and brother. He held his Mom’s hand, especially when the woman who was telling them stories was talking about the Mafia. In the Mafia, if somebody did something against the Mafia, then that person’s finger would get cut off.

During the whole museum walk, the little boy kept asking, why? and why? and why? And he kept holding his Mom and Dad’s hand. It was very interesting. There were so many secret things that he learned.

The last room was a big hall, and everyone in his family sat down: his sister, his brother, his Dad, his Mom, and him, in that order. Then the lights dimmed in that large hall, and the FBI people started shooting at targets to show how to shoot correctly. It was very loud and he covered his ears.

Then when they were done shooting, he put his hands down from his ears and took his Mom’s hand again. The FBI people at the front asked if there were any questions. Some man raised his hand and asked a question about the guns that the FBI people had shot with, and an FBI woman answered him. Another man asked about the top ten most wanted list. An FBI woman and an FBI man were answering the second man’s question. The little boy stood up next to his Mom so his head was near her ear. He said to her, “I want to ask a question.”

“What do you want to ask?” she whispered to him.
“Why do people kill people?”
His Mom said, “Maybe they don’t know the answer. Maybe it’s because people want to hurt people.” She saw that her son had a concentrated look on his face, and she asked, “Do you still want to ask the question?”
The boy said, “Yes.”

Just then the woman at the front was finished answering and asked, “Other questions?”
The Mom said, “Go on,” and the boy raised his hand.
The woman at the front said to him, “Yes?”
And he asked while standing up leaning against his Mom, “Why do people kill people?”

It was quiet in the large hall for a moment.

Then woman at the front sighed quietly, and said in a calm voice, “We don’t know why people kill people. It may be that people think that what they are doing is right, and that it makes sense for them to do it. It may be that that’s what they’re told to do, and they do it. It could be that they are trained to do this. … It could be that people who kill other people are just bad. Maybe they kill because they have a wrong view of the world, because they think that killing someone will be good for them. Maybe some people are bad people. Do some of these thoughts answer your question?” she asked the boy.

He nodded his head, standing and leaning against his Mom.

Welcome to Story Tuesday. :) Here are other places you may want to check out on Story Tuesdays!… Dave’s site and Jason’s writing area.

Anthills are little hills of sand, in which an entire ant population can live. Anthills look like upside-down ice cream cones – the base of the anthill near the ground is wide and the tip of the anthill is just one small grain of sand.

One day, an ant wanted to build the tallest anthill that he could. He was a small ant, and he didn’t think he could build the tallest anthill just by carrying the most sand. He knew many ants had to work together to build massive anthills. Now we all know how anthills are made – ants start from the bottom, carry enough sand in their little mouths to make a wide base for the hill, and keep building up, higher and higher. Then the queen ant gets the royal privilege of carrying the last grain of sand to the very top of the sand hill, and when she drops that grain of sand onto the anthill, all the ants gather below and they clap their tiny little antlegs, meaning that an anthill has been completed. The small ant wanted to build an enormous anthill – he wanted everyone to be proud of him – his mother ant, his father ant, his two sister ants, and especially the queen ant.

So the small ant got to thinking, “How can I build the tallest anthill there ever was?” And he thought, “Well, I don’t need to make my anthill look like an upside-down ice cream cone. I’ll make my anthill look like a ladder going all the way up into the sky.” And the small ant got so excited by his idea that he started making a plan to match his idea. He said to himself, “I’ll just make all the sand grains stand up straight.” So the ant went to the sand pile (which some might say looked like an unintentional anthill to begin with), and he started carrying back pieces of sand in his mouth. And the small ant put all the grains of sand in one spot, and the spot started growing higher, and the ant was so excited. The ant’s mouth was sticky when he carried the sand to his new tallest anthill, and so that stickiness made the sand stick together. But then the ant looked closer at his new tallest anthill, and he saw that his anthill was beginning to drop away – his anthill had a thin top and a wide bottom, and the small ant kept taking sand from the bottom and moving it to the top, but the sand would just come down again and again and make a wide bottom and a thin top. Then the ant started licking the sandpile up because he knew that when he saw little children lick an ice cream cone up, then the ice cream cone changed its shape and grew taller. But, alas, every time, with every one of his licks, the sand kept falling back down to make a wider base and a thinner top.

So the ant grew quite sad, and he went walked around the woods, with his head down, very very sad. And then he came to a tree and he sat underneath that tree, and he started crying because he still wanted to build the tallest anthill, but he didn’t know how.

All of a sudden, he felt a leaf on his shoulder, “There, there,” said some part of the leaf, “Why are you crying on such a marvelous day – you should be playing and celebrating.”

“Oh, who are you?” asked the ant.

“I am the grapevine that grows along this tree, see? Look up, and you will see me all around the tree, my leaves growing up and up and up. Why are you crying?”

“I wanted to build the tallest anthill, but the sand kept falling down…and…” and then the small ant started crying again.

“Oh, that’s not so bad,” said the vine.

“What do you mean it’s not so bad?”

“Well,” answered the grapevine while moving her leaves to emphasize what she was saying, “There are many ways to make something tall.”

“Why? How do you mean?” asked the ant, and with that he stopped crying.

“Well, look at me for instance. I am not very strong, but I am very tall because I hold on to the tree delicately along each of my leaves.”

“How do you get to be so tall?” asked the small ant.

“I started from the bottom, and kept reaching up, and every time a new leaf of mine grew, I made a small bond to the tree, a light hold, just to hold me a little taller.”

“Oh!!” said the ant, suddenly getting his energy back, “maybe I can make my anthill very tall too!”

“Maybe you can. Enjoy the marvelous day,” said the vine.

“Thank you! Thank you!” said the ant and ran back to his home.

Suddenly the ant knew how to make the tallest anthill. The small ant went back to the sandpile and brought over some grains of sand in his mouth, and he pushed the grains of sand into the tree bark to make the sand stick, and the sand stuck. So the small ant climbed his tree-anthill and put more grains of sand on top, and more, and more, and soon the anthill was going up into the sky.

Now the ant had chosen a very tall tree, so tall that the ants could not see where in the sky the tree ended, and the small ant wanted to build the tree-anthill right up into that nothingness, into that sky at the top of the tree. The small ant kept building all day and even when it was dark out, he kept building all night, and in the morning, the anthill went right up the tree into the sky, into the nothingness.

Then all of his ant friends came and they ooed and ahhed, and asked, “but how did you know to build such an anthill?” The ant smiled to himself because he knew the vine had helped him. Then the ant invited the queen ant to carry the last grain of sand up his tree-anthill. And once she had come down, everyone clapped for the ant with the great idea for the tallest anthill!