Once upon a time, in an unassuming house, a flea was crawling around on some carpet feeling slightly bored. One of her favourite pastimes was annoying the household cat, who, at this time, was sleeping on a pile of freshly washed clothes. Since no humans were home, the flea decided to crawl along the cat’s back and make his tail twitch before biting him so hard that the cat jumped up in fright and run around the house at a most impressive speed.

The cat bolted back down the hallway of the house, out of the cat door attached to the laundry door, along the garden path and straight up the trunk of a tree. Predictably, a bird was sitting on the very branch the cat stopped on to attempt to remove the flea, scaring the bird and causing her to fly away in fright.

Unable to think clearly due to the scare she received from the cat, the bird flew directly into the path of a flock of another twenty birds who were on their way to source some insects from the farmlands in the distance. The flock separated, with one-half of the birds now flying in a completely different direction. They started screeching in their panic to regroup and, once they were together again, the bird at the head of the flock made the decision that they should land in the river to rest and gather their bird thoughts.

Unfortunately, they landed on the water right next to a man who was fishing in his small, tin boat. The man had been planning to go fishing for many weeks and was more than furious when the birds landed next to him, spoiling his chance at getting any fish for the next several minutes. Frustrated, he promptly packed up his fishing equipment, rowed back to the shore, tied his boat to a tree on the banks of the river and drove home. Still annoyed by the fact his fishing trip had been ruined when he arrived home, the man shut his car door hard enough to startle both his pet cat and his neighbour’s horse who then jumped the fence and galloped into the forest in fear.

An extremely focused bear was swatting down a beehive he had recently discovered when the horse galloped straight past him. As a result, the bear lost his focus for an instant and accidentally swatted some of the bees, sending them into a buzzing frenzy. They formed a swarm and chased the bear high up into the mountains to the base of a cliff. Trapped, the bear turned and opened his mouth wide to let out a tremendous roar. The bees turned around to retreat and, for a few seconds, it looked as though that might be the only consequence of the bear’s actions.

Towards the cold and snowy summit of the mountain, however, a small sheet of ice was sitting quite precariously on the edge of a rock. The bear’s roar reached the ice, forcing it to fall from the rock face and land on the snow below, causing a small amount of snow to start sliding its way down the mountain. Slowly at first, then gradually building up speed and gathering more snow, until, eventually, a giant avalanche had formed, knocking over smaller trees and causing many of the forest animal’s homes to be destroyed.

At the base of the mountain, a squirrel had spotted a stray nut underneath a house and had managed to narrowly avoid being caught by the avalanche on his way to pick it up. He quickly dashed away before the snow could reach him and hid under the stairs of the house’s deck. When the snow settled, the squirrel peeked out from under the wooden stairs, feeling helpless once he saw the destruction, wondering how he was ever going to rebuild his home.

At that moment, his back twitched and his mouth curled up, as he was bitten by a rather bored flea.

THE END

My name is Gregg Savage and, every night when the house is quiet, I write and publish a free children’s story at dailytales.com.au for you to share and enjoy.

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