Sam was a little elf who lived in a magical little house. The house was completely covered in all sorts of vines. The vines were the source of all the magic. Sam was the clumsiest elf there ever could have been. He would keep tripping on things all the time. The vines would catch him before he could fall. Sam would have been barely able to move around the house without the help of the vines.

One morning there was a witch passing by Sam’s house and she tripped on one of the vines. The witch stood up and in anger cast a freezing spell on the vines. And all the vines froze in a matter of seconds. That morning when Sam got up he tripped on basket of fruits that were lying on the ground and fell straight on his face. This had never happened before. Sam looked up at the vines rubbing his forehead in pain and tried to touch them. He felt a chill. He looked outside the house and it was bright sunny. He kept rubbing his forehead trying to understand what was happening.

The whole week poor Sam kept tripping all over the house and got several bruises all over his body. It was Sunday and Sam had to go out. Every Sunday Sam would gather the grapes from his garden and take them to the market to sell. There were only enough grapes he could eat and the house would be full of them if he didn’t sell them at the market.

It was late evening and Sam was standing at his counter with only the last batch of grapes remaining. An old woman came by and started checking the grapes.
“How much are they little man? They do look rather sweet I must say.”
“3 pennies my dear lady.” Said Sam with a smile.
“It’s a shame I only have 2. Never mind I shall look for something else to eat”
“You can take them for 2. That should be alright. The market has almost closed and you wouldn’t find any more fresh fruits around here. They are all mostly gone by the noon.”
“You are awfully kind to do that for this old woman. I’ll take the grapes.”
Suddenly she started drawing her eyes nearer and nearer to his face.
“What horror did this to your face and your hands. Oh look at your feet. Is there anywhere you are not bruised?”
Sam explained what happened to the old woman.

The woman jumped back in surprise.
“Is the house with the moving vines up on the hill yours little man?”
“Yes it is ma’am. Although they aren’t really moving anymore.” And Sam was rubbing the bruise on his forehead again.
“Oh I must confess this one is on me. I was in a hurry and I never expected the vine to move and I fell hard and bruised my back. I cursed them in anger. Please let me fix them for you.”
Sam’s eyes opened as wide as they could and his hands were in the air.
“You can fix them!”
He was jumping with joy.

The old witch and Sam went to the house and she lifted the spell. Sam touched one of the vines and it did a little wiggle.
Sam thanked and apologised to the old lady and she did the same.
The next morning Sam started on building a fence around the house making sure all the vines would grow on the strings tied inside the fence.
Nobody would ever trip on the vines again. Well, nobody but Sam Ofcourse and the vines will lift him up right before he hits the ground!

Annie loved a good conversation. A nice heart-to-heart would usually make her day. She wanted to be friends with everyone and would give a broad smile to anyone coming her way. It did however pinch her when someone did not respond with the same warmth.

Expectations are a bit weird in their own way. They just come about to roam in our heads uninvited. And every time Annie went out on a limb for someone her brain would play the whole expectation thing on her sooner or later. It was a real problem.

It was a warm bright day when Annie went to Tinkle’s place to help her move. With all the heavy boxes and moving around it soon got hot. The fan helped a big deal, so did the cool lemonade that Tinkle had prepared. They continued chatting all the while they were moving the boxes from outside the house to inside. Annie didn’t have much to do that day and had agreed to help around. She was happy to spend the day with a friend.

“We should spend the weekend baking cookies together!” Tinkle almost jumped as she said that.
Her eyes were wide, sparkling and her face was the definition of excitement.

“That would be so nice!” Annie had about the same amount of enthusiasm as she said that.

“That’s the plan then. I’ll be bringing the lemonade along to your place.” Said Tinkle picking up the large jar of lemonade.

Annie was feeling chirpy and she was hopping around the whole house as she got the pans and the batter ready.

It was near about afternoon and Annie was starting to think that her weekend was not going to go the way she thought it would.

As the disappointment was starting to creep in, she looked around the house. It looked cozy and smelled amazing. She could hear the sweet quiet. The bliss of solitude as they say. She started to feel good, real good. She put on some music and got to mixing the batter. It was almost evening by the time she had baked enough cookies to last for days.

Annie pulled her most comfortable chair to the window. Along with it she took out her favourite book from the shelf. The coffee along with the cookies during the sunset seemed perfect.

Annie had not realised how long was she enjoying her lonesome time as the bell rang. She opened to find Tinkle with a sorry face and a basket in her hand. Annie invited her in.

“I know there are not enough apologies to make up for it. My mother dropped in unannounced and there was nothing I could do.” Her face was so innocent it was indeed difficult for Annie to be upset even if she tried.

“However, I hope these muffins I brought along could make up for that a little bit?” The nervousness showed on Tinkle’s face.

Annie laughed so loud that Tinkle almost stepped back with surprise. She picked up the coffee jar, an extra mug and signalled Tinkle to follow her.

That was quite a Sunday. Annie realised that there was wonder in one’s own company. The two friends ended up eating a little too many muffins and cookies as they watched a beautiful sunset.

There are various kinds of silly. There was a boy named Timothy who was a different kind of silly. You tell him Apples are Red and he might just say there is a yard of magic apple trees owned by an evil witch on the edge of the cliff where red apples grow. Now there isn’t much you can do about people like Timothy. You cannot take responsibility either. You can just let them be and navigate life using their own twisted words.

Timothy would usually imagine something that would have no close relationship to the reality. The next step would be mixing up the imagination with something someone said and then blabbering that to the third person.

That morning Timothy was thinking about skates. As he stepped out of the house he met a fine gentleman who was trying to find his way to the market. He was new to the town and just exploring. The poor man had just found the wrong guy to explain the way to him. It took Timothy a whole 20 minutes to finish the story he had spun which included skating on roads in the hilly areas and how it is very easy to crush a carrot with a skate if you happen to drop it.

The gentleman had his mouth wide open by the time Timothy was done. He was incredibly confused and thought he shouldn’t explore the market that day at all. It was just in time that Timothy’s mother stepped out and apologised to the fine man for his wasted time. She pointed him to the road straight ahead and asked him to take the second left. The man thanked his mother and went on his way. While Timothy was dragged by the ear inside the house and given a good round of hearing. Well Timothy being Timothy will find another story to spin on another fine day no matter how stretched his ears get by all that pulling.

There was a storm brewing in clam-club village. The clouds were dark and there was thunder and lightening. The wind was strong and had completely disrupted the usual routines of the village. The farmers market could not be held that Friday morning like it usually was.
It took a while for Clara to shut down the windows. The wind was too strong and she was struggling with the curtains. She came inside and the sight of the vegetables laid out that she was about to put up for sale this morning made her feel all low. There was no way she could use that many radishes and all that fresh cheese would go to waste too.

Clara would take them out on her cart to sell it in the neighbourhood corner but she was an old bear now and the cart wouldn’t help her too much in the strong wind. Besides her cubs were small, she couldn’t leave them alone like this.

It soon started to rain and the weather got all chilly. Folks of the village were worried and troubled.

A couple of days later she saw Terry the Brownie with his ice-cream van parked outside the house. He was sitting with a frowning face on the driver’s seat.

Clara invited him in and made him some warm radish soup with some mac and cheese.
“This weather has got the whole village suffering and there is no saying when will it end.” Terry almost banged his foot on the table when he exclaimed in frustration.

“Tell me about it. I can’t drag the old cart around in this wind. All this stuff will go bad and there are people hungry in the village. It’s and irony and nothing less.”

By this time Clara was pretty upset and she could still see the Terry’s van outside the window.

“I am going to make a lot of radish soup, cheese dumplings and anything else I can with the heap of stuff I have in my kitchen” Clara stoop up a little too sudden and hit her fist on the wall so hard that it made a few things shake, along with Terry.

“The cart will not be able to carry all of that in this storm Clara. The food will be wasted and you might get sick” Terry was still a little nervous as he said that to Clara.

“But your van could! I know business is bad in town for everyone right now so we will just take what we can get but we cannot let so much food go to waste while people are hungry out there” Clara was too determined to be debated with.

She did have a point but there were concerns still running on Terry’s mind.
“Well the van is filled with ice-cream which might be just flavoured milk if it stays there a few more days. And it does seem like the storm is here to stay for days.”

“Well then we also give them some milkshake!” Clara’s excitement was pretty evident on her face by now.

“That could actually work!” Terry jumped up from his chair as he said that.

The cubs came running as they heard milkshake. Clara and Terry suddenly realised they had help and the smiles grew bigger.

There was smell of delicious cooking coming from the house. Food was getting packed in boxes . And milkshakes were getting poured in to-go cups. The van was parked right outside Clara’s door so that they could load everything easily.
Now all that there was to do was to protect themselves. Umbrellas and hats were brought down from the attic. There were enough backpacks to not let anything get wet while running from the van to the door to the delivery.
It was evening by the time they had visited every house twice. Once to hand them the boxes and second time to collect them back.

By the time they got home they were exhausted. Clara gave the cubs candies and cookies for all the running they did during deliveries. She never knew they were that fast.

All of them sat down for some tea and they could not stop talking about how surprised and grateful everyone was. It was time to clean the lunch boxes and hang them to dry.

As they started opening the boxes they were surprised to find that not only each of them was spotless clean but none of them were empty. Every person had sent something back. There were fruits and berries in some, pennies and more money in others and some just had a beautiful thank you note.

Their faces were smiling and their hearts were full. It’s wonderful what people can do when they come together to help each other.

Tipsy was sitting by the pond with his fishing rod and humming his favourite tune. As far as the entire community of gnomes went one could say Tipsy was one of a cool temperament. Tipsy kept thinking if he managed to catch a big fish today he would invite the neighbours over for dinner.
Anyone who knew Tipsy also knew how he loved dreaming. It didn’t matter if he was sleeping or awake, he would get lost in dreams in no time.
It was a beautiful sunny day and by the pond Tipsy had made himself real comfortable. He had his snacks, a good book to read if he needed to and a soft comfortable pillow so that he could sit on that chair for a long time. After a bit of snacking and reading he dozed off in no time.
Now Tipsy finds himself in a little cottage situated at the corner of a large field. The little cottage was comfortable and cozy. It had a warm comfortable bed. There was the smell of freshly cooked rice in the kitchen. A nice fireplace infront of a comfortable couch that had nice pillows and a comforter spread out. On the table along the couch was a cup of warm coffee and snacks. On the side was his favourite book of stories.
With a broad smile on his face Tipsy walks out of the cottage to find a nice lounge chair in the little lawn. The grass under his feet felt soft. In the large field was a small patch of the land to just spread out for a nice little picnic. On one side of the patch was a bed of flowers that whose fragrance the wind carried. On the other side were large trees that provided shade to rest under. Tipsy laid out a broad sheet under the shade of the trees and laid down in pure bliss with his favourite book and some snacks. The sun made the weather warm and the trees provided cool shade. It was as perfect as it gets.
He suddenly wakes up by a pull and that was when he realised it was the fishing rod. He starts to draw it in and indeed that was a fish bigger than he hoped to catch.
It was a rather good wake up call to a rather beautiful dream.
Tipsy pretty much danced his way back to home that evening. If anyone was having a good day it was definitely Tipsy.

Alex had had an exhausting day. He was on his way back home when he encountered all his other dwarf friends dancing and singing in a line while they were walking home. They cheered up seeing Alex and brought him along.

Now poor little Alex was so exhausted that he would yawn for every line he would sing. And he could not find the energy to hop for the life of him. Since, dwarves were always known to be cheery and playful the other dwarves were very surprised at dear Alex’s condition.

He kept yawning, mumbling a few lines of the song and walking with wobbly legs on the way home.

Everyone decided to stop at Daisy’s for some milk and cookies. Alex got dragged along with the gathering. Also, the thought of some warm milk seemed nice to him.
Everyone sat around the wooden table in their little wooden chairs. There were cookies and glasses of milk placed on the table. The other dwarves still full of energy were singing and banging the table. Alex in the meanwhile gulped down a glass of warm milk and then a second and then a third. Everyone kept staring at Alex until his fifth glass.

Once he had poured that down and wiped his face there was a roar of laughter that almost made Alex jump.

The dwarves kept singing and banging the table while Alex’s eyes kept drooping.
When it was time to leave, someone suggested setting up a bonfire in the backyard. Before Alex could make sense of what was happening he found himself being dragged by collar by someone singing too loudly to hear his voice.

While sticks and dry leaves were being gathered Alex had found himself a chair to settle in. If he couldn’t sleep at least he didn’t have to participate or so he thought. He found himself holding a stick of roast marshmallows.
“Alex dear could you fetch the basket of candies lying in the table inside? I was saving them for a hangout just like this”
Alex lets out a silent groan and leaves his seat.

As he spots the basket of candies he decides to give them a try. He would slowly open one take a small bite enjoy the chewing and move around looking for water. With the basket in his hand he found a place to sit and made his back comfortable. For a while he sat there enjoying each candy taking his sweet time.

Right at this moment Alex was feeling really good apart from the weird slight pain he was feeling in his back. As he looked up there he finds Daisy looking down at him with a stern expression on her face. He moves his hand and candy wrappers fall around.
“You slept in my bathtub and you ate all my candy!” Says daisy with her hands folded.

As Alex was just starting to realise that he had made some sort of mistake Daisy lets out a laugh.

“You better clean my bathtub and take a bath since you have already decided to make it your bed for a bit. I’ll go ahead and get and make the two of us some breakfast.”

Alex makes a sly face and nods his head in agreement. With a stomach full and a long long sleep Alex had had a wonderful rest and he was feeling as jolly as his usual self.

Alex and Daisy were soon sitting at the breakfast table gobbling up cookies and pancakes with fresh juice. The other dwarves had left before midnight and had forgotten all about Alex going to fetch the candies. It was Daisy who found him in the morning.

They had a bright new day ahead of them and a funny story to talk about for days to come.

Candy was particularly irritated and annoyed that day. And there wasn’t one person she could think of to say her piece to. She had been long planning to visit a cousin of hers. And she wanted to go alone share some quiet days, have heart to heart conversations, enjoy food and drink and maybe even go on a drive.
While she had all of this plan in her head and she told her brothers that she was planning to go they insisted to come along to. Now this ruins everything. She would not be just spending extra pennies, there will be extra chaos. There will be too much talk and the mood she is in all the extra talk is gonna make her mad very easily.
Most days her brothers would drive her crazy to a point where she would want to run off to an island and never come back. The mind does tend to think like that in anger, sweet escape.
Well it was a bright Sunday and they did head off for cousin get together. The Sun was warm and the road was beautiful but Candy was barely enjoying all that given the blaring music that was playing in her car. She turned it off multiple times but eventually got tired and gave in.
They reached and Annie ran towards her and gave her the longest hug. That certainly helped. Candy would never stop saying how Annie gives the best, warmest and the most cozy hugs.
“I have the perfect day planned on the beach for us! We have got a ton of lemonade, cookies and a wonderful collection of books to pick from. We are gonna just lay there, drink and eat, read a bit, have long chats and dose off right there.”
Annie was moving at super-human speed while she was saying all that. She was preparing baskets, getting beach towels and all sorts of stuff.
Candy looked at his brothers pushing each other in the mud outside and wondered how was any of dear Annie’s plans going to fall in place.
The four of them reach the beach anyway. Everyone picks out a cookie and a bottle of lemonade. Annie and Candy neatly lay down their towels to lie down and as the boys were insisting for them to get into the water a ball hit one of the boy’s head.
There were a group of boys playing football not far away. Now Annie was worried that there was going to be a fight and she kept looking in the direction of all of these boys talking. The ball was still in her brother’s hand.
It had been a few minutes and they tell the girls they are gonna go play football with the rest of the boys.
Candy gets her peace time anyway! She tried a little too hard to hide the smile on her face until the boys get away. As soon as they did Candy and Annie let out a little squeal. They took a sip of the cool lemonade and got straight to chatting. They had so much to talk about they never even got to the books. The day passed in bliss and they ended up seeing the sunset together and cherishing the moments together.

Glum the elf was walking around with a face red with anger. He takes a sip of water and a deep breath. It only had a momentary effect and included sadness in the pool of emotions that Glum was feeling.

The door bell rang and added irritation to the pool now. He dragged himself up from the couch went to the door and opened the door. Cherry stood there with a smiling face. Cherry and Glum had been friends since they were little children.

Glum went back to stomping around the living room. Cherry followed in confusion.
“He did it on purpose! He would knock on the door, greet me in the morning, pick flowers from my garden. He picked the flowers this morning and did not greet me on purpose! What does he think he is up to?”

Cherry stares with big eyes at Glum getting all furious.

“Who in the world are you talking about?”

“Green, the Gnome next door, who else!”

“So what do you wanna do now?” Says Cherry speaking as softly as possible.

“I want to ask him what’s going on in that mind of his? Is he angry at me? He could have come talked to me. Is he hesitant about something? He could have left a note. Why would you ignore someone and leave a person wondering? That’s just outright mean I tell you.” Says Glum stomping his feet hard on the ground once again.

This one sent a bit of a shiver in Cherry’s little heart.

“So are you going to talk to him?” Cherry’s voice is still a little meek.

“No! I am not. If he thinks he can ruin my day and just get along with me fine the next day that’s so not going to happen.”

Cherry understood this was not the time for words. She prepared him some cocoa that would always put Glum to sleep and when he did get sleepy. She went out and slowly closed the door after him.

Days passed and neither Glum nor Green had made an attempt to speak to each other. They haven’t even seen each other for a while in fact. Cherry would meet him often and say words of comfort but they only had little effect on his heart.

On the way to the library one day Glum met Billie.
“Hey Billie, haven’t seen you in a while!”
“Hey Glum! Jolly nice to meet you here. I was just coming from Green’s was hoping to visit you too but the door was locked.”
“You saw Green?”
“Yeah I did, poor fellow is in a tough place since his dear cat ran away. He hasn’t known what to do with himself all these days”
“Sprinkles ran away? He loved that cat. He spent all his day with him. Wouldn’t go anywhere without him!”
“Yeah! Why do you think he hasn’t stepped out of his house all these days? I hope the silly thing just comes back home to him.”
“Yeah! I hope so too.”

Glum was riddled with emotions and decided to visit Green on his way back. He saw some fresh button mushrooms on the way picked them up and went on his way.

Glum could not remember when was he this nervous the last time. Making up with a friend is surely hard. He knocked on the door and there was Green looking like he had lost some pounds.
“Glum! I thought it was the children knocking and running away again. They have been nastier than before”

“It’s just big old me I suppose.” The nervousness was starting to show on his face.

“I brought you some mushroom cream soup. Thought I’d check up on you and I had also made some extra.” Glum hand over the pot to Green

“Why that’s really nice of you. I was only wondering what to have for supper. It’s a delight. I am sorry I haven’t been very social since Sprinkles left. It has taken over me. I was only picking flowers from your garden as usual when I saw her running towards the jungle. I ran after her but it was no good.”
Poor Green became teary eyed as he spoke.

Glum poured him some of the freshly made soup hoping the food would give him some comfort.

The next day Green walked up to Glum’s house, picked a few flowers and knocked on Glum’s door to greet him. He still didn’t look his happiest self but he had started getting out of the house nonetheless.

Glum would often accompany him to the market to fetch their morning milk. They would pet a few animals on the way and talk about Sprinkles fondly.

In a family of ladybugs that lived under a mushroom, a small little yellow ladybug took birth. She would often fall when trying to fly. The other little ladybugs had already started flying some distance. This little ladybug was told often that something is wrong with her. But she did wanted to prove others wrong so she kept moving while also believing something was wrong with her. She did eventually fly some distance but the thought that something was wrong with her didn’t escape the mind. She went on her life with the same thought. Constantly afraid before attempting anything that this would be harder for her than it is for others. She would make her way and move forward in life but the thought never escaped. Fear took root in some years. And the battle grew. Now it was the thought that she was not enough and the fear of her not being enough.
On a usual sunny day she saw one of the flying champions of the ladybug community fall again and again. She went and enquired about the situation. She saw that the vision of this ladybug was being blurred by something that was stuck on her one eye. And this ladybug was thinking that she had lost her flying capabilities.
The yellow ladybug smiled to herself and flew off.
Sometimes it is the people around you that put thoughts in your head and sometimes it is just you who kept believing things about yourself. Although many of us realise that it’s not easy to change the thought that has been stuck in your head for years. But we can pause and quickly re think every time our brain says that we did something wrong. Maybe just one day we would have overwritten all the pain we have been giving ourselves.

Elle had just woken up from a bad nightmare. She had been having these for a while now. There would sometimes be a monster chasing her or an old witch cursing her. The one that terrified her today was her losing her favourite toy. She got up from bed crying and went to her sister. Lily tried explaining to Elle how these were just nightmares and they would pass, that she shouldn’t take these to heart.
Elle did eventually stop crying and went to her bed but she wasn’t convinced that she was going to be spared of the bad dreams anytime soon. So for the next few days she would stay up in bed as late as she could and the next day she would get up as soon as the first rays of the sun hit. She spent lesser time dreaming but she was constantly exhausted because she would never get proper sleep.
One day while she was walking to the market she met the old bow lady. She was the oldest frog in the village and would sell large pretty bows she made herself for little girls. Lily wanted one and insisted that they stopped by.
Elle kept staring at the old lady and her smiling face and sweet eyes.
“Do you ever get scared Old Bow Lady?” Asked little Elle as if she couldn’t contain it anymore.
The Old Bow Lady looked with all attention at little Elle. She laughed loudly and spoke
“I get scared everyday my dear, when my old hands ruin some of these bows I make. But I remember how happy would I be tomorrow only if I could make another pretty one. So I get on it again. The fear of today has no right take away my smile of tomorrow. Hence, we work for the next smile and the next and so on.” And she laughs again loudly.
Little Elle gives out a giggle.

That night little Elle lay on her bed humming her favourite song thinking about all the good things she was going to do the next day and she only had to let the dark night pass. She was exhausted and fell asleep before she knew. When she woke up she remembered she had a nightmare but the excitement of the new thing to do wouldn’t let her remember what the night mare was.

Since that day Elle lists down all the nice things that she would do the next coming day before she goes to bed. There are days when she remembers her nightmares and there are days when she doesn’t. There are also days when there are no nightmares at all! But no matter the day she always has a large bow by the side of her bed to let her remember that the night would always pass.