Kaya's Story

AFTER REVIEWING my blog, I decided to do something a little lighter for my final piece. So I asked my (almost) five year old daughter to give me some characters, a setting and a problem. I asked a few questions about the characters and the problem, promised her a story by the morning and put her to bed. Here goes…

Once upon a time…in a galaxy far, far away…actually it was in this galaxy and in this solar system, even. But anyway, there was a space ship. A happy-go-lucky Tie fighter. You know, the kind that Darth Vader used to fly around in. But this Tie fighter had a very grumpy pilot: Strawberry Shortcake.

Now, usually, Strawberry could be found helping her friends and having fun. But ever since she’d lost her favourite stuffed Berrykin, she’d been acting kind of mean. Not the push-you-over kind of mean. Or even the tell-you-I-don’t like-you mean. No, her meanness was more of the If-I-can’t-have-my-stuffie-then-neither-can-you kind. The trunk of her Tie fighter was filled with stuffed animals that she’d swiped from kids around the solar system.

In fact, she’d just cleaned out Saturn and was just heading towards Jupiter.

“X-five!” Strawberry shouted at her robot, “set a course for Jupiter. I hear the space station there is loaded with toys.” X-five plugged in the coordinates and the ship’s engines began to whir. “Oh boy! What fun,” said the Tie fighter, “I love toys.” Saturn’s rings began to disappear behind them as they headed towards the giant orange planet.

Meanwhile, back on Jupiter’s space station a little girl was learning the ways of the Jedi from master Yoda. Kaya, as the girl happened to be named, was trying her best to free her favourite stuffie named “Lambie.” Yoda had used his power to lift a meteor onto Lambie as a challenge for Kaya. Her job was to lift the heavy space stone off Lambie using only her mind.

“I just can’t do it, master Yoda. I’ve tried and tried,” said Kaya.

“Ah,” replied Yoda, “there is no try. Only do or do not. Do again, you must.”

Kaya wrinkled her nose and focused on the meteor. Slowly it began to rise. Just as she had moved it away from Lambie and was about to scoop her up, Strawberry’s Tie Fighter swooped in. With a crazy laugh, Strawberry hung her arm out the window and grabbed Lambie.

Kaya was in shock, unable to do anything. Luckily Yoda had seen the ship coming in and was prepared. He sent a secret message to X-five, who was a friend of his from long ago. X-five turned the ship around and made it sit down beside Yoda and Kaya. The door opened slowly and the odour of strawberries wafted from the inside.

Strawberry slowly stomped down the ramp from her ship. “Who dares to make my ship turn around?” The stormy look on Strawberry’s face made Kaya a little nervous. She looked over at Yoda only to realize that he’d disappeared.

“What am I going to do now?” Kaya wondered.

Strawberry cartwheeled down the ramp and did a back flip to land right in front of Kaya. “Oh boy! What fun,” said the Tie fighter, “I love cartwheels.” But cartwheels weren’t the only trick in Strawberry’s bag. She was angry and wanted someone to pay.

“Hay-ya!” yelled Strawberry as she started throwing her fists and feet wildly. Kaya put up block after block. “Boom!” shrieked Strawberry as she tried to drop a big elbow on Kaya. But Kaya was too quick and Yoda had trained her well.

Strawberry soon realized that she couldn’t win this fight so she switched to riddles. “OK, you kid, how about we have a riddle battle?”

“Oh boy! What fun,” said the Tie fighter, “I love riddles.”

“Not you, you silly ship,” scolded Strawberry, “I’m talking to the girl.”

“My name is Kaya and you shouldn’t talk like that to people, it’s mean,” said Kaya, “but if it is riddles you want, it’s riddles you get.”

Kaya started, “What do you call a gorilla with a banana in each ear?”

“Easy,” answered Strawberry, “Anything you want because he can’t hear you. My turn now. What do sea monsters eat?”

Kaya thought for a moment, then answered “fish and ships. OK, how about this one: what time is it when an elephant sits on a park bench?”

Strawberry was stumped. She thought and thought but nothing came to mind. “Oh I give up. You win. You can keep your silly toy. I didn’t want it anyway.”

“Don’t you want to know the answer?” asked Kaya, “It’s time to get a new bench! Get it?”

Well, Strawberry started to laugh and laugh. She laughed so hard that she snorted all the meanness out of her nose with her laughing. What happened when she was laughing, nobody really knows. Some people say that her heart grew three sizes that day. When she stopped laughing she felt so happy she couldn’t believe it. She looked at Kaya and said, “I’m so sorry. Can you forgive me? I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Kaya said, “Sure, no problem. But you might want to say something to your ship and your robot. You were kind of mean to them.”

“You’re right,” said Strawberry, “I’m sorry for how I treated you guys too. Let’s go do something fun.” She hopped into her ship and called out to X-five “Let’s go give all these toys back!”

“Oh boy! What fun, I love giving toys back!” said the Tie fighter. And with a flash they were gone.

Kaya looked around, not sure if that had really happened. Just then Yoda stepped out from behind the meteor, munching on some popcorn. “Good job did you,” he told her, “Some popcorn would you like?”

Kaya said sure and the two of them got back to moving the meteor.