The Flower

The Flower with a Single Petal

Once upon a time, a little flower sprouted from the ground. When its young head first felt the wind caressing it, it rejoiced, because it had been waiting since the beginning of its life for this moment. However, as it was the last flower of early spring, no one cared very much for it. Nevertheless, the little flower, still a tiny bud, was eager to live well. It knew its sole purpose in life- to bloom one day and make the world just a teeny bit more beautiful.

Mid-spring came, and the flower saw that many of its neighbours were already opening their lovely buds to reveal well-proportioned and vividly coloured petals. As spring grew older, the other flowers came into full bloom, colouring the countryside with different shades of different colours. The little flower's bud still would not open, no matter how much it tried.

Oh dear, what am I to do? Thought the dismayed flower. My flower bud is so small and pale next to all my neighbours. So it bent its head low and tried to hide among the tall grasses, but even then it had no respite, for the grasses laughed at it all day long.

So the little flower tried to hide its head under the the soil. Perhaps then I can pretend that I am just another blade of grass, it thought. So it used its soft, perfectly tipped bud to push and dig at the ground below, but no matter how hard it tired, the soil did not give way.

No, little flower, the soil mumured to it. You are not meant below the ground. Stay up, stay away!

Oh dear, cried the little flower. It stood up straight again and felt its aching back throbbing. Then it saw how its once perfectly tipped pink-coloured bud was crumpled and stained with soil, and burst into tears. It slumped down onto the ground and cried itself to sleep.

The next morning, the little flower was awakend before dawn by a breath of wind stirring its ruined bud. It looked up sleepily, too tired to remember its crumpled bud and feel ashamed of itself. To its surprise, it found the Flower Fairy gently rubbing a soothing oinment onto its flaccid stem. Overcome with shame, the little flower did not resist when the fairy took out a small flask of liquid and poured it carefully onto the little flower's bud.

"That will help you to grow up nice and strong," said the fairy.

Will it make me beautiful? The little flower wanted to know. The fairy only smiled in reply, made a wish, and disappeared.

Confident in itself now that the fairy had given it her blessing, the little flower worked hard. Every day, it ate carefully, drank eagerly and received thankfully what the soil had to offer it. It sunned itself carefully and concentrated all its efforts on making its petals beautiful. Every night, it slept early deeply, dreaming of the day it would one day bloom.

Then the day itself came. It came so suddenly, that the little flower itself did not realize it. It stretched itself as a habit, and realized with a start, that it had a shining, golden petal over its head. Its petal, unlike the petals of the others, was not long or oval, but round; it did not come out from only one side of the flower, but surrounded its entire head like a huge golden crown, adorned with the dew of a spring morning.

As it shook its shining petal in wonderment, its neighbours awoke. They gasped at how the little flower had turned into a beautiful queen, asking themselves if this was really the little bud they used to know.

Just then, the Flower Fairy appeared.

Thank you for making me beautiful, the flower cried. I didn't have a chance to say so before, but I'm really very grateful.

"Nonsense," said the fairy. "I didn't do anything. The liquid I gave you was pure water."

With that, the fairy gently lifted up the little flower by its roots from the yielding soil while its neighbours gasped in amazement. And to this day, the little flower has lived in the fairy's garden, together with the other flowers who dared to dream.

The End.

Bio pract prelim is tomorrow. Elaine and Ms Lye say fruits and flowers and vegetables may not come out 'cause they did last year. I hope they're right. But then again, I don't want to get something stupid like prawn.

Oh no. What if they give us oyster??

>.<

O levels English Oral is tomorrow too. How sad. My last oral exam for English. Oh well.