32 lines
2.0 KiB
Plaintext
32 lines
2.0 KiB
Plaintext
THE FOX AND THE STORK
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Once upon a time . . . a fox made friends with a stork and decided to
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invite her to lunch. While he was wondering what to serve for the meal, he
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thought he'd play a trick on the bird. So he prepared a tasty soup and poured
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it into two flat plates.
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"Help yourself, Mrs Stork! I'm sure you'll enjoy this! It's frog soup and
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chopped parsley. Taste it, you'll find it's dellclous!"
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"Thank you very much!" said the stork, sniffing the soup. But she quickly
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saw the trick the fox had played on her. For no matter how she tried, she
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could not drink the soup from the flat plate. The sniggering fox urged her on:
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"Eat up! Do you like it?" But all the stork could do was bluff. With a casual
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air she said: "I'm afraid I've such a headache that I've lost my appetite!"
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And the fox fussily replied: "What a shame! And it's such good soup too! Too
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bad! Maybe next time . . ." To which the stork quickly replied: "Yes, of
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course! Next time, you must have lunch with me!"
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The very next day, the fox found a polite note pinned to his door: it was
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the stork's invitation to lunch. "Now, isn't that nice of her!" said the fox
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to himself. "And she hasn't taken my little trick to heart either! A real
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lady!"
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The stork's house was much plainer than the fox's, and she apologized to
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the fox. "My home is much humbler than yours," she said, "but I've cooked a
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really special meal. Freshwater shrimps with white wine and juniper berries!"
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The fox licked his lips at the idea of these goodies and sniffed deeply when
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the stork handed him his jar. But, try as he might, he was unable to eat a
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bite, for he could not reach down with his nose into the long neck of the jar.
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In the meantime, with her long beak, the stork gobbled her lunch.
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"Try it! Try it!" she said. "Do you like it?" But the unlucky fox, confused
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and outsmarted, could not think of an excuse for not eating.
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And as he tossed and turned hungrily in bed that night, thinking of his
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lost lunch, he said to himself with a sigh: "I might have known!"
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