The Mouse Who Wished to be a Bluebird

This is a fable I composed for a class here at school which several friends expressed interest in seeing. It's not super high quality stuff. It didn't take me long to write, but it's kind of fun. So, for your reading pleasure, here is the story of the mouse who wished to be a bluebird! :)

The Mouse Who Wished to be a Bluebird

A young mouse sat on the sill of an open window staring out at the bluebirds hopping about on the lawn. She admired their beautiful, bright blue plumage, their lovely, curving, graceful wings, and the sweet, musical little chirps they made as they talked to one another. “Why can I not be more like them?” She mused to herself as she turned to catch a glimpse of her own reflection in the mirror behind her. What she saw staring back at her was a pretty little mouse, but it looked nothing like the birds she so badly desired to emulate. “I must be more like a bird! I must!” She thought resolutely as she studied the image before her. “They’re so beautiful, and everyone always admires them. On the other hand, no one ever pays me any attention at all.”
With a new determination she turned back to the window and studied the little creatures hopping about on the lawn before her. What could she do to make herself more like them? First, she concluded, she would need to be blue. There was some blue paint in the study; she had seen it there the day before. So, she quickly scampered down to the floor and across the room to the study where sat a small can of blue paint with which the lady of the house had been painting her garden bench. Without a second thought the little mouse dove into the can of paint (which was about as tall as she was herself). She came up spluttering, and, after several failed attempts, finally managed to pull herself out of the can, dripping with bright blue paint. She then scampered out the open patio doors and into the garden to admire her new, blue reflection in the pool and to allow the paint to dry.
As she hurried along the path, she realized that her movement did not resemble those of the birds either. The birds did not scamper, they gracefully hopped from place to place on only two feet with their heads up, shoulders back, and chest out. Therefore, the little mouse determined she would imitate this posture. Standing up on her back legs she attempted to lean forward and hop, imitating the shape and motion of the birds on the front lawn. Her small body, however, was not built to balance in such a position, and she went tumbling head over heels onto the gravel walkway, mixing dirt and small rocks into the still wet paint coating her fur. She was, nevertheless, resolute to imitate her idols and continued to mimic their movements as closely as possible as she moved across the yard, collecting ever more debris in addition to various small scrapes and bruises from her many falls. Finally, she made it to the still, small pool which was her destination and looked in. As she did, tears welled up in her eyes. Rather than the smooth, blue coat which she had so hoped to achieve, the paint was drying in little clumps throughout her fur, and the initial bright blue color had been much muted by the dirt and rocks it had acquired in her falls. Her stance, meant to evoke that of the blue birds in the front yard, simply looked silly, and her little limbs ached from the awkward position and the many falls resulting from it. As she buried her face in her hands and began to sob she heard a kind voice behind her.
“Why, whatever happened to you, my dear? And why are you crying?”
Surprised, the little mouse turned to see a chipmunk (a good friend of her mother’s) standing behind her. With a bit more coaxing, she had soon poured out her sad little story to the creature (although the relation was a bit interrupted but the occasional sob). As she finished, the chipmunk wrapped her in a tight embrace and kissed the top of her small, paint-matted head. “You silly little goose,” she said gently, “Why would you ever want to be like a bird? They can neither see in the dark nor sneak into the pantry at night to enjoy a tasty bite of cheese. They have no sense of smell and cannot hold anything in those useless little feet of theirs. Just think of all the things you can do that they cannot. Wash that paint off of yourself and take another look at that fine, warm velvety coat of yours. You are truly beautiful just the way you are.”
With the chipmunk’s help the little mouse did just that, and when they were finished she looked at her reflection in the pool and realized the chipmunk was right. She was beautiful just the way she was, and, suddenly, she had a terrible craving for cheese…

Moral: Like so many young people, girls especially, in our society today the little mouse does not realize how beautiful and how special she is just the way she is. Like them, she wishes to be something she is not, something she never can be. For the little mouse, this something is a bird, but for girls of today it is the airbrushed supermodels they see staring back at them from magazine covers or the digitally altered actresses they see on their television screens. Perhaps they, like the mouse, just need a loving friend to remind them that they are beautiful just the way they are, that a healthy, content person is a beautiful person whether they be a size two or a size twenty.