TALE: THE FOX AND THE GRAPES: A NEW VERSION

Juan Carlos Soto

Publicado en Capital Letter No. 3

Mayo de 2003

Once upon a time in a forest, walking through the huge trees, a fox was searching for something to eat. She had no eaten for two days and was starving. Suddenly, the Fox saw a beautiful vine plenty of grapes. She ran to a tree and jumped to reach some grapes but they were so high that the Fox could not reach them.

The Fox continued jumping and one of the grapes said "I had not seen an animal as stupid as this one, look at it, what is it doing now? " The Fox then thought about a different way for reaching the grapes. She started climbing the tree but that was difficult. Meanwhile the grapes started to laugh because the Fox was very clumsy at climbing.

But although the Fox was not good enough for climbing, this was a very clever animal. She waited during a few minutes and sat down. Then, the Fox started to think about a better way to make grapes come down. Ingeniously, the Fox said "Do you know that grapes can live much better on soil than over there, upwards? You are so high that you might fall down and hurt yourselves." "That is not true" - said the grapes "we cannot grow on the soil".

The Fox had reached her purpose. She made the grapes believe what she had said. Then, the Fox told the grapes she would leave because there was nothing interesting to see. As soon as the fox left, the grapes decided to prove if what she had said was true. They started jumping one by one and after all of them were on the ground, they noticed that being there was not a good place to be. Besides, it was not a good idea staying there. Immediately, the Fox appeared again.

The grapes were horrified. "Oh! please do not scream, I am here to help you", said the Fox. " -Are you?", ask her one of the little fruits. "Yes, certainly", answered the traitor. " I will throw each one up to reach your limb, but listen to me, I will do it only once, and I do not have time to play with you, right?" The grapes accepted guiltlessly.

So, the Fox launched the grapes but none of them could reach the limb and as fast as they fell, the cheat animal ate them. "Why are you doing this?" asked her one of the grapes, "you said you would help us!" To this utterance the Fox answered, "Yes, I did, and I am doing what I told you, however, do you remember I explained that I would do it only once? If you cannot go back to your place I do not care, that is not my problem. Now, shut up tiny grape, I am still hungry".

"Sometimes being innocent means being ignorant".