Peaceful Peter

Here's a story I wrote about two and a half years or so ago. I actually wrote it and gave it to Lisa for her birthday, so I hope she doesn't mind my using it. It just amused me the other day to go back and read it, and I hope it will amuse you as well.

Peaceful Peter

Once upon a time, a long time ago, there lived a nice, young couple. The man's name was Anthony, a poor but handsome acrobat. The woman's name was Diana, she was an extremely beautiful girl, who could run as fast as a deer and shoot an arrow straighter than Robin Hood himself.

Diana and Anthony met when Anthony, who used to work at the circus, helped Diana and her twelve maidens stop Anthony's ringmaster from beating a poor unicorn. After that, he said to her. . . but that's a totally different story that must be told another time.

Diana had a strange power which made it so that she could tell which animals had good hearts and which had bad. In that way, she could safely hunt and eat the bad-hearted animals with a good conscience. She kept this power to herself, however, and never told anyone how she had gained it.

One day, Anthony and Diana had a baby (that is, Diana had the baby, Anthony just waited and prayed). They had a son, and Diana wanted to name him Peter. Anthony hesitated (for who wanted a son who's name meant "rock", they might as well name him "Pebble", it was that ridiculous to Anthony), but he loved Diana very much, and he thought that Peter was a nice name (despite that it meant "rock"), so he agreed, and it was settled.

So Peter grew. He grew into a sensitive boy, who was very kind-hearted and dreamy. He also was very smart, and he invented all kinds of things, some of them useful, some of them ridiculous, and one or two of them cleverly "harmful" (Diana found out this through some ingenious booby traps that "were around to help protect everything"). But Peter's inventions didn't hurt anybody, and if they did, Peter would go and so earnestly apologize that nobody could stay angry at him for long.

Peter was not spoiled, however, and he soon grew into a hard-working young man, and he decided to become an inventor, which nobody took as a surprise and all thought that he would be quite successful at it.

So Peter worked. But one day Peter got very sick. In fact, so sick, that the doctor ordered a trip to a wild, rain-forested island with a warm climate. So, he paid for the fare for the boat trip that he was to take (which he got the money by selling a man a burglar system that if set, and if anything on his property was touched, the lights would pop on and there was a surround sound system that a recorded voice would say: "Get off my property! If I don't see you gone in five seconds- well, let's just say that I have a brand-new gun and I'm longing to use it if given the chance!" By that time, the owner would have had the chance to hear the alarm and get up and see to the rest, if the burglar hadn't taken off already. He also got it by selling lots of pairs of glow-in-the-dark sunglasses, but lets get back to the story).

When he got there, he had a wonderful time. He had been there about four weeks, and he was just feeling all better, when he decided to take one more camping trip before going home. So, gathering the supplies that he needed, Peter went one fifth of a mile into the rain forest for a camping trip. When he got into his sleeping bag for the night, he had been there for only five or ten minutes when he heard a hissing sound, so opening his eyes, he saw before him a cobra snake before him, hissing vilely under his hood.

"Sssso," the snake said in a slippery voice, "you came here into the rain foresst, well, ssssss. How about you and I have a little match, sssss. Whoever winss will live, whoever losess will lose his life, sssss. A match to the death, sso you might ssay, sssss."

"What would be the gain of that?" Peter asked doubtfully.

"Nothing," the snake said, "Nothing at all, ssss. You sssee, I would just kill you anyway and get it done with, sssss. But I feel like I want a little fun, sssss. Sso you ssee, I'm being fair and giving you a chance to defend yoursself, ssssssssss."

Peter, not knowing what to do, being taken by surprise, spoke, "Well, all right, I guess it's every man for himself, or every snake for himself if you catch my meaning." The cobra replied with a "sssssss." So they began to fight. The fight was very uninteresting, and it went on for a very long time, so I won't go into details. Let's just say that Peter was just about to die, when he took a knife and cut the cobra into twelve pieces and threw the pieces into the fire.
Immediately, he wished he hadn't, for one reason, burning snake really doesn't smell very nice, but for the real reason, Peter realized that maybe he had just killed a good-hearted snake, whose coils were only temporarily crooked, and therefore, it would have been just as bad as murder in killing that snake (so Peter thought anyway). So Peter wept, and did what any sensible man would do…… run home to his Mommy (or Daddies are just as good, but in this case Peter ran home to his Mommy).

When he got home he told his Mother what he had done, and explained how sorry he felt, and how he wished that he could have been able to tell if the snake was good at heart or not. Diana listened thoughtfully, and knowing that Peter wasn't trying to have her tell him how to own such powers (for she knew that Peter did not know the power that she possessed) she said to him, "Peter, do not be troubled, for I know how you may attain such powers to tell if an animal means good or evil so that you will not make the same sort of mistake again (though I, personally believe that you did right in killing that snake, but one must not judge too quickly)," Peter looked up hopefully, "Go to the great Himalayan mountains of Nepal, and gather some snow there and put it in a jar, then, go to the muddy Nile river in Egypt, and gather some of the water in that same jar. Next, go to the jungles of South America, and put a shoot of sugarcane in your jar. Lastly, go to Italy, and put some of the finest dirt in the jar. Then you must drink the ingredients that you have mixed and then you will be able to tell if a creature means ill or not by if you see a certain green gleam in their eye, that will make the creature looked hideous and evil in your sight, then you will know that the animal is bad-hearted. If the animal has no such gleam, then you will know that the creature has a good heart, and harm them not. You shall tell this if you gather the ingredients that I have told you of in just the right order and if you drink all of it." Diana looked at her hopeful son and smiled as he kissed her, "Farewell," she said, and Peter left.

Peter did just as his mother told him to, and he found out that she was exactly right, as he had believed (he found out this, by seeing two mice fighting, one bad mouse that was attacking, and one good mouse that was defending himself. Peter had helped the good mouse that was exhausted, and then had a nice chat with him). Peter also found that the mixture didn’t taste as awful as he had anticipated. First the drink had been bitter, but then it had gradually gotten tastier and sweeter until it was the best drink he had ever tasted.

As Peter sailed home to tell his mother, the ship he was sailing in got caught in a ferocious storm, and the ship was tossed about like a toy boat. Just then, a sea monster decided to attack the ship, and Peter was battling off the sea monster with the other men when it occurred to Peter that maybe the monster wasn’t evil. So, going closer to the sea monster’s eyes, he saw that there wasn’t any evil green gleam in them. So Peter spoke to the sea monster and said "I say, old chap, why are you attacking us?"

The sea monster looked surprised, but replied "The fish can see me from a good ways off, far enough away to escape before I can get to them anyway, no ship has come through here for eight months, and I’m starving! I don’t have anything against you, you know, but a fellow has to eat."

Peter listened to this thoughtfully, and he said to the sea monster "I understand, completely, but maybe I can help. What’s your favorite kind of fish?"

The sea monster, surprised again, replied, "Salmon."

"Salmon’s hard to come by, but I’ll see what I can do, if you’ll put off eating us for a sec," said Peter, and he disappeared. He came back several minutes later with a huge net of wiggling, wet salmon that he had just caught on the other side of the ship where they couldn’t see the sea monster. "Open up!" Peter said, and as the monster opened his mouth he poured all the fish into its gaping mouth.

"By Jove, thanks!" the sea monster replied with his mouth full (which was rather rude, but he meant well, and he really was grateful), and the large creature slid off into the sea.

Peter kept on doing such things to preserve peace between man and beast. Like, one other time, a wicked man in China wanted the throne in China, so he decided to get rid of his nephew, the prince, who was the rightful heir to the throne. So the man secretly tied up the prince and hung him over a small pond that was filled with starving crocodiles. And, putting a fire under the rope that held the prince suspended above the crocodiles, he left him. Peter heard of this, and hastened there quickly, and, noticing that the crocodiles weren’t evil, just hungry, he said to them "I say, have you ever thought of becoming vegetarians?"

"Why, no," the crocodiles replied in surprise. Five more threads in the hot rope snapped.

You should try it," Peter said to the crocodiles, "Here, come over here to the edge, and I’ll give all of you some carrots, I wager that you’ll find them much tastier than meat." More rope snapped.

The crocodiles came over, and opened their big jaws and let Peter pour a barrelful of carrots into each of their mouths. "Not bad," one of the crocodiles said thoughtfully, " You know, I think I’ll take your advice, this is pretty good," he said to Peter. The other crocodiles nodded in agreement. More rope snapped.

"Good," Peter said, "I’ll keep about two hundred barrels of carrots over here, you can have them anytime." More rope snapped.

"Oh, and by the way, could you please catch that boy that’s about to fall and bring him to me?" Peter asked casually. The crocodiles nodded and went and waited for the prince to fall so that they could catch him. "SNAP!" The rope broke and the prince was carried safely to shore.

Peter did many, many things similar to these things, both great matters and small. He did such a good job at keeping peace between man and beast, that Peter became known as "Peaceful Peter". And so it was, Peter kept on helping to keep the peace until he died at a ripe old age of 427 years.

The End