Two Blue Pine Cones

Big Sam and Parky-Foo were good friends and lived in the forest. They loved to play hide and seek with their friends. To hide, they would turn into pine cones — which made them very hard to find. The only problem was that they were blue pine cones — they tried everything but they were always blue -- and easier to find.

Big Sam came from Rust Creek. Parky-Foo forgot where she lived before, but she remembers that everyone was friendly -- but it smelled terrible. Rust Creek produced good cooks and very talented magicians. Big Sam had a lot of talent with magic and he always spoke highly of the folks who trained him, especially Little Sam -- who could become invisible.

One day they decided to do something special. As usual, they created a lot of yummy food before starting -- they could barely eat it all, but at last they were ready to start. They wanted to create a fog that had colored layers or stripes. They had tried before but the result was real mess. Little Sam came by and suggested that they were trying to make too much fog and that a smaller amount might work. They liked this idea.

So they started in again and tried to make a small fog with only two colors -- and it worked. The colors weren't very good but they sparkled -- one was blue and one was yellow. They were very proud of the result and even Little Sam was impressed. They thought about their success for awhile but then they blew the fog away and decided to make a couple of magic cakes.

The trick was to make them taste good. The cakes that they usually made looked OK but they didn't taste very good. These cakes were special because after eating one, you could fly -- but you had to be careful since you couldn't fly for very long. So they tried their best -- and the results were not very good -- but they ate them anyway.

Then they started flying -- very low just over the ground. Their friends had become used to seeing them flying around in the forest -- so this was nothing unusual. But -- they ran into their colored fog and immediately were covered with blue and yellow stripes. They stopped flying and stood and looked at each other. Nothing ever went according to plan. Their friends tried to make them feel good -- so they all played hide and seek for the rest of the day -- but they still were blue when they turned into pine cones.