This is my longest Fictioneers story ever, even after trimming – more than twice as long as the desired hundred words. Ah well. How else could you get the chance to meet a pobble?
Thank you to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields for hosting our strange tales!
Poor Pitiful Pobble
The pobble is a fascinating animal, shy and eager to please. Rare, though, very rare – we think. What does it look like? Let me tell you a little story.
A few years back, a pobble wandered into our town. It made one big mistake: it spent the night snuggled up against the wall of a school. Morning came, and with the sunlight, lots of eight-year-olds excited about their trip to the zoo the day before.
“I wish I had a zebra with lots of stripes!” So the pobble changed its hindquarters to be black and white and stripey, because it wanted that child to be happy.
“Who wants a zebra? I want a tiger to chase the zebra.” And the pobble’s middle was covered with orange and black stripes, so it could please the second child.
“Well, I want a giraffe with a great big long neck and I could sit on its head and see right over the top of the school.” Feeling its head shoot high into the air made the pobble dizzy.
“I wish I had an elephant with a long long trunk.” That was too much. The pobble was too shy to trumpet like an elephant, but it couldn’t help letting out a faint unhappy “Bleep”.
Animal control rescued the poor thing, of course. No, you can’t see it. It’s been invisible ever since.
A Number of Things 
Lovely! If ever there was a justification for being yourself – this is it. 🙂
Glad you like it! Unfortunately the pobble WAS being itself – that’s the trouble with being one 😉
A story with a moral Sharon, well done I think its my favourite of all your stories 🙂
Thank you very much, Gilly! And I think the moral sneaked in behind my back while I was trying to be silly. Maybe that’s the best way to include morals.
reads like a children’s story
Oh good! I wanted it to sound like it was for children.
that’s good then 🙂
Dear Sharon,
I could see this story as a children’s book with ullustrations. Very cute.
Shalom,
Rochelle
PS And you thought I was going to say something about your wordcount. 😉
Thank you, Rochelle!
PS – You’re never predictable! I just let you surprise me – it’s more fun that way.
Who’s counting? 🙂 A perfect children’s tale for all our inner children.
janet
Who’s counting? Well, I did, and I took out about thirty words, but then I decided the repetitions were important to the children’s story atmosphere I was trying for. Glad you like it!
Lovely. A perfect children’s tale. This is definitely one of my favourites this week.
Incidentally, not sure if you know this but ‘the pobble who has no toes’ was an Edward Lear rhyme I remember from childhood.
What a great compliment! Thank you.
I don’t remember ever coming across the rhyme in question, though anything’s possible. Or maybe pobbisle.
(I just looked the poem up, and it’s admirably silly, and totally unfamiliar.) As far as I can tell, “pobble” just came into my head as the name for that critter, and refused to leave.
Excellent, creative ideas. Love the way the Pobble recreated his looks to please!
Thank you! Yes – the pobble is all about doing whatever people want 😉
I enjoyed your story and liked that you used the vicinity of a school as the setting.
I’m glad you enjoyed it! (But I have to admit that what I really cared about was having a group of kids talk about different animals. I only located the story next to a school because it was a good way to bring together some children who had just gone on a field trip. 😉 )
Sharon, you have a great chidren’s story here. A very enjoyable read, well done
Dee
Thank you so much! I was trying for a children’s story – it’s great to be told I succeeded.
Love this. I agree with Rochelle and can see this as a book with illustrations. Every kid needs a pobble, but I think the pobbles need to steer clear of the kids.
Thank you!
Sounds like the pobbles have problems, doesn’t it?
Poor creature, it was just trying to make people happy. Actually, sounds like a good metaphor for trying to make everyone happy at the same time.
Yes, alas for the pobble. I think you’re right about the metaphor – the odd thing is that I didn’t notice it was there until after I finished writing the story. 😉 I was just trying to come up with an entertaining little children’s story that tied in to the photo.