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The Sea Mouse

A tiny mouse was born between two bags of corn kernels in a cargo ship’s hold. Her mother had been chased away and had disappeared out of view. Frightened, the baby mouse snuggled between the bags and waited. The waves rocked the vessel gently and she soon fell asleep.

A loud horn startled her out of her dreams. The ship stopped, and many voices were heard, along with footsteps going back and forth.

The mouse stood still, her heart pounding like a drum roll, until someone lifted up one of the bags and yelled, “Marcos, hand me the broom. I found another mouse!”

As he turned to look at the mouse again, she had disappeared. She was already making her way out of the boat, scurrying between people’s legs, down the ramp and onto the dock. Someone stepped on her tail, but she managed to escape.

The baby mouse stopped running and looked around. The warm sand felt good under her paws. The salty wind blew gently between her ears, carrying dolphins’ conversations and seagulls’ cries.

The mouse could see the ship from far away. She watched as sailors, appearing to be the size of corn kernels, went up and down the ramp, carrying wooden cases and other supplies.

The baby mouse realized how hungry she was. She nibbled on a seaweed and spat it back out. She was lucky enough to find a plump, juicy berry to fill up her minuscule stomach. She lingered a bit longer to watch the sunset, reflecting on the sea in a million colors, and then yawned.

Using a piece of sea sponge as a pillow, the little mouse snuggled in an empty seashell and drifted off to sleep. That was the beginning of her new life as a sea mouse.

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On May 22, 1859, Arthur Conan Doyle was born to an affluent, strict Irish-Catholic family in Edinburgh, Scotland. Although Doyle’s family was well-respected in the art world, his father, Charles, who was a life-long alcoholic, had few accomplishments to speak of. Doyle’s mother, Mary, was a lively and well-educated woman who loved to read. She particularly delighted in telling her young son outlandish stories. Her great enthusiasm and animation while spinning wild tales sparked the child’s imagination. As Doyle would later recall in his biography, “In my early childhood, as far as I can remember anything at all, the vivid stories she would tell me stand out so clearly that they obscure the real facts of my life.”

At the age of 9, Doyle bid a tearful goodbye to his parents and was shipped off to England, where he would attend Hodder Place, Stonyhurst — a Jesuit preparatory school — from 1868 to 1870. Doyle then went on to study at Stonyhurst College for the next five years. For Doyle, the boarding-school experience was brutal: many of his classmates bullied him, and the school practiced ruthless corporal punishment against its students. Over time, Doyle found solace in his flair for storytelling and developed an eager audience of younger students.

In 1886, newly married and still struggling to make it as an author, Doyle started writing the mystery novel A Tangled Skein. Two years later, the novel was renamed A Study in Scarlet and published in Beeton’s Christmas Annual. A Study in Scarlet, which first introduced the wildly popular characters Detective Sherlock Holmes and his assistant, Watson, finally earned Doyle the recognition he had so desired. It was the first of 60 stories that Doyle would pen about Sherlock Holmes over the course of his writing career. Also, in 1887, Doyle submitted two letters about his conversion to Spiritualism to a weekly periodical called Light.

The prolific author also composed four of his most popular Sherlock Holmes books during the 1890s and early 1900s: The Sign of Four (1890), The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892), The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1894) and The Hound of Baskervilles, published in 1901. In 1893, to Doyle’s readers’ disdain, he had attempted to kill off his Sherlock Holmes character in order to focus more on writing about Spiritualism. In 1901, however, Doyle reintroduced Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of Baskervilles and later brought him back to life in The Adventure of the Empty House so the lucrative character could earn Doyle the money to fund his missionary work. Doyle also strove to spread his faith through a series of written works, consisting of The New Revolution (1918), The Vital Message (1919), The Wanderings of a Spiritualist (1921) and History of Spiritualism (1926).

In 1928, Doyle’s final twelve stories about Sherlock Holmes were published in a compilation entitled The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes.

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Isang punong mataas

Walang tinatakutan

Siya ay may angking lakas

Ngunit di masamahan

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Somebody to you by BANNERS

I don’t wanna die or fade away

I just wanna be someone (2x)

Dive and disappear without a trace

I just wanna be someone

Well, doesn’t everyone?

And if you feel the great dividing

I wanna be the one you’re guiding

‘Cause I believe that you could lead the way

I just wanna be somebody to someone, oh

I wanna be somebody to someone, oh

I never had nobody and no road home

I wanna be somebody to someone

And if the sun’s upset and the sky goes cold

Then if the clouds get heavy and start to fall

I really need somebody to call my own

I wanna be somebody to someone

Someone to you (4x)

I don’t even need to change the world

I’ll make the moon shine just for your view

I’ll make the starlight circle the room

And if you feel like night is falling

I wanna be the one you’re calling

‘Cause I believe that you could lead the way

I just wanna be somebody to someone, oh

I wanna be somebody to someone, oh

I never had nobody and no road home

I wanna be somebody to someone

And if the sun’s upset and the sky goes cold

Then if the clouds get heavy and start to fall

I really need somebody to call my own

I wanna be somebody to someone

Someone to you (4x)

The kingdom come, the rise, the fall

The setting sun above it all

I just wanna be somebody to you

I just wanna be somebody to someone, oh

I wanna be somebody to someone, oh

I never had nobody and no road home

I wanna be somebody to someone

And if the sun’s upset and the sky goes cold

Then if the clouds get heavy and start to fall

I really need somebody to call my own

I wanna be somebody to someone

Someone to you (5x)

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The Wolf & the Crane

A Wolf had been feasting too greedily, and a bone had stuck crosswise in his throat. He could get it neither up nor down, and of course he could not eat a thing. Naturally that was an awful state of affairs for a greedy Wolf.

So away he hurried to the Crane. He was sure that she, with her long neck and bill, would easily be able to reach the bone and pull it out.

“I will reward you very handsomely,” said the Wolf, “if you pull that bone out for me.”

The Crane, as you can imagine, was very uneasy about putting her head in a Wolf’s throat. But she was grasping in nature, so she did what the Wolf asked her to do.

When the Wolf felt that the bone was gone, he started to walk away.

“But what about my reward!” called the Crane anxiously.

“What!” snarled the Wolf, whirling around. “Haven’t you got it? Isn’t it enough that I let you take your head out of my mouth without snapping it off?”

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“People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”

Meaning: Don’t criticize others for something you also do.

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What falls, but does not break, and what breaks but does not fall? Night falls and day breaks.