Chapter 1: Growing Better All The Time

It was a sunny day when I was sitting in front of my desk, finishing my invention. Sometimes I could hear distant cheerings of children outside, and whenever it happened, I felt something strange. Something that made me feel like joining them.

"Is this what they call as lonely...?" I wondered.

But I couldn't go. I was afraid that they would call me a weirdo. Who wouldn't call a boy who wears dark outfit even though it's sunny outside, wears thick glasses, and prefers secluding himself to make devices a weirdo?

I continued my work until I finally finished the device. A foldable pocket-sized radar-shaped device which is capable of driving birds away from an area around it.

"Now let's test it," I said, folding the device and putting it in my pocket.

I walked out of my house, which was a tree house perfectly hidden by the leaves, walked past Blackberry Bushes, through the Huckleberry Briar, and finally I was in the outfield. I then noticed a group of children coming from the front. I was scared and didn't want to meet them, so I quickly went hiding behind a nearby bush. I looked around and saw five kids, four girls and one boy to be exact, running by. I decided to follow them quietly, but I ended up losing their track. Getting tired, I sat down under a tree to take some rest, only to fall asleep a few minutes later.

I didn't know how long I was asleep. When I woke up, I walked some more to find any suitable place to test the device. Not long after, I noticed the same kids coming from the other way, so I hid myself again. While they were passing by, I noticed them carrying gardening equipments, and a little bit dirty with dirt covering their clothes. Seeing those gave me a hunch that I've got an opportunity to test my device.

I walked to the way they came from, and ended up seeing an area of land which has been plowed and marked with flower signs. Just as I had thought, they intended to make a garden there. I picked the device from my pocket, put it in the middle of the area, and turned it on.

"Now birds won't come eating the seeds," I thought. "Time to go home and let nature takes care of itself,"

A few days later, I went to the area to check the progress. I arrived there quite early in the morning, only to see the area devastated by a legion of crows.

"What's wrong with the device? I made it to drive birds away, not to attract crows!" I wondered, rushing into the legion to find the device and turn it off.

After I had turned the device off, all the crows went away. But I was sure that some of them would return. I looked around, seeing an area that was ruined because of my own fault for not testing it in my place first.

"If the kids find out that this is all my fault, they all will hate me for sure," I thought, leaving the place quickly.

At home I took a look at the device and discovered that I really had made a mistake in the making. As the result, the device worked the opposite way of what it was supposed to be. It took some hours but I managed to fix the problem. Then I took a different device from my shelf and left home carrying the two devices.

I walked to the area once again to drive the rest of the crows away from the field so I could use the other device. However, when I arrived there I saw the five kids driving away the crows using scarecrows modeled like themselves.

"Old fashioned way. Simple but effective," I thought, feeling relieved that they themselves had solved the problem I have caused. "There's no need to use Scarecrow then. I'll just use Nature's Blessing from here without their knowing,"

I then put the other device on the ground and turned it on. The small sphere on top of the device glowed a green aura and made all seeds on the area grow before the kids' eyes. I could hear the girl in strawberry hat happily shouting "Great galloping gooseberries!"

I left the place, feeling sure that someday I would be friends with them. But not for then since I was still not confident about it.

-End of Chapter 1-

Referenced episode: "Growing Better All The Time" (A short episode featured in one Care Bears DVD)