The Dandelion Seed

One warm Summer, long, long ago, in a garden grew a Dandelion with a tall green stem and hair of bright yellow and, as dandelions do, when the time came, the dandelions hair became white as its yellow petals were replaced by feathery seeds.

And all the seeds were very excited because they knew that when the big wind blew they would all be carried on the wind to some distant place where they would grow up into dandelions just like their mother.

“Blow big wind blow!”, the little Dandelion seeds all said to the wind, “So we can go flying and then we can grow into bright dandelions”.

And when the Summer wind heard the seeds, it took a deep breath and it blew with all its might upon the dandelion and when it did this all the dandelions went flying upon the wind.

“Wheee!”, they all said, “Look out world here we come”.

But one little dandelion seed was still clinging on to the flower.

“What’s wrong little seed”, asked the Dandelion, “Why haven’t you let go”.

“I’m afraid”, said the seed, “Anything might happen to me. What if I get eaten by a bird or what if I get caught in a spider web?”.

“But good things may happen too”, said the Dandelion, “You have to risk the bad if you want the good”.

“Couldn't I just stay here?”, said the little seed, “With you where it’s safer?”.

“My time is ending little seed”, replied the Dandelion, “If you stay with me, for certain, you’ll perish with me. Life is short and full of risks but if you let go, you’ll see, it can be a life of sunshine too”.

But the seed wouldn’t let go. It was still too afraid.

“Please”, said the Dandelion to the wind, “Will you help?”.

And so the wind blew again; it blew with all its might and the dandelion swayed back and forth as it blew but no matter how hard it blew, the dandelion seed still clung on and refused to let go.

So the wind made itself into a gentle summer breeze and it tickled the little dandelion seed.

First it tickled its head, then it tickled its toes, then it tickled it all over until the dandelion seed couldn’t stop itself from laughing.

“Oh, stop, stop tickling me”, said the little dandelion seed, letting go of the dandelion to protect itself from further tickles.

As soon as the Dandelion seed let go however, the wind took a deep breath and blew again with all its might.

And this time, the dandelion seed, rather than clinging on, went flying far across the garden and over the garden gate.

“Oh help! Help!”, said the little seed as he saw the dandelion get further away, “No. Please. Come back”.

“I can’t come back. It’s you who’s going away from me”, said the Dandelion to the seed, “But don’t be afraid little seed; never stop hoping and you’ll find somewhere to call home”.

“Don’t be what?”, said the little seed, flying so far away from the Dandelion that he couldn’t hear her anymore, “Never stop what?”.

But then, as the seed was feeling bad about what had just happened, something else happened that was far worse.

Down came the seed, like a little parachute but instead of landing in a nice, soft green field, it landed on a hard, cold, concrete pavement.

“Oh no”, said the seed, looking around it and seeing acres of grey, then calling to the wind, it said, “Keep blowing wind. You didn’t blow hard enough”.

But the wind was all out of breath and couldn’t hear the little seed beneath the noise of rumbling motorcars and lorries that were constantly rushing by the pavement.

Suddenly, however, the seed saw something else; a little black beetle that was scurrying by.

“Hello, there”, said the seed to the beetle, “Could you help me? I don’t have any legs to scurry with like you. I need to reach a green field so I can grow. Perhaps you can carry me on your back”.

“Carry you on my back?”, said the beetle in an irritated voice, “I have enough problems of my own to worry about without being a taxi service for Dandelion seeds. My legs are for running away from birds and all sorts of other big nasty creatures that want to eat me”.

“But once I get to a field I can grow into a big dandelion and you can hide beneath my leaves”, said the seed.

“And how long is that going to take?”, said the beetle, “No, I’m sorry but it’s a hard fact of life; as hard as this grey concrete or the shell upon my back that every creature has to fend for itself in this world and if you don’t like it, well tell your troubles to the beetle in the sky”.

“The beetle in the sky?”, asked the Dandelion seed.

The beetle pointed with one of its legs to a big black cloud that was slowly crawling across the sky.

“It is he that made life so hard but who makes up for the harshness of life by taking every poor beetle into the rotten wood of heaven”, said the beetle.

“Rotten wood of heaven?”, asked the Dandelion seed, even more confused.

“Of course”, said the beetle, “Beetles love rotten wood and so heaven must be made of rotten wood”.

“Oh”, said the seed, “Well seeds love green fields. Perhaps there is a seed heaven that is a big green field”.

The beetle looked at the seed as if the seed had said something crazy,

“Seeds don’t go to heaven”, said the beetle, “Only beetles go to heaven”.

Just then, however, the seed saw an enormous shadow pass over them; it was the shadow of a bird that had seen the little scurrying beetle.

“Oh no, help!”, said the beetle, scurrying away as fast as its tiny beetle legs could carry it towards a crack in the pavement.

Fortunately, just as the bird came to land beside the seed and started to peck at the ground, the beetle managed, leaping through the air, to land in the crack that was too small for the birds beak to fit into.

“The sky beetle be praised”, he heard the little beetle say.

But then the bird, spreading and flapping its wings, started to take off again only, now that the seed looked down he saw that he was not on the concrete pavement anymore but high above it.

“I’m flying again”, he said.

But he was not blowing on the wind this time; his feathered head had gotten stuck to the feathers of the bird.

“Oh, fly somewhere where there are green fields”, said the seed to the bird, “That’s where I want to be”.

But the bird didn’t land in a green field; it landed in its nest high in a tree and the feather it was stuck to got caught on the edge of the nest.

“Oh no”, said the seed, feeling dismayed as, looking around it saw leaves and branches, “This isn’t where I want to be”.

But then the seed heard a voice,

“It’s dark in here”, said the voice, “I’m frightened”.

And, looking round, the seed saw that the voice was coming from inside one of the large speckled eggs in the nest.

“Don’t be frightened”, said the seed, “You’re just inside an egg. You’ve got to peck at it with your beak if you want to hatch out”.

“What is a beak?”, said the voice from inside the egg.

“That thing at the front of your face”, said the seed, “Keep pecking and you’ll break through the shell”.

Suddenly, from inside the egg, the seed heard a loud pecking noise and then it saw the shell of the egg begin to crack as a little beak broke though it and the beak was followed soon after by a foot and then another foot; then the whole head of a baby bird popped out of the top of the egg, looking left and right like a periscope, its bird eyes widening with wonder.

“What’s this?”, asked the baby bird.

“It’s a nest”, said the seed, “Birds build them to lay eggs in”.

“Wow its big”, said the little bird, spreading its wings and breaking free from what was left of its egg.

“Oh, that’s nothing”, said the seed, “You should see the world outside the nest. It’s really gigantic”.

The baby bird hopped to the edge of the nest and peered over the edge, its beak gasping as it saw the ground far below, stretching out for miles and miles.

But then the bird turned to the little dandelion seed.

“But what are you?”, asked the bird.

“I’m a dandelion seed”, the seed replied, “The wind was blowing me to a green field somewhere but I landed on a pavement and got stuck to the wing of a bird and now I am here”.

But then the little seed had an idea; it asked the baby bird if it would use its beak to nudge the feather it was stuck to out of the nest.

Fortunately, the little bird was happy to help the seed and when it had nudged the feather from the nest the feather, because it was very light, floated on the wind.

In fact it floated all the way down to the ground and as it did the seed said to itself,

“Oh, I hope it lands in a green field”.

But then, sadly, looking down the seed realised that it was not in a field but on the surface of a river and floating downstream.

The seed sighed sadly,

“Oh, I don’t know if I shall ever reach my green field”, it said.

But then the seed saw a big silver fish swimming past and asked it,

“Excuse me, Mr Fish but could you tell me where this river is going? Is it going to a green field?”.

The fish laughed,

“Why, no”, it said, “All rivers flow to the sea”.

“But I don’t want to go to the sea”, said the little seed, feeling depressed, “Dandelions don’t grow in the sea. I want to go to a green field”.

Just then, however, the seed heard a loud splash and, up ahead, he saw a fish hook dangling from a line into the water with a wriggling worm upon the end.

“Ulp!”, said the fish, seeing the hook and worm and looking nervous, “I’m getting out of here before I get caught”.

But then, fortunately for the little seed, it was the feather he was floating upon and not the fish that got caught on the fisherman’s hook.

Of course, when the fisherman reeled in the feather he was just annoyed that he hadn’t caught any fish and, removing the feather from the hook, threw it over his shoulder like it was rubbish.

But the seed didn’t mind because, looking round about it, it now saw green grass and wild flowers.

“I must have landed on the riverbank”, said the Dandelion seed, cheerily, “Oh, it’s not a green field but it will do”.

And it was not long after that that the seed started to grow in the soil of the river bank; it grew and it grew until finally, instead of a little seed it was a dandelion with a tall green stem and two broad leaves and hair of bright yellow and just as its mother had promised it had a life of sunshine too.