The Boy Who Loved Cheese
The Boy Who Loved Cheese – Originally by William Elliot Griffis ~ Retold by Navin
Once upon a time, there was a young boy named Klaas who lived in the Netherlands. His family was poor, but their house was clean, and the children were obedient. Kate, Annie, and Sallie, Klaas’ sisters, were like three blossoming flowers. Klaas was ten years old and a sturdy boy. He was always eating, but he focused and excelled in school. Klaas was given plenty of bread and milk, but what he loved most in life was cheese. He only was able to have one slice at a meal, and he thought that the slice was always too thin. Mrs. Van Bommel, Klaas’ mother, scolded him one night after he asked each of his sisters for their slice of cheese. These four slices stayed in his stomach like lead, and Klaas went to bed in bad humor. As usual, he climbed out of the window to sit on the roof and smell the pine on the breeze. Suddenly, he saw lights floating in the distance. They rose up all through the field, and one floated right up to him! It was a tiny lantern, held by an even smaller fairy! Klaas rubbed his eyes to see if he was dreaming, but the fairy stayed in front of him! It said in a high voice, “Come with us! There’s plenty of cheese!” Klaas wondered whether he should go. He was already in trouble, and he was supposed to be sleeping. The fairy
repeated the invitation: “Come along, come, come! Have some cheese!” Several of the lights came closer, and some strong fairies lifted him up and carried him to the field. “Come and dance!” they said, “Then you’ll have cheese!” Carried away by their chiming voices, Klaas danced and laughed and sang. After the merriment, he sat down, and a bib was tied around his neck. With golden knives, the magical fairies sliced thick pieces of cheese and put them on his plate. How good it tasted! Klaas ate and ate. After a while, he stopped to rest. His stomach felt like it held cannonballs, and he had had enough cheese for the night. But the fairies could not hear him! They laughed and sang as they fed him more and more cheese! North, south, east, and west – hundreds of fairies flew out of the sky and piled huge cheeses all around him. Friesland cheese, Gouda, Leyden, Edam, Limburg, and more! Klaas could not eat any more, and he looked up. A wall of cheese, as tall as a tree, fell over and crushed him!!! He had become as flat as a Swiss cheese…
Klaas sat up with a gasp. He looked around the dew-soaked field. The morning sun was rising and there were no fairies to be seen. His stomach felt empty, and there was a wad of grass in his mouth! He had been dreaming and chewing on it! Klaas ran home and never told anyone of the nightmare of the cheese fairies. From then on, he had only the appropriate amount of food, whether it be bread, milk, or …. CHEESE!
Moral: Don’t be greedy!
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