The Fox and the Crow

For our co-op writing class we have lately been rewriting stories, which includes note-taking from the original, so called "dress-ups" (good adjectives, strong verbs, who/which clauses etc. etc.) and "sentance openers" (using various techniques to begin sentances). Over the past few weeks we have been working on "The Fox and the Crow". This is my rather overloaded retelling of this old fable.

The Seizing of the Cheese
As many of us know, nearly all foxes are sly and tricky creatures. A fact as plain and simple as this, however, can be easily forgotten by one who has been blinded by flattery. Assuming you will continue reading, you shall soon see the truth of that statement.

In a small clump of forest once stood a great, old, twisted oak. A contented crow rested there one day. The tree which held the crow, also had presented the opportunity of shade, because it was a very hot day, to a wily fox. Craftily he now gazed at the crow, and more specifically her cheese.

"Beautiful raven," he began, thinking that raven sounded more endearing then crow " You are so lovely, gorgeous... ahem fabulous! I am almost overcome with your beauty, yet you sit there and have not even glanced at me." While the crow stared back at him lovingly, completely taken in by his trickery, the fox carefully crafted his next speech. Pleased with his sucsess so far, which was indeed worthy of some pride, he continued quite cleverly. "If, since your beauty splendid as it is has been so underestimated, then your voice which I have heard so highly praised must be incredible indeed." "Raven dear, won't you sing?" Her voice, it should be noted, had never been praised by anyone, because it was not by any amount of imagination worthy of praise, it was all part of the fox's clever scheme. Since all he wanted was the cheese and cared not about the crow, he was willing to go this far at least to achieve his goal.

The crow, who wasn't the brightest of creatures, was most willing to sing; because of the fox's flattery she was too pleased to remember that foxes are crafty and that she had cheese in her mouth. Singing terribly, she dropped the cheese. While the crow stared forlornly at the rapidly disappearing cheese, the fox dropped his flattery. " Your sense must be nearly as small as your singing ability, and your feathers are really very plain, but you provided me with a delicious if belated lunch, and I thank you. I wouldn't believe everything you're told next time if I were you." With that the fox strolled away with an infuriating swagger, consuming the last bit of the cleverly seized cheese.