The Big Yellow Peanut (An Adaptation of The Little Red Hen)
By: Addie S.
The air smelled sweet like sweaty socks, the sky smelled purple, (perhaps because it was) and The Big Yellow Peanut smelled like cornflakes. No one knew why, there was really no good reason – he had never even tasted cornflakes. But nevertheless, he smelled of them.
Even though the Big Yellow Peanut was the smallest of them all, everyone
still called him “big”. All of the peanuts in Nutvalley were big for peanuts. When a peanut was eaten, it grew to about the size of a large shampoo bottle and transported to Nutvalley.
Nutvalley was a very big place, (a lot of people ate peanuts), and the air smelled like sweaty socks……yummm. All peanuts love the magnificent smell of sweaty socks. Nutvalley even sold sweaty sock air fresheners! And sometimes the naughty peanuts stole socks! (For good purposes of course) Ever lost a sock and never found it? It is most likely currently being used as a scarf, a purse, or in the Big Yellow Peanut’s case, a sleeping bag. Being the smallest of them all, The Big Yellow Peanut – you would think – had a small amount of friends. But actually, out of the 9,624 peanuts in the Nutvalley, 9,617 were his friends. And every second the population grew!
One day, The Big Yellow Peanut and his best friend, Teal Peanut, were walking home from peanut school. The walk from school was 37 miles to be exact, but no one minded. Before Nutvalley, peanuts couldn’t walk at all!
“Wanna’ come to my house after school?” Teal peanut asked. “I’d love to, but I can’t. I have to read some silly fairy tale for homework”,
replied The Big Yellow Peanut. “Oh well – see you tomorrow then!” Teal peanut said as she ran off onto her street.
“Okay,” The Big Yellow Peanut whispered to himself.
Soon he found himself at home. Then he found himself unzipping his peanut pack and shuffling through his books, journals, and binders until he found the small, red book his teacher had assigned him to read. “Ugh”, The Big Yellow Peanut sighed. Then he sat down on a sock and started to read. He read aloud.
“The Little Red Hen” “Hey, that sounds cool! I like hens!” And that was all it took. Seconds later, The Big Yellow Peanut was scanning the pages of “The Little Red Hen” with complete
satisfaction and a big nutty smile on his face. After an extremely inspired Big Yellow Peanut was finished reading, he had the most genius idea in the history of ideas!!! The Little Red Hen! The Big Yellow Peanut – The Little Red Hen! Since seven and a half minutes ago he envied her so much that he wanted to be her! So he got started. “Step #1: Costume”, The Big Yellow Peanut read aloud as he wrote it down. “Perfect!” Step #2: Find some seeds Step #3: Ask for help to plant them. Step #4: Plant them Step #5: Ask for help to cut wheat Step #6: Cut wheat Step #7: Ask who will help take the wheat to the mill Step #8: Take the wheat to the mill Step #9: Ask who would help me bake bread. Step #10: Bake bread Step #11: Eat J bread The Big Yellow Peanut nodded his head. This was perfect. Now to get started. Step #1: Costume. “Costume”, The Big Yellow Peanut repeated. Then he got to work. First, he headed over to Teal Peanut’s house – for a headband. After all, he was going to be a hen and all hens needed a comb. So Teal Peanut, being his best friend, contributed a bright orange headband to The Big Yellow Peanut. He sprinted home through the winter snow with it safely tucked in his pocket.
Now he needed some construction paper for the actual “comb” part of the comb. But there was only one problem – THERE WAS NO RED CONSTRUCTION PAPER!!! And it was snowing outside so he definitely couldn’t go stop by Target to buy any. There was only one sheet of pink paper and one sheet of blue. He decided he would use the pink. It was his only choice. So he cut out a pink comb and glued it to the orange headband. It wasn’t quite as he had expected, but it worked.
Next, for the body. His only choice of color was blue, so he had his Mom trace
his body on the blue piece of construction paper. Then he cut it out. Lastly, the final touches. Some green wings made out of feathers, and chicken feet from old purple socks.
He was finally done. So he tried it on and looked in the mirror. He hadn’t really expected a pink combed, green winged, purple footed, blue hen, but it was the best he could do. So he put a check beside Step 1 and got to work on Step2.
“Find some seeds.” was step 2. “This should be easy.” Thought The Big Yellow Peanut. So he went outside to
look for some seeds. And then he suddenly remembered it was snowing. Great. He would have to search his house for a seed.
After 2 ½ hours of seed searching, The Big Yellow Peanut gave up. There were NO seeds in the house. He had searched high and low and hadn’t found a single one!
“I’m hungry”, thought The Big Yellow Peanut. So he walked into the kitchen
for a snack. At the sight of a fruit bowl, he had an idea! An apple! There were seeds in apples! The Big Yellow Peanut quickly snatched an apple from the fruit bowl, and 2 minutes later, it was gone! All except for the seed of course. So he checked Step #2 off and read Step #3, “Ask for help to plant them.” Well, he only had one seed, and “one” couldn’t ever equal “them.” So he ate seven more apples so he would have seven more seeds. Eight seeds in total.
Now to ask for help to plant them. He wanted to call the people who would
not help him, because that was how the story went. So he called up 7 of the meanest peanuts he knew. They would all definitely say no. But it was just his luck, and all seven said yes. Maybe because it was snowing and there was nothing else to do. The Big Yellow Peanut sighed. How would the story work now? He had seven peanuts coming over his house to help him. He was supposed to do it by himself! But Fuchsia Peanut, Purple Peanut, Gold Peanut, Black Peanut, Silver Peanut, White Peanut, and Rose Peanut were all going to be here soon! He needed to get ready!
He took out eight assorted sized planting pots from the garage, 2 big bags of
gardening soil, and set up a planting station in the living room. Hopefully the other peanuts would change their mind about helping; especially because now he was dressed in his hen outfit. Suddenly, the doorbell rang. It was Gold Peanut and Silver Peanut. “Please wait over there”, said The Big Yellow Peanut, pointing to the couch
in the family room. He was worried. No one could help him! That was how the story went!
“I LOVE your chicken suit”, complimented Silver Peanut. “Yes. Beautiful it is!” agreed Gold Peanut. Great. This was going to be harder
than he thought. Then the doorbell rang again. The Big Yellow Peanut let in Rose Peanut.
“I am so excited! I love planting things!” she squealed. Then she sat down with Silver Peanut and Gold Peanut. Seconds later, the doorbell rang again! He hoped the peanut behind the door wouldn’t be as complimentary as the others and that they would change their mind on staying. The Big Yellow Peanut worriedly opened the door.
“Hi!” yelled Purple Peanut, White Peanut and Black Peanut in unison. “Ooooo!” whispered Black Peanut to White Peanut. “Look at the ducky suit!
Love it!” All of them started giggling. Fuchsia Peanut walked up the porch stairs behind them.
“Hi!” cried Fuchsia Peanut. “Come in guys. Sit down on the couch with the others”, The Big Yellow Peanut
said. Everyone came in. Then everyone started planting. There were lots of smiles and too many laughs according to The Big Yellow Peanut. He could not believe it! The meanest nuts he knew were having fun at his house! He would never be just like The Little Red Hen.
No one wanted to leave and apparently Rose Peanut brought some magical
grow spray which made the seeds sprout in seconds! When The Big Yellow Peanut saw the apple trees, he thought, “Apples! Of course! Apple seeds make apples. Not Bread!”
“OMG! We should take them to the mill to be grinded into applesauce!” shouted White Peanut.
“Yes!” agreed Gold Peanut. And without even asking The Big Yellow Peanut, everyone headed to the mill. He had no choice but to go.
Still wearing his hen suit, The Big Yellow Peanut trudged with the others through the sugar-‐white snow to Purple Peanut’s mill. Apparently she had one in her backyard.
“How weird”, thought The Big Yellow Peanut. Once they got there and had grinded the apples, they had a very pleasant
(unpleasant for The Big Yellow Peanut) surprise. Instead of applesauce, the apples were grinded into goldfish crackers! He screamed when he saw them! This was a story gone wrong! First, the costume, then the apple seeds, then help , then goldfish?! Ugg!!! What was the problem?!
“Yess! Those are my favorite!” screamed Black Peanut as she scooped up a
handful of goldfish. “Me too”, chimed in the others. The Big Yellow Peanut liked goldfish too, but
since everyone had helped make them, he would have to split them up. A few minutes later, after all of the goldfish crackers were collected, Purple
Peanut’s Mom called her and all of her friends inside. “Bye Big Yellow Peanut! Take Care!” they all yelled.
“We’re coming to your house tomorrow at 1:00 sharp!” “Bye”, mumbled The Big Yellow Peanut. He took the sack of goldfish crackers and trudged home. “They’re probably coming tomorrow to take the goldfish,” he sighed. This whole day had gone wrong.
The next day at 1pm exactly, all of the peanuts showed up at The Big Yellow
Peanut’s door. He had the goldfish all ready. It was only fair to share after all. “Hello”, welcomed The Big Yellow Peanut sadly.
“Hi!” all the other peanuts smiled back. “Come in.” All the peanuts did as they were told and went and sat on The Big
Yellow Peanut’s living room sockfa (sofa). “So. Er….who wants to help me eat the goldfish?”
Rose peanut asked, “Huh?” Which was followed by several “Whats?”, “No’s!”, and a lot of confused faces. “No?” asked The Big Yellow Peanut, “Then what are you guys here for?”
“Oh you silly!” exclaimed Fuchsia Peanut, “We just wanted to thank you in person for inviting us over yesterday!”
“Yeah! We never thought we’d be friends!”, agreed White Peanut. “We never get invited anywhere.”
The Big Yellow Peanut was BLOWN AWAY! The mean nuts came over to say
thank you? “Thank you,” he said. “But are you sure you don’t want any goldfish
crackers?” Gold Peanut whispered something in Silver Peanut’s ear, and the whisper went down the line.
“Sure,” said Black Peanut.
“We’d love to”, smiled Purple Peanut. They had said yes. They wanted to share the goldfish. But this time, The Big Yellow Peanut wasn’t upset about it. So what if his plan hadn’t worked out? So what if he was going to have to split the goldfish into eighths? He had seven new friends, and he planned to keep it that way. Wait -‐ seven new friends!? That meant he was now friends with everyone in Nutvalley! A book led to seven great new friendships. Who would have thought?