Mr. Fiddle’s Monster
by Nancy I. Sanders
In the unhappy town of Tinkerville, there lived a purple jellybean monster. He was a very big monster and stole jellybeans from children.
Mr. Fiddle owned a candy store that sold many kinds of jellybeans. It was the only store in town that had jellybeans. But it was not safe for children to buy them there because the monster always watched Mr. Fiddle’s store very carefully.
If the purple jellybean monster saw a boy or girl go into Mr. Fiddle’s store, he would go down to the corner of the street and hide behind a big fence. When the child came out with a bag of jelly beans and walked past the fence, the purple monster jumped out. The child dropped her bag of jellybeans, and the monster gobbled them all up.
Mr. Fiddle got very angry with what was happening. “Every child in this town is afraid to buy jellybeans!” he cried. “What we must do is put an end to this!”
During the next few nights, Mr. Fiddle stayed up very late to build a special trap to catch the purple jellybean monster. One morning when it was finished, he moved it to the street outside his store. In the corner of the trap, he put a big bag of some of his most delicious tasting jellybeans. Then he went inside the store and waited.
It was early and the purple jellybean monster was just waking up. In the middle of a big stretch, he suddenly smelled some jellybeans. But he hadn’t seen any children go into Mr. Fiddle’s store! Carefully, he went behind the fence and peeked out. There, sitting outside Mr. Fiddle’s store was a huge bag of jellybeans.
The purple jellybean monster ran as fast as he could to get the bag of jellybeans, not even caring that they were in a cage. Just as he was about to eat them, Mr. Fiddle hurried out of his store and slammed the door of the cage shut.
Mr. Fiddle gave a shout of triumph. “I caught him! I caught him!” he yelled. “I caught him!”
When they heard all the yelling coming from outside Mr. Fiddle’s store, mothers and fathers stopped what they were doing to come see what had happened. All the children in town came running, too. When they saw the purple jellybean monster locked in a cage, everyone in Tinkerville gave a great big cheer, “Hurrah for Mr. Fiddle!”
People clapped, and they cheered some more. Children danced happy little jigs in the street. The people were so excited that Mr. Fiddle opened up his candy store and passed out free jellybeans to everyone he saw. Everyone, that is, except the purple jellybean monster.
When the noise died down, Mr. Fiddle spoke to the monster. “If you ever want to come out of that cage and eat another jellybean, you’ve got to change your ways.”
Mr. Fiddle went on with his plan. “If you agree to be nice and work in my store,” he said, “I will give you two jellybeans of your choice for each bag of candy that you sell. If you don’t agree, you have to stay in this cage and just eat bread and water.”
The purple jellybean monster looked around. The though of never having another jellybean was too awful to bear. After a lot of careful thought, he decided to work for Mr. Fiddle. He just HAD to eat jellybeans.
The town of Tinkerville became a different town. The boys and girls were happy once again. The parents didn’t have to worry about their children’s candy begin taken by a monster. Mr. Fiddle had someone to help in the store.
And the purple jellybean monster? Why, so many people came to Mr. Fiddle’s candy store just to say they bought candy from a monster, that he had hundreds and hundreds of jellybeans to eat every day of whatever flavor he wanted.
