Children's Business Review

Getting What You Want Can Sometimes Be This Simple

• 

Every story needs a beginning, and a rather good place to begin this story is by telling you about the time when Clara, a small bear who often found that the world was a peculiar place filled with puzzling people, met Aris, one of the forest’s oldest and wisest owls. 

It was an unusually warm day in autumn, the kind of day that begs one to linger with whatever they are doing, as long as what they are doing involves spending time outside. School had just begun for the forest’s youngest inhabitants and Clara, who had up until that point always loved going to school, learning from her teachers and playing with her classmates, was a very unhappy little bear. 

Clara was so unhappy that as she walked through the forest on her way home from school, teardrops gathered in her eyes and she eventually let out a sob much louder than one might expect from such a tiny bear. 

“Now what could have possibly happened to make a darling bear cub like you so sad?” Clara heard from above. 

Having believed that she was alone, Clara was startled and somewhat embarrassed at having been caught crying. As she peered into the thick foliage above her, Clara could just make out the shape of a little grey owl, peeping through the thick leaves and examining her with a look of curiosity.

“Yesterday, some bear cubs went for a swim in the stream, and they didn’t invite me,” Clara explained through her tears, not frightened at all by owl’s question but happy to have someone to talk with. “And right now, they are searching for honey,” Clara continued as the owl nodded slowly. “I love honey, and know so many good places to find it. And no one even bothered to ask me if I’d like to come along!” 

Without saying a word, the owl gracefully glided from his perch to a lower branch, not far from where Clara was now sitting. His large yellow eyes seemed to twinkle and there was an unmistakable smile on his round face.

“Do you like stories?” The owl asked Clara, who was at that point looking at him with the same amount of curiosity that he had shown towards her moments earlier.  

Clara tearfully nodded in reply and before the two were properly introduced, the owl began telling Clara the story that I’m about to share with you. 

******

In the schoolyard, behind the blue slide and near the swings, is a tiny hill of soil which has probably never come to your attention. If, by chance, you happened upon this little hill and took a few moments to watch it closely enough, you would observe a steady stream of ants, coming and going through a tiny opening found at the mound’s very top.  Unless you are an ant yourself, you would probably never guess that this unassuming opening serves as the main entrance to a rather grand ant city. 

Ant cities are marvelous places filled with long winding tunnels, plenty of hidden nooks and crannies and everything the ants need to live, work and play. Just as you’d probably find an ant city interesting, I imagine you’d be equally fascinated by the different types of ants who reside there.

If I were to describe all of the different types of ants you might come across in their cities, we’d be here for a very long time. For the purposes of telling you this story, I need only mention a few groups of ants of particular importance in every ant city: the builder ants who dig and repair, the soldier ants who protect the city, the foraging ants who gather food and the Queen who rules over everything and everyone. 

The Queen in the city I’m telling you about was a very old ant who had three daughters, all princesses and each one very much loved by the Queen. One summer’s day, the Queen decided that she didn’t want to be Queen anymore. It wasn’t that she had stopped caring about the ants in the city, in fact the well-being of the city was one of the first things she thought of every morning and, more often than not, the final thing on her mind before she drifted off to sleep at night. The reality is that ruling over the city was a hard job, made particularly difficult as the Queen grew older and the city became larger. 

So, on this particular morning, the Queen decided that rather than dealing with the day-to-day affairs of the ant city, she would like to spend the rest of her life wandering here-and-there in the sunshines, searching for her favourite thing in the entire world, the crumbs which litter the ground from the cookies that that are often gobbled up at picnics. 

And so, shortly after making this decision, the Queen announced to her daughters that in a few weeks, once she had made up her mind about what would be best for both her daughters and for the city, the Queen intended on naming one of them the city’s new Queen.  

You can imagine that the three princesses were all very excited to learn that one of them would soon be Queen. And so, in the weeks leading up to their mother’s announcement, each princess found herself speculating on what her life might be if she was indeed named Queen.

Believing that she would be a better Queen than her two sisters, the oldest princess devised a plan to prove to her mother that she was the most suitable candidate. This princess had the reputation of being the most helpful of the three princesses. If the city’s food supply was growing low, she would be one of the first ants out with the foraging ants seeking to replenish the city’s warehouses. Likewise, this princess was well known to the builder ants and would frequently compete with them to see who could dig the longest tunnel in the shortest time. And, on certain moonlit nights, the eldest princess could be seen guarding the entrance to the ant city with several of the city’s finest soldiers.  

Every morning following the Queen’s announcement, well before her two sisters would ever dream of awakening, the eldest princess sprung out of bed. Her first order of business was joining the foraging ants on their daily excursion to collect food. After finishing this work, she would meet up with the city’s construction crews and join in building new tunnels. And, as if this wasn’t enough, the eldest princess would finish each day by helping the soldier ants protect the city until late into the evening, well past the time when her sisters had retired to their beds for the evening. 

On seeing how hard her eldest daughter was working day-in and day-out, the ant Queen remarked to her eldest daughter how impressed she was that her daughter was such a hard worker. And to top it off, one day when the Queen and her three daughters were dining together, the Queen went so far as to comment that the city would be at loss if the eldest princess were not able to contribute so much of her talents and abilities to its day-to-day affairs. 

Upon hearing this praise, the eldest princess beamed with pleasure and pride and thought to herself, My mother will surely name me as the new Queen.

Realising that her sister was making quite the impression on their mother, the youngest princess began her own campaign to convince their mother that she, and not the eldest princess, would make the best Queen. Rather than trying to compete with her sister in doing things to help the ant city, the youngest princess decided to win her mother’s favour by flattery. 

In the days that followed, in fact from sunrise to sunset, the youngest princess remained close to her mother and found every reason imaginable to complement her. From her mother’s judgement in managing issues affecting the city to the daily choice of which tiara she would wear (the Queen had quite a few tiaras), the youngest princess had nothing but nice things to say to her mother. 

To the youngest princess’ delight, it didn’t take long for her efforts to pay off. “I am so glad that you’ve been spending so much time with me,” the Queen said to her smiling daughter. “Not only has our time together been pleasant, it has been a great opportunity for you to learn how the Kingdom is really run.”

As you might expect, after hearing these words, the youngest princess congratulated herself believing that she, without a doubt, would be named Queen.

For weeks the second princess, who also, aspired to be the next Queen, watched her sisters attempt to win favour with their mother. Unfortunately, quite unlike her older sister, this princess had always been rather clumsy and uncoordinated and was never much good digging tunnels, foraging food or guarding the city. And in contrast with her younger sister, the second princess had never been much good at flattery or causing others to delight in her company, as the youngest princess was prone to do. 

I wish there was something I could do to prove to my mother that I could be a good Queen, thought the second princess, who was quite preoccupied by the notion that she would be completely overlooked as a suitable candidate for running the city.  

As the days passed by, the eldest and youngest ant princesses continued their campaigns to become Queen. Several days before the Queen’s proclamation was to occur, the second princess went to speak with the Queen.  

“Mother,” the second princess began, “I know that you will soon have to decide which princess will replace you. While I am sure that you may have good reasons for naming either of my two sisters Queen, I simply wished to let you know that I would be honoured if you would give me the opportunity of being Queen. I also want to assure you that if you do choose me, I will try my best each day to serve this city as well as you have.”

Without waiting for a response from her mother, the second Princess took her leave of the Queen, returned to her chambers and brooded over all the things that she might have done differently in order to have improved her chances of being named Queen.  

The day finally came when the Queen was to announce to the entire city who would take her place. As she stepped towards the platform upon which she was to deliver her speech, a silence fell over all of the ants assembled. Now this Queen was not known for beating about the bush when she had something to say and after thanking every ant present for taking the time to be there, she announced that it was her second daughter who would succeed her as the next Queen. 

You can imagine the surprise felt by the Queen’s eldest and the youngest daughters, and probably understand that they were both somewhat upset to learn that they had been passed over. Fortunately, it didn’t take long for these two princesses to get over their disappointment and grow to accept and celebrate their sister as Queen. 

Surprisingly, neither of these princesses ever asked their mother why their sister was chosen to be Queen. It is probably for the best that neither had done so for if they had, they would have been in for a surprise. The remarkable thing is that the Queen’s decision was not based on which princess had the most impressive work-ethic or had gained the most favour but, as you may have already guessed, the Queen had largely chosen her successor based on which one of her daughters had asked her for that opportunity. 

This was a lesson that was not lost to the second princess and during her time as Queen she earned a reputation for saying what was on her mind and, more often than not, she was successful in getting her point across and having things done exactly as she wanted.

******

For several weeks, after their initial encounter, Clara and Aris didn’t have the chance to speak again. Despite this, Aris didn’t have to wait long before learning that Clara had indeed understood the lesson from his story. You see, the day following their meeting, Aris spotted Clara talking with some of the bear cubs who attended her school, and, ever since then, Clara’s been swimming in the stream and hunting for honey with these same bears.