TukTuk, the Fire truck
TukTuk, the fire truck lived in Adventureland’s capital city, Super-Week. Now, there are three strange words in this sentence, aren’t there? Let’s look at them one by one, and see what they mean. Adventureland is a country that is full of adventures. Its citizens love that the towns always hold some kind of new surprise for them. Sometimes the rivers turn into roller coasters for a day, and the children can travel to school on them. Other times, it’s raining pancakes, so all day, little ones and grownups alike, can fill their tummies with their favourite dessert. That is only if they like pancakes…
And why is Adventureland’s capital called Super-Week, you might ask? Obviously, it is because every day of the week holds a super adventure. Mondays are days for gentle rain. Every week, gentle, summer rain falls for one whole hour. Even in winter. These days everybody puts on their wellies and raincoats, and together, everybody jumps into the puddles, or tries to jump across them. On Tuesdays, cute Fur-munchkins come to have everyone pet them. Who doesn’t want to pet them, can play hide-and-seek or throw water balloons with them. Wednesdays are for rainbow slides, Thursdays for cloud derby, Fridays for chocolate-mountain climbing, Saturdays for night circus (because the next day there is no school there either), and on Sundays everyone can have a rest from the week’s adventures in flower-hammocks.
Now, that we know what Adventureland and Super-Week are, let’s see, why are little fire truck is called TukTuk.
When TukTuk was a baby fire truck, he was afraid of fire. Whenever he saw even just a little match being lit, he started to stutter, and instead of calling someone for help, he could only say tul-tuk-tuk. It didn’t take long for his classmates to start mocking him, because who has ever seen a fire truck that is afraid of fire?
With every mock, TukTuk kept more and more to himself, and after a while, he didn’t even want to go to school. But he didn’t tell this to his parents, because he knew, that they had to work to make sure everything was in order in Adventureland, in Super-Week, and that all the daily adventures could go down peacefully.
TukTuk had a friend, Dodo, the police car. He wasn’t called like this because he stuttered, this simply was his name. Dodo never made fun of TukTuk, he gladly left the others to play with him, and they planned out together how they will protect the peace of the daily adventures in Super-Week, when they grow up. When they imagined this, in his head, TukTuk never stuttered. He did hundreds of heroic things, saving the adventure of the day and the people of Super-Week.
So in his head, TukTuk was never afraid, on the contrary, he was brave indeed. But whenever the end of the day came, and he had to leave the safety of his peaceful corner in the classroom, he went back to being the shy and stammering fire truck, who was afraid of fire, more than anything else, and who felt ashamed.
It happened so one usual Tuesday, that TukTuk and Dodo heard frightened screams in the school. “Fire! There is a fire, kids, hurry! We need to leave the school quickly” said their teacher carefully, but uneasily. Dodo hurried ahead with the others, so he could get out as quickly as possible. No one noticed, however, that TukTuk was so scared, he couldn’t move a muscle. He needed quite some time to gather his strength and start his way out. By then, the whole school was up in flames. TukTuk held his hose out in front of him, to make his way through the flames. He was almost outside, when he heard frightened crying. A tiny little munchkin – because Tuesdays were the days of the Fur-munchkins - was crying in the corner, shaking, in his hand a match that he had played with and accidentally started the fire. TukTuk, looking at the scared little Fur-munchkin, didn’t hesitate for a second. He fought his way through the flames, bravely, to the Fur-munchkin, and stuck out his ladder with the basket on top. The frightened little munchkin jumped quickly into the basket, and TukTuk whirled around fast, speeding out of the building. He used his hose to blow even more water than before, so they made it out through the narrow path in seconds. In front of the building, everyone in the school was worried about them. When they saw TukTuk with the little Fur-munchkin, everyone rejoiced, and TukTuk realised with how much love and admiration, young and old alike, came to see him. Him, who saved the life of the little Fur-munchkin.
From there on no one ever called him a coward, nor did anyone mock him, because of his fear of fire. And TukTuk has realised that he wasn’t afraid anymore, because now he knew that he had everything necessary to fight a fire, however scary that fire might seem.
Is there something you are scared of? If yes, what is it?
Did you ever manage to face your fear? What helped you?