Little Chick-Pea
"Have I got news for you!" she screamed when she walked into the salon.
"I just heard the craziest story about Little Chick-Pea.. you
know.. the REAL story."
"Well
go on," the other girls prompted. "Tell us what you heard!"
"My
best friend Lucia
told me that Cecino's mother was so depressed and discouraged that she
traded a loaf of bread to a magical widow with the belief that the
widow would give her something to make her have a baby! Well - the
widow came back with a velvet bag filled with one hundred chick-peas ..
and told her that the chick-peas would turn into one hundred children
if she followed the directions!"
"NO!"
the others cried out. "That is preposterous!"
"Tell
me about it," she continued. "So his mom followed all of the directions
and the next morning she and her husband woke up to the screaming of
one hundred sons! As you can imagine, her husband did not think that
the
yelling and crying was precious or sweet... but I heard that he went
absolutely crazy and beat all of the tiny chick-pea sons to death!"
"It
can't be.. I always thought he was an only child.. Can believe that
man!" was the response of the others.
"I
know. Well, the father didn't manage to kill them all of course. He
didn't know then that Cecino had
run out of the door just in time to escape his death! So the next
morning his mother - who seems to have the worst judgement in the world
- sent Cecino to
his father's shop! Can you believe that? His father kills all of the
children and his mom sends him to his father with lunch! Well.. his
father was so surprised that one of the children managed to escape
alive that he figured he could use a son after all. So he took Cecino with
him to go look for work through the county. And you can imagine how
much attention a magical chick-pea son can attract! And you know what
happened next?"
"I
can't even imagine!" cried one lady. "There is no telling - what
a terrible childhood for Cecino!"
said another softly, crying into her salon cape.
"HE
SOLD HIM! HIS FATHER SOLD HIM!"
"No!"
"Simply
unthinkable!"
"It's
true! Lucia told me herself.. And she heard it from a very reputable
source so I KNOW it is true. Anyways.. It doesn't stop there. The two
guys who bought Cecino were
hoodlums! I heard that right after they bought him, they went and stole
several horses from the king's stable!"
"It's
true!" another lady shouted. "My sister's babysitter works part-time at
the jail .. and they arrested the two guys who stole the horses. They
confessed to the whole thing!"
"So
.. what happened next!?! Is that when Cecino
wandered back home to his mother?" interjected the hairdresser.
"Not
even close! This next part is when it gets really weird.. So, I heard
that the two robbers got really drunk and told Cecino that
he had to go feed the horses. They sent a chick-pea child to feed a
horse.. can you believe it? So Cecino took
some oats down to the stable and he was so tired by the time he got
there - can you imagine after the day he had - that he fell asleep and
one of the horses ate him! Well.. he was screaming inside the horse's
belly so loud that it attracted several wolves. And the wolves ate the
horse that ate Cecino!"
"No
way .. that is impossible," said the crotchety old woman at the end of
the dryers. "That simply could not be true."
"Pipe
down, Gladys. It is true .. and I will tell you how I know it at the
end. So, Cecino
escaped death a second time when the wolves ate the horses and he
slipped out of the guts."
"How
disgusting! Can you imagine?" said one of the ladies.
"I
know. So he ran out of the stable and started to make his way back to
his home. Well - he finally made it back. And can you imagine the look
on his mother's face when he popped up next to the gate? She was so
excited! And here is the really sick part - at first she thought she
was crazy because her husband had told her that Cecino died
in a welding accident! He had said that it happened when she sent Cecino to
him with food, and she had believed him! She completely thought it was
an
accidental death - even though he killed all of their other chick-pea
kids. Anyways - when she saw Cecino, she was so angry and happy at the
same time that she
decided to leave her husband. She packed up all of her stuff and left!"
"Well
I say good for her. He was a loser anyways," said one of the ladies.
"I
know. He was no good. Well anyways .. here is my proof! Lucia's cousin
has a brother who is dating a girl whose mother is the sister of Dr. Pastiano's,
who we all know is the best shrink in town. So this girls works
part-time at Dr. Pastiano's office and she was there when Cecino came
in last week. Can you imagine the therapy that boy needs? Well, she was
filing some insurance forms next to the patient rooms when she happened
to overhear part of Cecino's
session. And of course, once she heard part of it she had to hear the
rest! So.. she can't keep a secret to save her life, and she told Lucia
about it at the last family dinner - in the strictest of confidence of
course - who then had to tell me because she can't keep her trap shut
either. So, being the concerned citizen that I am, I passed it on to
you ladies.. only so you would be nice to Cecino
knowing what he has been through and all. By the way - how do you think
I would look as a redhead?"
Author's Note:
The story of Cecino is quite strange. There are several
elements of magic in this story, the most obvious being that Cecino is
a magical Chick-Pea child. Magic plays a central role in each of the
stories in this storybook. This story is also quite long, so I had to
condense quite a bit to fit the retelling into the thousand word or
less requirement. A few of the pieces I left out were later in the
story, so I didn't think that they were as central to the story as
others. In the original, there is much more dialogue and interaction
between the thieves and Cecino's father. There is also more to the wolf
eating the horse - I had Cecino escape out of the horse's belly, and in
the original the wolf eats Cecino. I left out a section of the original
in which Cecino wanders upon more thieves and gets a bag of money from
them to give to his mother. The most important change is that in the
original story, Cecino dies. I thought it would be much
easier to retell the story with the idea that Cecino is in serious
counseling now, and that is how the ladies learned of his unhappy
childhood.
Read the original story here!
