How the Snake Got Its Colors

          A long time ago, before you all were born, snakes were not very colorful. Not colorful at all in fact. They were plain white. No designs, no colors, no stripes or swirls or spikes or curls, and no big scales and no small scales, no stars, no circles, no orange and no purple, no hearts or tarts, or animals. Nothing at all.

          They would have stayed that way if it wasn’t for the old snake hunter. His name was Leonoe Leonello Leokind, son of Leonardo Leokind and Leah Leokind, but we will call him Leo.

          Now Leo had been hunting snakes for 80 years, since he was 12, and he chose to kill snakes because one had killed his only brother. Ever since that day he killed every snake he saw. With all this snakeskin, he made couches, pillows, chairs, belts, purses, boots, clothes, tablecloths, jewelry, and more. He lived in his house with his wife Leah, and nothing could be better.

            But there was a problem. Since almost everything in his house was make out of snakeskin, almost everything in his house was white. Leo did not like this because it was too bland. Leah did not like this because everything was too visible, and it never looked clean. And all the children and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren did not like it because they had to be careful not to get crumbs or drinks on any of the furniture or else Grandma Leah would get mad at them.

            One day, Leo came to sit down on his wife’s big, comfortable chair, holding his bright red drink, when he tripped on one of the great-grandkid’s toys and spilled his drink all over the chair. Note that snakeskin could be stained then. Also, this was his wife’s chair that she did not want him sitting in, but he did when she was not paying attention. Leah heard the glass break, and she rushed in to see what was going on. Then she saw the cherry-red stain on her beautiful white chair.

            She had worked so hard to keep that chair clean, not letting any of the children on it, not eating on it, scrubbing it down three times a day. Now she had put in all that hard work for nothing. What made it worse is that it was her very own husband that ruined it. The man that promised that he would never sit in it or mess it up.

          As Leo looked up, he saw his wife’s face change rapidly from surprised, to pale, to bright red, almost as red as his drink. Then she ran into the kitchen. Just as Leo got up and turned around, he saw Leah angrily jog in with a frying pan and smack him across the face with it. It was all black after that.

           When he woke up, he saw Leah trying to scrub out the stain, but it wouldn’t come out. He got up, walked over to her, and hugged her as he apologized and explained. Then he examined the stain on the chair, and it came to him. He jumped up and ran into the kitchen. Then he came back with two more glasses of the same substance, but different colors, green and blue. He then (obviously on purpose) spilled the drinks onto the chair, whom Leah was already crying over. Then she screamed in horror.

          “That’s it!” said Leo. “I know how to decorate our house with colors!” Then he soothed his wife and told her his plan. Then she jumped for joy and ran to go to the market to buy more of the drink, while Leo went to get his sons and grandsons, they were going to dye some snakeskin.

           When Leah returned, she found that the men had lied out all the snakeskin in the house outside in the dirt. They all got paint brushes and started to make designs on the skins. By the end of the day, they were all very proud of themselves and each other. The next day, the sons and their wives came to Leo’s house with all their snakeskin and did the same. By the end of the week, the families’ and a lot of the neighbors’ houses were covered with the beautiful designs they made.

             A couple of weeks later, the grandson (who was about 20) woke up in the middle of the night. He ran to Leo and Leah’s house and told them his idea. He said,

            “Instead of killing the snakes first, and then dying the snakeskin, we could just dye the snakes themselves when they are still alive. Then we could let them go afterwards.”

            The grandparents were very interested, and they tried the grandson’s idea, and it worked! They did this with all the snakes there, but they did run out of some designs, so they just left some of the snakes white, with a couple colors here and there.

            The snakes even enjoyed their new colors and patterns, and would complement each other with their colors, even before they killed each other. They liked it so much in fact that they have kept their colors to this day.

Being a snake was sad and lonely
No pink or green; white only
They sat around, watched then hurt
Then slithering slowly away in the dirt
So, although they killed us, thank you
For doing all the things you do
To change our colors from just white
So we may complement each other before we fight!
So, thank you for my colors
And I say thank you to you for all my sisters and brothers!