This is a story about a boy named
Clumsy and a girl named Snowflake. You
might be wondering how they got their peculiar names. Well, Clumsy was born right after his mother
almost had a big fall from tripping over her own feet. “How terribly clumsy of me!” she exclaimed, as she realized the
consequences such a fall could have so late in her pregnancy. But before she could even finish her
sentence, she went into labour and gave birth to a beautiful little boy, which
she then decided to call Clumsy, as a reminder of how lucky she was not to have
lost her baby.
And Snowflake? Well, her story is a little different. During the last months of her mom’s pregnancy
she started having a severe craving for frozen foods. She constantly indulged in it, eating it without
heating it, ice-cold from the freezer.
Later on, she started replacing all other food with frozen foods. She
wouldn’t even drink water, but insisted on eating ice-cubes. Her husband told her to be careful as her
baby would probably be born frozen. And
sure enough, her baby came out white as snow, and cold enough to give you
shivers.
And so these two somewhat
peculiar children grew up in a somewhat peculiar town, called Bakerville. Clumsy grew up…well clumsy. He could not walk even a few meters without
stumbling over something, but most of the times he just fell over his own
feet. Even when standing still, talking
to somebody, he would end up knocking things over or accidentally bumping
something off a table. Even though it
was a peculiar town with a lot of peculiar children, he still got teased a
lot. Love Bug, Ditzy and Violet all made
fun of him. Only Snowflake kept quiet.
She never really said anything, but no-one made fun of her. She was always handled with respect,
especially since she could turn the temperature in any room to very cold if she
wished to do so. When the other children
started teasing Clumsy and it got to a point where all he wanted to do was cry,
he could always feel a change in the temperature. And
then the children would stop teasing and run to fetch their jackets. He wanted to thank Snowflake, but as soon as
he started walking towards her, he would fall over his own feet again. She would just give a little smile and then
walk away.
Clumsy couldn’t stop thinking
about Snowflake. He wanted to tell her
that he really appreciated what she does for him every time he gets teased, and he also really wanted to tell her that he thought she was the most beautiful
girl in the world. On his sixteenth
birthday party, it was just him and his parents. He didn’t really have many friends and he was
too scared to ask Snowflake to come. That night at dinner, his mom could see
that he was not himself. Before bedtime,
she went to sit with him for a little while.
“Do you want me to tell you the story about how you were born again
Clumsy?” she asked. “No mom” he said quietly.
“Not tonight”. His mom accepted
this and then told him: “I still didn’t
give you your last present you know”. He
looked at her without much excitement “What is it?” His mom replied: “Well, I have decided to tell you your middle name. I think you are old enough
now to use it wisely.” “I have another
name?” he said surprised, “Why didn’t you ever tell me?” “I think sometimes in life, we just don’t
see who we really are Clumsy. You just
look at your clumsiness, but you don’t see what I see. I see who you really are… And that is so much
more than just a clumsy boy. And I
guess, I hope if I tell you your middle name, that you will see a bit of who
you really are too.” And she whispered something in his ear.
The next morning Clumsy walks to
school differently. He still has a few
stumbles, but he seems to care less about them and get up quicker than
usual. He looks confident and doesn’t
even notice the other children shouting things from the side of the road. When he gets to school, he walks straight up
to Snowflake, looks her in the eye and say:
“Hi, my name is Clumsy, but Charm is my middle name”
