Week 9 Story: The Confusing Kettle

In a small but bustling town, a young woman stood in the middle of a yard sale, examining various trinkets and treasures and debating which items would be best to furnish her new apartment. There were several other patrons at the yard sale, but most paid no mind to the items the young woman examined, instead choosing to examine the electronics equipment and larger furniture items.

The young woman set down a glass bowl and sighed. Nothing here was really catching her eye, but she didn't have the money to purchase anything new. As she turned to leave, a solid black object suddenly came into her view, and the young woman stepped closer in order to examine it. It was a plain black kettle, really the most ordinary object the young woman had ever seen, at yet there was a weight to it that pleased the young woman. She felt that she couldn't leave the yard sale without the black kettle, and so she took it to the seller and paid a very low price.

Once she returned home, the young woman was excited to use her purchase. She filled the kettle with water, turned on the stove, and set the kettle to boil in order to make tea with it. Once the kettle was on the stove, the young woman left the room and settled down with a book.

Quite a long time had passed, and the young woman hadn't heard the typical whistling sound indicating the kettle was hot, so she set her book down and intended to go check and make sure the stove was on. However, once she set her book down, she saw that there was a tiny racoon running around her living room!

The woman shrieked from surprise. "What are you doing in here?" she asked, purely from shock.

The raccoon stopped running and stopped to look at the woman with curious eyes. The young woman saw how thin the little racoon was, and how curiously it seemed to stare at her, and her heart quieted her shock.

"Are you hungry?" she asked the raccoon, standing up from her chair.

The raccoon laid down on the floor and made a noise that was strangely similar to a kitten's purr. The woman smiled to herself, and went to the kitchen to grab some food for the raccoon, although she really had no idea what to feed it.

'Maybe some berries?' the young woman thought. 'I think I have some strawberries in the fridge.'

As the young woman entered the kitchen, she suddenly remembered that she was making tea before the raccoon startled her. However, when she looked to the stove, the kettle was gone. The young woman hustled over to the stove, and saw that the burner was turned on, but the kettle was nowhere to be found.

'Am I going crazy?' the young woman quickly turned the burner off, and stood for a moment, unsure of how to proceed. 'I guess I may as well feed the raccoon in my living room, and worry about this kettle later.'

The young woman took the strawberries out of the fridge, and put a few in a dish. She took the dish back to her living room, but when she entered the room the raccoon was nowhere to be found. Instead, in the center of the room sat her kettle.

The young woman dropped the dish of strawberries and stared at the kettle.

'I must really be losing my mind.'


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Author's Note

This story is based on "The Magic Kettle" by Andrew Lang, which is an English retelling of an old Japanese fairy tale. In the original story, the animal is a tanuki, not a raccoon, but the two are similar enough that I figured simply calling the animal a raccoon would make it easier for those who haven't read the story.

Additionally, I've simplified the story a lot and really changed the plot. In the original story, an old man purchases the kettle and brings it home to make tea, only to have the kettle turn into a tanuki in front of his eyes. After capturing the tanuki, the old man doesn't want to deal with such a rambunctious animal, so he sells the "magic kettle" to a man named Jimmu. Jimmu decides to tour the country with the magic kettle and show people how it turns into a tanuki. The tanuki is perfectly content with this plan, and the two make a lot of money by showing everyone the kettle's magic. After a few years, Jimmu tires of travelling constantly, and so he returns to the old man with the kettle and a portion of the money he made. The story ends there, which is abrupt but a pretty happy ending with everyone treating each other well, which I appreciated.

My retelling is just a modernized version of the story that focuses around how absurd it is for a kettle to magically turn into an animal and how that would be pretty difficult to deal with if it happened in real life. There's no real lesson or moral to the story, since I just wanted to do a cute, funny retelling.

Bibliography
"The Magic Kettle" from The Crimson Fairy Book by Andrew Lang, Read it here

Always be careful shopping at a yard sale.

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