How Did the Quokka Lose His Smile

 

 

 

You don’t know what a quokka is?

 

Maybe you need to live in the Hidden Grove Islands to know about quokkas.

 

Quokkas are as small as a cat, but with cute, rounded ears.  They are golden brown and look like teddy bears with very hoppity legs.

That’s because they are related to kangaroos and wallabies. And quokka mommies, like their better-known kangaroo cousins, have pouches for quokka babies.

 

But what separates quokkas from cats, dogs, bears, kangaroos, and even wallabies, is they have a huge smile on their face. A smile that makes quokkas look like the happiest and friendliest animals in the world. 

 

 

 

And the quokka with the hugest, biggest, most GINORMOUS smile of all is Supi.

 

Why wouldn’t he be? Supi has a very happy life. He has wonderful friends and he spends much of the day playing games with them.

 

Supi has parents who love him and even has a sister, named Lali, whom he loves very much.

Though, sshhhhhh, Supi won’t admit he loves his sister, so don’t tell her.

 

 

 

And Supi’s smile was never bigger than when he plays his favorite game called…Hmmmm, now that I think about it, the game doesn’t have a name. But it is a lot of fun.

 

The game can be played with a ball. Or, if you didn’t have a ball, you can even use an old shoe.

 

Or a piece of fruit, though fruit is messy since it often went SPLAT when you tried to catch it.

 

 

One day, Supi is playing with his friends Oopa, a long legged emu; Dubadi, a handsome red lemur; a lovely raccoon named Minda; Maura the kookaburra and, of course, Telman a Dusky Leaf Monkey. The friends chose teams with Supi, Telman, and Minda on one side; and Dubadi, Oopa, and Maura on the other. Instead of a ball they use  rolled up cotton yarn, with the ends tucked in so it would not unravel.  Someone’s mother was going to search endlessly for her missing yarn. And one of the friends were going to be in trouble for pilfering it to use in a backyard game. But that was a worry for another day. Today was made for fun.

 

Oopa has the yarn ball in his large beak and took big, thundering strides with his long legs, when Minda hops down from a tree and tags the emu..

“Gotcha,” shouts Minda. “Now you have to throw it.”

Supi shouts out, “Throw it to me. Throw it to me.”

Oopa wipes his head, flinging the yarn, which bounces off of Supi’s button nose and falls to his feet. He scoops it up and starts to run. Though, with his pear-shaped body and short, stout legs, it was more like a quick rolling wobble.

“On, no, not Supi,” complains Telman, hanging from a tree by his tail. “He runs like a blueberry.”

“A blueberry? A blueberry can’t run. It rolls,” says Supi.

 

The quokka giggles as he runs toward the shrub by Mrs. Gratz's yard. He laughs harder and harder as he goes through the weeds and overgrown grass until he falls over and tumbles around and around. His friends followed, stopping to laugh at the silly sight of Supi.

“See what I mean. A blueberry.” says Telman.

As he rolls around Supi sees a small rabbit behind the shrub. She looks like she wants to join in, but Supi is having too much fun to stop and ask her to join.

Before long, all of the friends are rolling around the ground with bellies filled with silliness.

“I’m a blueberry! I’m a blueberry!” they scream.

 

 

Maura the kookaburra flies down and grabs a piece of yarn with her thin talons and starts to fly away.

 

“I am going to score,” she shouts.

 

However, as she flies the yarn ball begins to unravel. Soon the friends are covered with floating clouds of yarn. This makes them laugh harder, and the game ends with no one winning, but everyone having a wonderful time.

 

 

“Same time tomorrow?” asks   Dubadi, shaking his long fluffy tail in excitement.        

 

“First thing in the morning,” says Supi.

 

Supi heads home, happy as he can be. His sensitive nose smells his favorite meal before he even gets through the door (actually, any meal his mother cooks is his favorite).

 

After finishing a delicious soup filled with vegetables, roots, and shrubs, Supi goes to bed, exhausted but very content.

 

The next morning, Supi gets up early so he can join his friends.

 

“Aren’t you going to have some breakfast?” shouts his mother as Supi dashes out the front door.

 

“No time,” he yells, already past the mailbox. Then the smell of fresh berries his mother had picked yesterday hits his nostrils. “But I’ll be home early.”

 

 

When he meets up with his friends, they just stare at him. Dubadi’s big eyes appear to almost pop out of his head. Mindy’s mouth was open in surprise. The others stopped in their tracks.  

 

“What’s the matter?” he asks.

 

“What’s the matter?” mimics Maura the kookaburra “What’s the matter he asks. What’s the matter with you?”

 

“With me? Nothing.”

 

“Nothing?” mimics Maura again.

 

“Why are all of you staring at me?” said a confused Supi.

 

 

“You’re missing your smile,” replies Telman.

 

“My smile?”

 

“Here, let us show you.” The friends drag Supi over to the lake. He peers into the water and sees his reflection. Instead of the usual happy smile on his face there is instead something entirely different.

 

It was as if the tips of his smile fell down.

 

“That’s not me!” he cries.

 

“That’s what we have been saying,” shouted his friends.

 

 

“Wait, wait, wait,” lectures Dubadi “He didn’t lose his smile. It’s just miscaboolzed!”

 

“Whhhaat?” asks Supi.

 

“It’s just upside down.” And then Telman jumps on Supi’s back, reaches around and tries to pull his lips up. But instead of a smile, it just makes Supi’s teeth and gums show.

 

“Now he just looks scared.”

 

“Scary, if you ask me.” says Minda covering her eyes.

 

 

“Let me try this.” And then Telamn attempts to turn Supi’s head upside down, but only manages to make both of them fall over.

 

“I guess that settles it. Supi has lost his smile,” says Telman as he struggles to get up.

 

“Lost my smile? That can’t be. Where could I have lost it? I’m pretty sure I had it when I went to bed.”

 

“Maybe if we retrace your steps…Did you go straight home last night?” asks Oopa.

 

“Yes.”

 

“Did you stop at the honeysuckles?
 

“I don’t think so…”

 

“You don’t think so. Did you or did you not stop at the honeysuckles?” Telman asks seriously.

 

“Maybe I did. Do you think that’s where I lost my smile? At the honeysuckles?”

 

“No, honeysuckles wouldn’t make you lose your smile,” replies Telman.

 

“Then why did you ask me?” says Supi, more distressed than ever.

 

“Look, I am trying to help. If you co-mix-a-mingling everything I say, it’s no wonder you lost your smile,” answers Telman with a huff.

 

 

“I didn’t lose it! I had it last night. I’m sure of it.”

 

“Then you should go home and look for it” says Maura. “You probably left it under your bed.”

 

“Yes, yes.” And Supi dashes home, faster than he ever ran before. He goes so fast past the kitchen he doesn’t even smell the bread his mother was baking.

 

Supi rummages through his drawers, throwing clothes, socks, and underwear all over the room.

 

He looks under his pillow and behind his bed.

 

Nope, no smile in there.

 

Where could it be? Where could it be?

 

Maybe the closet?

 

He rushes over and pulls things out.

       

              

               The noise attracts his sister Lali, who peaks thru the half closed door, while Supi continues his search.

 

               His smile certainly wouldn’t be behind the wagon with only three wheels…

 

…or the trumpagazoo Supi made from a hollowed out tree log

 

…or the collection of rocks…

 

…or his sister’s baby doll…How did THAT get in here?

 

Uh No…UH NO…Supi’s smile was not anyplace in his room. Where could it be?

 

 

 

He must have dropped it when coming home yesterday. But what if someone else finds it and keeps it?

 

After all, it was a great smile. No one else had one as grand.

 

Supi had to find it! He races down the stairs and was almost out the door before a hand gently reaches out to him.

 

“Now, young man,” chides Supi’s mother, “you are not running out the door before you eat something.”

 

 

Supi holds his head down. He is too ashamed to tell his mother he lost his smile.

 

“Supi,” she asks, “Why do you look so sad?”

 

“I think he lost something,” says Lali who came into the room.

 

Unable to lie to his Mom, words just fly out of Supi’s mouth, “I’m sorry, momma. I lost my smile. I don’t know where I put it. I looked in my room. I looked where I was playing. I looked the way I came home. I even looked in my closet. I can’t find it anyplace, and I….”

 

Lali sits at the breakfast table, grabbing a piece of toast, nodding and shaking her head as Supi tells his Mom about all the places he had looked so far.

“Supi, Supi,” interrupts his mother as the little quokka begins to cry. “It’s ok, it’s ok.”

 

She wraps her loving arms around Supi and holds him close to her. She envelops him with love and the little quokka hugs her back, quietly sobbing.

 

“Don’t cry, Supi, you will find your smile,” she whispers into his ear.

 

“No, I won’t,” sobs Supi. “I looked everyplace. I must have dropped it on the way home and then maybe someone took it.”

 

Supi’s mother looks into his dark round eyes and says, “You can’t lose your smile like a toy or book or anything like that.”

 

“You can’t?” asks a confused Supi.

 

“No. Losing your smile is more like losing your appetite. And it’s not something you find. It’s something that just comes back.

 

“You mean my smile will come back?”

 

The quokka mommy squeezes Supi tightly. “I know it will.”

 

When he had settled down a bit, she sits him at the table.

 

But how can I be sure?” asks Supi.

 

“Well, sometimes one loses their smile if something is bothering them.”

 

Supi is thoughtful as he tries to think what could be bothering him. “I don’t know what that could be.”

 

“Don’t worry. It will come to you.” With a kiss on Supi’s forehead, she says, “Now have some fresh bread with avocados.”

 

Lali had finished her breakfast and had been eyeing Supi”s sandwich but she gives up as Supi reaches absent-mindedly for his avocado toast.

 

Supi sits at the table with renewed hope. Plus, the sandwich is, of course, delicious. And Supi finishes it all and then licks the plate to make sure he has every last crumb. As he spins the blue plate around his tongue his mind wonders about what could be bothering him.

 

A small thought is burrowing at the back of his head, but when he tries to concentrate, it disappears.

 

 

With his plate empty, his belly full, and the idea gone, Supi decides to take a walk. A cool breeze just might blow the thought to the front of head and bring his smile back.

 

Along the way he does all the things that made him happy.

 

He jumps into every puddle he sees;

           picks and eats a few wild jujubes;

leaps up and grabs a tree limb and swings back and forth a few          times.

 

Nothing makes him happier but still his smile does not appear.

 

He flops onto a tree stump to think.

 

 

And he thinks and thinks.

 

He thinks about where marshmallows grow.

 

He thinks about whether rainbows taste fruity.

 

And he thinks about why people say he dances funny.

For a quokka, he is actually very light on his feet.

 

Or so he believes.

 

 

He is so deep in thought he doesn’t even notice a small gray rabbit with droopy ears coming up and sitting next to him.

 

“Who are you?” asks a surprised Supi.

 

“My name is Rupita.”

 

“I’m Supi.”

 

“I know. I saw you before,” says Rupita, rubbing her ear tips nervously.

 

“You have? Where?”

 

“I was watching you play yesterday.”

 

 

Supi then remembers where he saw Rupita before. “You were sitting behind a shrub.”

 

“Yes,” says Rupita shaking her head.

 

“I remember you looked sad.”

 

Rupita looks at Supi with large blue rabbit eyes, but says nothing.

 

“You wanted to play with us, didn’t you?”

 

Rupita slowly nods, still rubbing her ears that hung on both sides of her face.

 

“You look sad too,” says Rupita.

 

Supi nods. “I lost my smile.”

 

“How come?”

 

Supi shrugs. “My mom said something must be bothering me. But I don’t know what it can be.”

 

The two are quiet again but then Supi says “I should have asked you to play.”

 

“Is that what was bothering you?”

 

“I think maybe it is,” says Supi.

 

 

“That’s ok. I’m too small to play,” Rupita says, looking at her new pink sneakers with bells at the tip of the laces.

 

“No, you’re not,” says Supi with excitement as he hops up. “ Maura is smaller than you, and she plays with us all the time.”

 

“Do you think I can?” she asks as her long ears slowly extend above her head.

 

“Absolutely!” And Supi, without realizing it, breaks into a huge smile causing Rupita to giggle.

 

“What’s so funny?” asks Supi.

 

“You have a big smile.”

 

“I do?” Supi starts to feel his face and realizes his smile has returned.

 

 

 “It’s back! It’s back!” And Supi starts to dance, which makes Rupita laugh.

 

“You are a terrible dancer.”

 

“I am not,” laughs Supi, “I am the best.”

 

‘If you mean you are the best at the worst.”

 

“Than that’s me,” says Supi as he tries to do a pirouette, but only manages to spin out of control and into a tree. The newfound friends laugh.

 

“I should have asked  you to play, but I was having too much fun. That wasn’t right,” says Supi.

 

“But if you had, I wouldn’t have seen you dance. And that was too funny to miss,” laughs Rupita.

 

 

The next day all the friends gather once more, tossing around a beat-up stuffed teddy bear.  Supi has the bear when he gets tagged by Dubadai.

 

“Rupita, here,” he shouts. He throws the bear to his new friend. She grabs the stuffed animal by the ear and starts to run as the bells on her shoelaces clang loudly. She runs past a makeshift goal before anyone can come close to catching her.

 

“A point for our team!” she shouts. Then Rupita falls to the ground and rolls around to celebrate.

 

All the smiling friends yell, “Look at Rupita! She’s a blueberry.” And everyone, except for Telman, falls to the ground and rolls. Telman, hanging from a tree limb, looks on, rolls his eyes, and sighs. “Blueberries. All of you,” he says.

And they all laugh and laugh, with smiles on their faces. And the one with the biggest smile of all!

 

Supi the quokka!