There was an old grandfather who gave Xiao Feng a pencil. This was no ordinary pencil, it was a magic pencil. At night, Xiao Feng went to sleep. The pencil stood up on its own, and draw a mouse on a piece of paper. As soon as it had finished drawing, the mouse yawned, stretched, and came to life.
The mouse ran up to the pencil and said: “I’m starving, give me something to eat quick!” The pencil drew some bread. The bread was deliciously savory, and the little mouse gobbled it right up. After it finished the bread, the mouse ran back to the pencil and said: “Bread isn’t sweet, I want to eat a big cake!” The pencil drew a big cake. This cake was light, soft and sweet, and on the top it had a thick layer of cream, and on top of the cream there were peanut and melon seeds.
The mouse squinted his eyes and ate with gusto, and when he’d eaten an entire piece of cake, his stomach was very full. However, he still wanted to eat, so he said: “The cake was too sweet, I want to eat something salty!” The pencil drew him a sausage, and the mouse ate the sausage right up. The mouse’s stomach was round as a drum, or a big ball, and there was no way he could cram anything else in there. To the pencil he said, “I’m full, but I have no place to live, you must give me a house!”
The pencil drew a big mouse hole, inside there were several tunnels, a place to sleep, and also a storehouse. The mouse ran into the hole, looked all around, and said: “There should be some foodstuffs in the storehouse.” In the storehouse, the pencil drew millet, peanuts, corn… the mouse nodded and said: “The house is pretty good, but it’s a pity there’s no bed.” The pencil drew a pile of straw, and on top of the straw he spread cotton wadding – this is a mouse’s most comfortable [type of] bed.
The mouse jumped onto the bed, rolled around a bit, and said, satisfied: “Not bad!” Then, the mouse ran over to the pencil and began to ferociously suck on it. The pencil cried out: “Aiyo! Are you cheating me? You’re nibbling all my skin off!” The mouse said: “Hey hey, I have everything I want now, but my teeth itch, and I have no place to grind them. Your body is long and thin, it’s a perfect place for me to grind my teeth.” The pencil said: “Wait a second, I’ll draw you something similar, and you can grind your teeth on that.”
Saying this, the pencil began to draw. When it had finished drawing a mewing cat jumped up [from the paper] and swallowed the mouse.
8 replies on “The Magic Pencil”
In the 2nd last paragraph, is there an extra sentence that’s slipped into the English?
The pencil cried out: “Aiyo! Are you cheating me? You’re nibbling all my skin off!”
I don’t think the “Are you cheating me?” should be there.
Once again, thanks for all the stories and the translations – I continue to find them very helpful.
This westbie makes things hella easy.
Once again, a beautiful little story, well presented and translated. You are doing a wonderful service for native English-speaking Chinese learners.
One question. I found the character 嗍 also suo (first tone) to be the word for “suck.” My dictionary only has 唆 as “instigate.” Can you clarify?
Is is “ha qi” or “ha qian”: 哈欠?
this is such a great web site! 🙂
A charming story! This is great practice. Children’s stories have a lot of repetition which reinforces learning. This is incidentally also good practice for using the 把 structure. Thank you.
fantastic stories
its like i have not sat in a chinese class before. i tried to read but could not identify most of the tones am using. i can write characters,how do i get to perfect my hearing and responses?