Willy the Wiggle-Worm

By Andrea Tillmanns

Once upon a time, there was a little worm called Willy. As Willy loved worming his way through the earth with wriggling and swinging and twisting moves, everyone called him Willy the wiggle-worm. Willy was the happiest worm in the world when he wormed through the earth in this funny wiggling way.

But one day, a very old and long worm came to the little worm village. When the first local worm met the stranger, he looked at the foreign worm for some minutes and then wormed away to the worms’ meeting place.

“There is a stranger in town,” the native worm told his neighbours, and all of the other worms wriggled excitedly. “He worms in a very strange way,” added the first worm, and the others looked very worried.

“Strange things only cause trouble,” murmured one worm, and the other worms muttered and nodded their heads.

“We should go to this new worm and ask him about his strange way of worming,” suggested another worm, and the others nodded in agreement. So they went to the very old worm and asked him about his way of worming.

“Oh, but don’t you know,” replied the old worm, “it’s quite modern to worm very slowly and stiffly. Every modern worm worms this way.” And since the other worms looked at him a little doubtfully, the old worm added: “On my way here, I visited Wormtown, the most modern town in the whole world, and every worm in Wormtown worms this way!”

None of the other worms had ever heard of Wormtown. But they thought their little worm village was at least as modern as Wormtown. So they tried to worm through the earth in the modern way. Only Willy, the wiggle-worm, refused to worm in this new way.

In the meantime, the old worm decided to move on because he wanted to see more of the world. But after a few weeks, he was tired of worming through the earth so far away from home. At home, he thought, the earth was blacker and tasted much better than anywhere else. So he changed his mind and made his way to the garden where he had spent most of his life.

But when he got back to the little worm village, he was astonished to see that every worm was moving very slowly and without wriggling and swinging and twisting moves.

“What happened?” the old worm asked the first village worm he met.

“We are modern worms in a modern village, so we worm in the modern way,” the other worm answered stiffly.

“Except Willy,” another worm added contemptuously. “Willy is still wriggling through the earth, even though we told him again and again that his way of worming is terribly old-fashioned.”

The old worm started laughing and couldn’t stop. “This worm called Willy seems to be the only sensible worm in this village,” he finally chuckled. “Did you really believe that nonsense about Wormtown? There is no such city, and no normal worm would ever think of worming without wriggling and swinging and twisting if he were as young as you!” Then the old worm went on, slowly and stiffly, as very old worms move, and from time to time, the other worms could still hear him giggling.

From then on, nobody laughed at Willy any more, and every worm in the whole village wormed through the earth as carefree as before. And perhaps one day you will see Willy, the wiggle-worm, worming his way through the earth in your garden and smiling as happily as a worm can smile.

- Total nr. of readings: 1,829 Copyright © The author [2020] All Rights Reserved. This story may not be reproduced without the express written permission of the author except for personal use.