There was a blue cactus. His name was Jack. He didn’t have any brothers or sisters. He was an only child. His best friend was a penguin called Ralph. He was an only child, too.
Jack had a shop. It was a balloon shop. But Jack hadn’t been able to sell a single balloon because his needles were very sharp. The moment he grabbed a balloon, it burst. Jack was frustrated.
Ralph told him, ‘You need something to prevent the balloons from bursting.’
‘Yes,’ Jack agreed. ‘I need a pair of special gloves for cacti. But where do they sell gloves for cacti?’
‘There are a lot of cacti in Mexico,’ Ralph said. ‘Why not have a look there?’
‘It sounds a great idea,’ Jack cried.
Ralph had enough money for two flight tickets to Mexico but didn’t have the money for the return flight. He told this to his friend, and Jack gave him money for the return flights.
While Ralph went to the airport to get the tickets, Jack packed their luggages.
Their plane took off at 6PM that evening.
Six months later…
It had not been easy to find the gloves that Jack needed. They had been looking for the gloves for three months in Mexico. In the end, however, they had found the gloves for Jack.
After that they had to buy balloons. They had bought some in Mexico. They had bought some from China. They had bought some in Europe. Jack had bought 5,000 balloons before he opened his old shop again. None of his new balloons had burst. His gloves were perfect.
Jack thought, ‘Round balloons are so boring. I’ll make square ones.’
And so he did. He started to make square balloons himself because everybody else made only round ones. He started to sell square balloons.
His square balloons turned out a success. Everybody loved them.
A year later…
Now everybody knew Jack. He had become famous. One day, Ralph told him about a contest in their city. It was called ‘The Best Balloon of the Year’. Jack said, ‘That’s just the right contest for me. I’ll take part in it.’
And so he did. He took part and reached the finals. His opponent was a monkey who made triangle balloons.
‘Do you want to be my business partner?’ Jack asked.
The monkey agreed. They teamed up and started selling balloons together. Square ones and triangle ones. They turned out an even bigger success. They were all happy.
The End