INZI WINZI’S FAVOURITE FLUFFY WHITE FEATHER
Time for another Inzi-Winzi story...
COPYRIGHT: Ranee Kaur Banerjee
CHAPTER 1: WINZI IS HAPPY
His eyes half-closed, Winzi floated dreamily through a sunbeam on his white fluffy feather. The shy little Inzi was happier than he had ever been. He had never enjoyed the rough, naughty games like off-with-your-head and nose-trip that the other Inzis loved to play all day. A while ago, his best friend Mizza had been angry with him for not “being a proper Inzi.” He was so hurt by her words that he had gone on a really scary nose-trip all by himself and had almost been lost in people-insides forever. Saddened by the thought that nobody loved him, he had felt that nobody would miss him even if he never came back to his sunbeam. (Inzi-Winzi and the Hairy Scary Nose. Read it here)
But as soon as they found out that he was gone, all his friends had come to his help without hesitation and had saved him just in the nick of time. Now they never forced him to join their games. They just left him alone to daydream in the warm comfort of his feather. “And that suits me just fine!” smiled Winzi to himself.
Once in a while, tired and panting from all their games, Winzi’s closest friends, Mizza, Tozzo, Korza and Fozzi would come and rest a while on his big, soft feather and Winzi would tell them stories of all the new and fantastic ideas that he had dreamt up that day.
“Life is just perfect,” Winzi sighed contentedly as he snuggled deeper into the soft, creamy smoothness of his feather. Yes, Winzi the Inzi was very happy.
CHAPTER TWO: FEATHERLESS!
All of a sudden, Winzi’s world went inky black! And in an immense flurry of flapping wings, his precious feather was yanked away from under him. The force of the pull made him spin round and round dizzily like he was playing off-with-your-head! Winzi was shocked speechless! He whirled round and round mindlessly and watched his feather flying away from him, higher and higher, up into the sky, caught securely in the beak of a big, black crow.
When he could speak again, Winzi howled.
“Stop! Thief!” he yowled.
“Come back you bad, bulbous, beastly bird!” he shrieked.
“Unbeak my feather you wicked winged weirdo!” he hollered.
“I want my f-f-f-f-f-feather. I want it now!” he bawled.
He screamed himself hoarse but the crow kept on flying higher and further away. He shouted until he couldn’t see his feather any more. Then he sat down on an air bubble and sobbed his eyes out.
His friends tried hard all day to cheer him up but Winzi was heartbroken. He just sat staring into the sky where the crow had disappeared and once in a while, he would dissolve into a wild weeping spree. Mizza couldn’t bear to see her best friend so miserable.
“We just have to do something about Winzi’s feather,” she whispered to Tozzo, Korza and Fozzi.
“But what can we do?” asked Fozzi.
Korza waved his hands dramatically “His feather’s gone to heaven!” he intoned in a strange, deep voice. “We can’t follow it there, can we?”
“Quit clowning, Korza. Can’t you see he’ll cry himself sick if we don’t do anything?” Mizza said irritably.
“We can find him another feather that looks just like his! He won’t know the difference” Tozzo was excited at his wonderful idea.
“Well, I don’t know, but it could work, I suppose,” said Mizza. “Let’s do it, gang.”
CHAPTER THREE: FEATHER HUNT
As the friends searched every sunbeam for a white, fluffy feather, Fozzi made up a silly song that made them all laugh.
We’ll hunt-a-hunt-a-hunt
A feather for the runt-the-runt-the-runt
The crybaby of the Inzi race
Has such a sad look on his face
He’s been howling
And he’s been scowling
He’s a total basket case!
There’s been such a row
Because a big black crow
Took his precious feather away
What a horrible, wretched day!
Nothing could upset him more!
Ever since then
Exactly half past ten
He’s been ranting at the sky
Screaming why, oh why, oh why
Did it happen?
So we’ll hunt-a-hunt-a-hunt
A feather for the runt-the-runt-the-runt
We can’t stand to see him cry
He’ll drive us mad
With his eyes so sad
So we’d better give it a try!
“Gosh, Fozzi, that’s so clever,” Tozza giggled. “I wish I could make up rhymes like you.” The friends went to work, humming as they searched for a feather just like Winzi’s.
Now you know that Inzis are the laziest, craziest, naughtiest little people in the universe! They never work. They never go to school. They never do anything significant. All they ever do is float on sunbeams and play ridiculously silly games. They are not very good at performing any serious tasks, even when they really, really want to. So it was a very strange feather hunt.
The four friends would lapse into a game and forget all about the feather they were supposed to find. All of a sudden, one of them would remember but by then they would have forgotten where they had looked before. Then the singing, dancing and playing would begin again and they would forget all about the feather they were supposed to find. And so it went for a long time.
All this while, Winzi sat exactly where they had left him, staring silently at the sky. Big, round drops fell from his eyes and sparkled like diamonds in the sunbeam before they were carried away by the breeze. Oh, Winzi was so very, very unhappy!
CHAPTER FOUR: A PERFECT FIT!
In the end, it was a stroke of luck that Mizza and the others found a feather for Winzi. In fact, it was the feather that found them! As the Inzi friends floated from song to dance to game to hunt, the feather floated down a sunbeam straight into them. And it was a big, white, fluffy, buttery-smooth feather—a perfect fit for Winzi.
“Winzi! Hey, Winzi, look what we found,” the four friends chorused as they floated down Winzi’s sunbeam towards him.
“My feather! Oh, thank heavens! My feather! Oh wow! Yippee!” Winzi’s face split into a smile and a thousand stars lit up in his eyes. He hugged each one of his friends tightly. “Thanks, guys, you’re the best! You’re great! You’re wonderful! You’re awesome! You’re stupendous, you’re—“
“Oh stop, Winzi! It’s all right! It was nothing! Stop, Stop! STOP! Winzi you’re hugging us so tightly we can’t breathe!” Mizza laughed.
“Let’s get on the feather and you can dream up some stories for us, Winzi,” said Fozzi. “Feather hunting is very tiring work, you know.”
The friends scrambled into the feather and snuggled in. Oh, yes, it was soft and comfortable. It was even better than Winzi’s old one. Mmmmm-mmmmm. Then they saw Winzi’s face. He was standing on the feather, looking horrified.
“This-is-not-my-feather.” He said slowly. His voice strangled with tears, he looked stricken at his friends, “that was a terrible trick to play on me.” Winzi climbed off the feather and floated away, alone.
CHAPTER FIVE: THE NEW GAME
“Now what?” said Korza, disgusted. “That stupid, stubborn little Inzi is impossible!”
“We tried to help him and he’s accusing us of tricking him?” Tozza was angry. “It wasn’t our fault that his feather was kidnapped by a crow.”
“Hey, wait a minute, let’s think--why would a crow want a feather? He’s got so many on his own body.” Mizza was excited. She felt an idea growing inside her. Maybe they could still help Winzi.
Fozzi was thinking about what Mizza had said. “What would a crow do with a feather? Oh, of course. I know what you mean, Mizza. A crow would only take a feather to line his nest.”
“Hello? I hate to burst air bubbles, but can anybody see how many crows there are in the sky? How do you guys propose to find the right one?” Korza, as usual, was the voice of doom.
“We don’t have to find the crow, you dodo, we just have to find his nest.” Mizza was determined. ”I refuse to give up. If you guys won’t help me, I’ll do it alone.”
“Of course we’ll all do it together, Mizza.” Fozzi chided gently. “In fact, I have a great idea. Let’s make it into a game. We’ll call it quill-quest.
A new game! It sounded so exciting that soon, a lot of Inzi’s gathered around the sunbeam, eager to try it out. A quill-quest in a crow’s nest? Why, it sounded even more thrilling than a nose-ride. Wow.
CHAPTER SIX: Egg-roll and Pull-plume
You know Inzis don’t work very well, but they are expert game players. Quill-quest became an instant rage and in no time at all, Winzi’s feather had been found in a nest on a nearby Neem tree. Mizza, Tozzo, Fozzi and Korza took a peek at the nest. Sure enough, Winzi’s soft, white, fluffy feather was there, right at the bottom of the nest.
And on it lay a heavy egg.
The four friends pulled at the feather and pushed at the egg. They made up a game called egg-roll. But roll the egg they could not. They played a game called pull-plume but the plume would not be pulled.
“Now what?” grumbled Korza. “I’m getting tired of these feather games. I want to go on a nose-trip!”
Mizza thought for a while. “Let’s get Winzi,” she said finally. “He’s the one with all the bright ideas. Maybe he’ll know how we can move the egg.
Winzi was still upset about his feather and he was even more offended by the thought that his friends had tried to trick him about something so important. At first he wouldn’t even listen to them when they tried to explain where his feather was.
“Oh come on, Winzi! Stop sulking and moping! We’ve gone to a lot of trouble to find your feather for you. The least you can do is help us get it out!” Mizza stamped her feet in frustration.
At last, Winzi went with them.
Many of the other Inzis who had tried to play pull-plume tagged along.
When they reached the nest, the Inzi’s were in for a shock! The crow had returned and was now sitting on the egg!
Winzi scratched his head. “So, what you’re saying is that my feather is in the nest and on it is an egg and on it is this crow and all we have to do is move the bird, then push its egg away, free the feather and get away from here alive. Hmmm.”
“Or we could wait until the egg hatches and the baby crow learns to fly and the nest is empty!” Korza said hopefully.
“Hah!” Winzi was beginning to look angry. “This is the bird who plundered my plume! I’m going to teach this pirate a lesson he won’t forget in a hurry!”
CHAPTER 7: FEATHER FIGHT
“Step right back into the sunbeam, all of you. And if you see the egg move, pull the feather into an air-current.”
“But Winzi, what—“ Before Mizza and the others realized what Winzi was going to do; Winzi curled into a ball and hurled himself straight at the crow’s eye.
Then everything happened in a hurry. Winzi went into the crow’s eye. The crow squawked in shock and flew up in a flurry. The nest teetered on the branch. Other crows fluttered onto other branches cawing loudly. The egg rolled. The crows crowed even louder. And in the middle of all the cacophony, the playful Inzis began chanting “Pull-plume! Pull-plume! Pull-plume! Pull-plume!” The exciting new game was on!
Frightened out of their wits at the furious frenzy of fluttering crows and their chaotic clamour, Mizza, Fozzi, Tozzo and Korza flew into the nest and began pulling the feather. Would the egg roll back and crush them all? And where in the heavens was Winzi? Oh Winzi, of all the stupid things to do! We hope you’re all right. We hope all of us will get out of this idiotic quill-quest alive!
“Pull-plume! Pull-plume! Pull-plume! Pull-plume!” The other Inzis clapped and chanted.
And the feather shifted slowly—just in time. The nest wobbled again and the egg rolled back, but the friends had moved the feather just far enough. The other Inzis came to help pull the plume and finally, after much pulling and pushing and heaving and tugging, they got the feather floating by itself on an air current.
“Whew! I don’t think I ever want to play that game again!” exclaimed an exhausted Tozzo.
“We could have been killed when that humongous egg rolled back.” Korza was still shivering.
“I agree, it was a very silly thing to do, just for a feather.” Even the ever-calm Fozzi sounded shaken.
“Where’s that dim-wit Winzi, I’ll throttle him myself!” Mizza looked murderous. Then she was worried. “But where is Winzi? I haven’t seen him since he went into the crow’s eye. Has anybody seen Winzi? Winzi?? Winzi??
WIIINZIIIIII!! WHERE ARE YOU??!!!”
Chapter 8: FRIENDS OF A FEATHER
Someone spotted Winzi. He was caught in the whirlwind caused by the crows’ fluttering wings and couldn’t get out. He was spinning round and round and getting quite dizzy. “Wait, Winzi, don’t panic. The excitement will soon stop and the crows will go away. Just wait and float until the air settles,” Fozzi advised.
Winzi waited. The furour died slowly and all the crows went about their business. Finally, Winzi was with his friends, cocooned in his own fluffy white feather.
“So, Winzi,” Mizza tousled his hair.” We got your precious feather back for you. Are you happy now?”
“Actually, guys, I don’t think I want this feather after all. The other feather you found for me was better.” Winzi stroked his chin. “It was bigger, you see, and creamier and fresher and warmer. I think I like it much better than this one.”
“B-but you insisted—“
“You were crying—“
“I could kill you, you, you—“
“You don’t want your feather? I don’t believe it!”
Mizza, Fozzi, Tozzo and Korza were dumbfounded.
Winzi smiled at his friends. “Who needs a feather for warmth and comfort when there are friends like you around?”
COPYRIGHT: Ranee Kaur Banerjee
CHAPTER 1: WINZI IS HAPPY
His eyes half-closed, Winzi floated dreamily through a sunbeam on his white fluffy feather. The shy little Inzi was happier than he had ever been. He had never enjoyed the rough, naughty games like off-with-your-head and nose-trip that the other Inzis loved to play all day. A while ago, his best friend Mizza had been angry with him for not “being a proper Inzi.” He was so hurt by her words that he had gone on a really scary nose-trip all by himself and had almost been lost in people-insides forever. Saddened by the thought that nobody loved him, he had felt that nobody would miss him even if he never came back to his sunbeam. (Inzi-Winzi and the Hairy Scary Nose. Read it here)
But as soon as they found out that he was gone, all his friends had come to his help without hesitation and had saved him just in the nick of time. Now they never forced him to join their games. They just left him alone to daydream in the warm comfort of his feather. “And that suits me just fine!” smiled Winzi to himself.
Once in a while, tired and panting from all their games, Winzi’s closest friends, Mizza, Tozzo, Korza and Fozzi would come and rest a while on his big, soft feather and Winzi would tell them stories of all the new and fantastic ideas that he had dreamt up that day.
“Life is just perfect,” Winzi sighed contentedly as he snuggled deeper into the soft, creamy smoothness of his feather. Yes, Winzi the Inzi was very happy.
CHAPTER TWO: FEATHERLESS!
All of a sudden, Winzi’s world went inky black! And in an immense flurry of flapping wings, his precious feather was yanked away from under him. The force of the pull made him spin round and round dizzily like he was playing off-with-your-head! Winzi was shocked speechless! He whirled round and round mindlessly and watched his feather flying away from him, higher and higher, up into the sky, caught securely in the beak of a big, black crow.
When he could speak again, Winzi howled.
“Stop! Thief!” he yowled.
“Come back you bad, bulbous, beastly bird!” he shrieked.
“Unbeak my feather you wicked winged weirdo!” he hollered.
“I want my f-f-f-f-f-feather. I want it now!” he bawled.
He screamed himself hoarse but the crow kept on flying higher and further away. He shouted until he couldn’t see his feather any more. Then he sat down on an air bubble and sobbed his eyes out.
His friends tried hard all day to cheer him up but Winzi was heartbroken. He just sat staring into the sky where the crow had disappeared and once in a while, he would dissolve into a wild weeping spree. Mizza couldn’t bear to see her best friend so miserable.
“We just have to do something about Winzi’s feather,” she whispered to Tozzo, Korza and Fozzi.
“But what can we do?” asked Fozzi.
Korza waved his hands dramatically “His feather’s gone to heaven!” he intoned in a strange, deep voice. “We can’t follow it there, can we?”
“Quit clowning, Korza. Can’t you see he’ll cry himself sick if we don’t do anything?” Mizza said irritably.
“We can find him another feather that looks just like his! He won’t know the difference” Tozzo was excited at his wonderful idea.
“Well, I don’t know, but it could work, I suppose,” said Mizza. “Let’s do it, gang.”
CHAPTER THREE: FEATHER HUNT
As the friends searched every sunbeam for a white, fluffy feather, Fozzi made up a silly song that made them all laugh.
We’ll hunt-a-hunt-a-hunt
A feather for the runt-the-runt-the-runt
The crybaby of the Inzi race
Has such a sad look on his face
He’s been howling
And he’s been scowling
He’s a total basket case!
There’s been such a row
Because a big black crow
Took his precious feather away
What a horrible, wretched day!
Nothing could upset him more!
Ever since then
Exactly half past ten
He’s been ranting at the sky
Screaming why, oh why, oh why
Did it happen?
So we’ll hunt-a-hunt-a-hunt
A feather for the runt-the-runt-the-runt
We can’t stand to see him cry
He’ll drive us mad
With his eyes so sad
So we’d better give it a try!
“Gosh, Fozzi, that’s so clever,” Tozza giggled. “I wish I could make up rhymes like you.” The friends went to work, humming as they searched for a feather just like Winzi’s.
Now you know that Inzis are the laziest, craziest, naughtiest little people in the universe! They never work. They never go to school. They never do anything significant. All they ever do is float on sunbeams and play ridiculously silly games. They are not very good at performing any serious tasks, even when they really, really want to. So it was a very strange feather hunt.
The four friends would lapse into a game and forget all about the feather they were supposed to find. All of a sudden, one of them would remember but by then they would have forgotten where they had looked before. Then the singing, dancing and playing would begin again and they would forget all about the feather they were supposed to find. And so it went for a long time.
All this while, Winzi sat exactly where they had left him, staring silently at the sky. Big, round drops fell from his eyes and sparkled like diamonds in the sunbeam before they were carried away by the breeze. Oh, Winzi was so very, very unhappy!
CHAPTER FOUR: A PERFECT FIT!
In the end, it was a stroke of luck that Mizza and the others found a feather for Winzi. In fact, it was the feather that found them! As the Inzi friends floated from song to dance to game to hunt, the feather floated down a sunbeam straight into them. And it was a big, white, fluffy, buttery-smooth feather—a perfect fit for Winzi.
“Winzi! Hey, Winzi, look what we found,” the four friends chorused as they floated down Winzi’s sunbeam towards him.
“My feather! Oh, thank heavens! My feather! Oh wow! Yippee!” Winzi’s face split into a smile and a thousand stars lit up in his eyes. He hugged each one of his friends tightly. “Thanks, guys, you’re the best! You’re great! You’re wonderful! You’re awesome! You’re stupendous, you’re—“
“Oh stop, Winzi! It’s all right! It was nothing! Stop, Stop! STOP! Winzi you’re hugging us so tightly we can’t breathe!” Mizza laughed.
“Let’s get on the feather and you can dream up some stories for us, Winzi,” said Fozzi. “Feather hunting is very tiring work, you know.”
The friends scrambled into the feather and snuggled in. Oh, yes, it was soft and comfortable. It was even better than Winzi’s old one. Mmmmm-mmmmm. Then they saw Winzi’s face. He was standing on the feather, looking horrified.
“This-is-not-my-feather.” He said slowly. His voice strangled with tears, he looked stricken at his friends, “that was a terrible trick to play on me.” Winzi climbed off the feather and floated away, alone.
CHAPTER FIVE: THE NEW GAME
“Now what?” said Korza, disgusted. “That stupid, stubborn little Inzi is impossible!”
“We tried to help him and he’s accusing us of tricking him?” Tozza was angry. “It wasn’t our fault that his feather was kidnapped by a crow.”
“Hey, wait a minute, let’s think--why would a crow want a feather? He’s got so many on his own body.” Mizza was excited. She felt an idea growing inside her. Maybe they could still help Winzi.
Fozzi was thinking about what Mizza had said. “What would a crow do with a feather? Oh, of course. I know what you mean, Mizza. A crow would only take a feather to line his nest.”
“Hello? I hate to burst air bubbles, but can anybody see how many crows there are in the sky? How do you guys propose to find the right one?” Korza, as usual, was the voice of doom.
“We don’t have to find the crow, you dodo, we just have to find his nest.” Mizza was determined. ”I refuse to give up. If you guys won’t help me, I’ll do it alone.”
“Of course we’ll all do it together, Mizza.” Fozzi chided gently. “In fact, I have a great idea. Let’s make it into a game. We’ll call it quill-quest.
A new game! It sounded so exciting that soon, a lot of Inzi’s gathered around the sunbeam, eager to try it out. A quill-quest in a crow’s nest? Why, it sounded even more thrilling than a nose-ride. Wow.
CHAPTER SIX: Egg-roll and Pull-plume
You know Inzis don’t work very well, but they are expert game players. Quill-quest became an instant rage and in no time at all, Winzi’s feather had been found in a nest on a nearby Neem tree. Mizza, Tozzo, Fozzi and Korza took a peek at the nest. Sure enough, Winzi’s soft, white, fluffy feather was there, right at the bottom of the nest.
And on it lay a heavy egg.
The four friends pulled at the feather and pushed at the egg. They made up a game called egg-roll. But roll the egg they could not. They played a game called pull-plume but the plume would not be pulled.
“Now what?” grumbled Korza. “I’m getting tired of these feather games. I want to go on a nose-trip!”
Mizza thought for a while. “Let’s get Winzi,” she said finally. “He’s the one with all the bright ideas. Maybe he’ll know how we can move the egg.
Winzi was still upset about his feather and he was even more offended by the thought that his friends had tried to trick him about something so important. At first he wouldn’t even listen to them when they tried to explain where his feather was.
“Oh come on, Winzi! Stop sulking and moping! We’ve gone to a lot of trouble to find your feather for you. The least you can do is help us get it out!” Mizza stamped her feet in frustration.
At last, Winzi went with them.
Many of the other Inzis who had tried to play pull-plume tagged along.
When they reached the nest, the Inzi’s were in for a shock! The crow had returned and was now sitting on the egg!
Winzi scratched his head. “So, what you’re saying is that my feather is in the nest and on it is an egg and on it is this crow and all we have to do is move the bird, then push its egg away, free the feather and get away from here alive. Hmmm.”
“Or we could wait until the egg hatches and the baby crow learns to fly and the nest is empty!” Korza said hopefully.
“Hah!” Winzi was beginning to look angry. “This is the bird who plundered my plume! I’m going to teach this pirate a lesson he won’t forget in a hurry!”
CHAPTER 7: FEATHER FIGHT
“Step right back into the sunbeam, all of you. And if you see the egg move, pull the feather into an air-current.”
“But Winzi, what—“ Before Mizza and the others realized what Winzi was going to do; Winzi curled into a ball and hurled himself straight at the crow’s eye.
Then everything happened in a hurry. Winzi went into the crow’s eye. The crow squawked in shock and flew up in a flurry. The nest teetered on the branch. Other crows fluttered onto other branches cawing loudly. The egg rolled. The crows crowed even louder. And in the middle of all the cacophony, the playful Inzis began chanting “Pull-plume! Pull-plume! Pull-plume! Pull-plume!” The exciting new game was on!
Frightened out of their wits at the furious frenzy of fluttering crows and their chaotic clamour, Mizza, Fozzi, Tozzo and Korza flew into the nest and began pulling the feather. Would the egg roll back and crush them all? And where in the heavens was Winzi? Oh Winzi, of all the stupid things to do! We hope you’re all right. We hope all of us will get out of this idiotic quill-quest alive!
“Pull-plume! Pull-plume! Pull-plume! Pull-plume!” The other Inzis clapped and chanted.
And the feather shifted slowly—just in time. The nest wobbled again and the egg rolled back, but the friends had moved the feather just far enough. The other Inzis came to help pull the plume and finally, after much pulling and pushing and heaving and tugging, they got the feather floating by itself on an air current.
“Whew! I don’t think I ever want to play that game again!” exclaimed an exhausted Tozzo.
“We could have been killed when that humongous egg rolled back.” Korza was still shivering.
“I agree, it was a very silly thing to do, just for a feather.” Even the ever-calm Fozzi sounded shaken.
“Where’s that dim-wit Winzi, I’ll throttle him myself!” Mizza looked murderous. Then she was worried. “But where is Winzi? I haven’t seen him since he went into the crow’s eye. Has anybody seen Winzi? Winzi?? Winzi??
WIIINZIIIIII!! WHERE ARE YOU??!!!”
Chapter 8: FRIENDS OF A FEATHER
Someone spotted Winzi. He was caught in the whirlwind caused by the crows’ fluttering wings and couldn’t get out. He was spinning round and round and getting quite dizzy. “Wait, Winzi, don’t panic. The excitement will soon stop and the crows will go away. Just wait and float until the air settles,” Fozzi advised.
Winzi waited. The furour died slowly and all the crows went about their business. Finally, Winzi was with his friends, cocooned in his own fluffy white feather.
“So, Winzi,” Mizza tousled his hair.” We got your precious feather back for you. Are you happy now?”
“Actually, guys, I don’t think I want this feather after all. The other feather you found for me was better.” Winzi stroked his chin. “It was bigger, you see, and creamier and fresher and warmer. I think I like it much better than this one.”
“B-but you insisted—“
“You were crying—“
“I could kill you, you, you—“
“You don’t want your feather? I don’t believe it!”
Mizza, Fozzi, Tozzo and Korza were dumbfounded.
Winzi smiled at his friends. “Who needs a feather for warmth and comfort when there are friends like you around?”
Comments
It needs more illustrations !