Elana Abelson is in the 7th grade of the Minneapolis Jewish Day School. She has been writing stories since she was about five years old. She is also an avid reader. She is on the St. Louis Park soccer team. She adores all kinds of animals and would like to be an author or a veterinarian. Many of the stories she writes are about animals. Her goal was to get one of her stories published by the time she was 21.
Prose, Grades 7 - 9: Second Place
Superfly - Elana Abelson
Ziggy had never been allowed to leave his hometown of Kentucky. His parents thought it was too dangerous for a little fly to leave his home so soon. His mom wanted Ziggy to have a family right in Kentucky.
“Oh Ziggy, why don’t you stay with us?” his mother, Larvena asked sweetly.
“But all of my brothers and sisters have left,” Ziggy protested, “Sister Martha is even married and has a whole batch of babies!”
“Ziggy is getting older. He’s celebrating his one week birthday tomorrow,” Ziggy’s father, Martin added.
“Yah, come on Mom. I want to find a mate and see more of the world,” Ziggy pleaded.
“Well all right,” his mother sighed, “I’ll pack you some nice rotting food for your journey.”
“Thank you Mom,” Ziggy said kissing his mother and father on the cheek.
The next day Ziggy had his food and was ready to go.
“Goodbye son,” his father said, “make us proud.”
“I will Dad,” Ziggy whispered.
“Oh Ziggy be careful,” Larvena cried.
“Don’t worry Mom,” Ziggy laughed, giving his mother a big bug hug.
Ziggy kissed his parents one last time and spread his wings and started to fly out into the open world. He waved goodbye to Kentucky as he flew into Illinois. He found that the flies in the Midwest weren’t as friendly as the flies in Kentucky. The fruit flies he passed were very grumpy and protective of the little scraps of garbage they carried. Ziggy started to get homesick, he wanted his family. As the days passed, Ziggy could still not find a mate. He found that other flies were already in love with each other. As Ziggy flew into Minneapolis he felt very alone, until one day he came across a small lady fly sitting on top of a landfill reading the High Fly Times. Ziggy buzzed over to her. He had never met anyone else who liked that newspaper, not even his own parents.
“Hi,” Ziggy said sitting down beside her.
The lady fly looked up: Her face was as beautiful as the sun and she had a pleasant smile.
“You are very pretty,” Ziggy breathed.
The lady fly smiled. She was flattered, “Why thank you. No one has ever told me that before."
“I’m Ziggy.”
“Nice to meet you Ziggy, my name is Flya.”
The next day Flya was sitting at the same landfill.
“What are you doing here again?” Ziggy asked.
“I could ask you the same question,” Flya answered laughing. “Hey, my whole family is going into town for the parade. Would you like to come with us?”
“I don’t know,” Ziggy mumbled.
“Come on, it will be fun.”
“Parades are dangerous places. Many flies get killed by humans.” Ziggy cautioned.
“Oh there are many police watching out. There will be a siren if there is any danger,” Flya said happily.
“Well, I guess I can go,” Ziggy sighed.
At the parade Ziggy got to meet Flya’s brother and his forty-two children. Seeing the family made Ziggy want to have a mate and baby flies too. There were many noble insects at the parade. The mayor of Minneapolis, who was a daddy long legs, even got to ride on a custom made dandelion.
After the parade Ziggy and Flya started spending every chance they got together.
They had picnics in trash cans, flew across Minneapolis at night, and even went to a Twins baseball game together. The two were inseparable. After a week Ziggy decided that he loved Flya as much as he loved life and tonight at dinner he would propose.
“Flya, will you marry me?” Ziggy asked, getting down on one wing.
Flya gasped, “Oh Ziggy,” she said, “Yes, I will marry you!” They set a date, chose the most beautiful landfill to have their wedding, and invited all the insects of Minneapolis.
Two days later, Flya gave birth to 30 beautiful flies, 29 girls and 1 boy. One day while the whole family was taking a nice stroll in the sky, they spotted a garbage can full of delicious food.
“How could humans be so stupid to throw out this delicious food?” Ziggy asked.
“Look how much it has rotted,” Ziggy’s son Fleet pointed out.
“Can we have it?” one of Ziggy’s daughters, Maya asked.
“Yes, but be considerate,” Ziggy warned.
When the whole family was eating a delicious meal in the garbage can, a human came outside with a fly swatter.
“Look at all of these gross flies, Bob,” the human said disgusted.
She snuck up behind Flya.
Poor Ziggy, he and the rest of the family were too busy enjoying the food to notice the human crouch up behind them with the fly swatter. She released the fly swatter just as Ziggy turned around.
“NO!” Ziggy screamed.
The fly swatter should have hit the family, but instead bounced off of an invisible force and hit the human right in the nose. Ziggy was stunned! His wings were spread around his whole family. He saw that there was a force shield surrounding them. The human backed away, confused and bewildered.
“Daddy is a hero,” Fleet cheered.
“Daddy, do you have special powers?” the littlest of the group, Buzzatrice, asked.
“Well I… I don’t think so,” Ziggy answered, not fully believing what he said.
“Daddy is super fly,” Maya said hugging Ziggy.
The next night, after the excitement of the garbage can incident, Ziggy decided to see if he really did have special powers. After everyone was asleep, he flew around town looking for a human. He found one sitting outside a bus stop. He flew down and started buzzing in the human’s ear. The human’s hand came down to smash Ziggy, but again, an invisible force shield protected him. The next morning he told his family. Flya was upset about him doing such a stupid thing, but the rest of the family was applauding and saying he could rescue flies in danger.
After Flya had calmed down she told Ziggy, “You have to report this to the mayor of Minneapolis.” So, after a breakfast of delicious rotting apples and spoiled milk, the whole family went to visit the mayor. The mayor, “The Daddy of Long Legs,” gave the family a warm greeting.
“What can I do for you today?” he asked.
“Well,” Ziggy began, “I think I have special powers.
“How so?” The mayor asked.
“Well it seems that whenever my family is in danger I can put an invisible force field around us.”
“Ah, yes,” the mayor nodded his head, “I once knew a man long ago. His name was Martin Senior from Kentucky.”
“That’s my granddad,” Ziggy said.
“Well your granddad had powers just like you. He lived to one hundred and three years old, the oldest insect ever! It seems your dad had this special power too and now, so do you. Let me warn you, with power comes great responsibility.”
“I know,” Ziggy said excitedly, nodding his head.
“Now if you are anything like your granddad, then I know you are a trustworthy fly. That is why I have decided to award you with the job of fangel.”
“Excuse me, what is a fangel?” Fleet asked.
“Well, young one,” the mayor began, “a fangel is a fly who is also an angel.”
Ziggy was so proud to be the fangel of the fly world. He knew his great granddad had been a fangel too.
“How will I know when a fly is in danger?” Ziggy asked.
“You’ll see,” was all the mayor said.
At home while Flya cooked dinner, Ziggy day dreamed about saving a whole country of flies. Surely there were billions of flies and other insects in danger.
“Hey, dad, come look.” Buzzatrice pointed to the flyavison which was like a television, except for flies. The commercial on the flyavison showed an ad for fly alert.
“You could wear it on your wings and press it when you were in danger. The amazing Fangel will come to your rescue when he hears the call of danger,” the mayor said from the flyovision.
Ziggy was amazed. His new superhero name, Fangel, was even mentioned on television. At first Ziggy would fly all around the world helping out flies in danger. He saved many lives. While Ziggy was gone, Flya and the children would always worry about him. One day Flya got a postcard saying he was in Australia. She worried he would get eaten by a wild bird ! Soon, Ziggy didn’t come back for weeks and weeks, stopping at home for maybe a day or two.
Then one day he got a call saying Flya was very ill. He rushed home immediately. Although Flya did get better, he realized how much time and memories he had missed back home. Fleet had started high school and Buzzatrice was even wearing make up!
That night at dinner Ziggy made a promise to the whole family that he would make time for family and work. It was very hard to spend time with the family when every second a danger call came from all over the world. Soon, Ziggy broke his promise about spending time with his family and was gone for months on end. Flya was fed up. Ziggy was almost always gone, so she didn’t get to see him and she had to take care of the kids by herself.
It was a very special night because Ziggy was home for dinner. After the dessert of rare spoiled milk was served, Flya told Ziggy her feelings,
“Ziggy I have had it with you flying all over the world. It is too hard to take care of thirty kids all by myself. Your children miss you very much and every night they ask me when is daddy coming home? I want you to quit your job. There are other flies that can help out. Please, I beg of you, your children miss you.”
Ziggy sighed, “Wouldn’t you rather have me saving the world than spending time with the family?”
“I don’t mean to sound selfish,” Flya said, “but your children need you. Buzzatrice wants her wing tattooed and is getting in with the bad crowd and Fleet is failing almost every class.”
Ziggy’s head hurt. What should he do? At first he thought about which was more important, his family or saving the world? But he couldn’t decide. So he thought of another idea: which was more important, his job or his family? He made his decision immediately. The next day, early in the morning, he went to the mayor of Minneapolis, “The Daddy of Long Legs.”
“What can I do for you?” the mayor asked.
“I want to quit my job.” Ziggy said, trying to stand his ground.
The mayor only smiled, “It’s about time,” he chuckled, “your granddad worked as a Fangel for less then a month before he quit. You have worked for years already.”
“So… does that mean I can quit?” Ziggy asked.
The mayor nodded his head and showed Ziggy the door. Although Ziggy felt sad about quitting his job as a Fangel, he was also very excited to spend time at home with his wife and beautiful children.
After he quit, Ziggy spent all of his time with his family. Although he had missed a lot of fun times he wished he could have shared with Flya and the kids, he also made some new memories he would cherish forever.
Copyright, Elana Abelson, September 28, 2007