Anansi Has No Food UFLI Foundations Lesson 95

Deep in the forest, the old roots coil like sleeping snakes. Mmoatia the fairy lives there. She is tiny, but her voice is sweet, like a small bell. Mmoatia has a spoon. When a kind hand holds it, that spoon can fill any pot with food.

Anansi sits in his web with no food in his gut. He looks at the kids by their homes as they eat sweet roast fruit. Then Parrot tells him of the spoon. A spoon that fills any pot with food? Anansi jumps up on all his legs with joy!

Anansi hides by a fern and peeks. Mmoatia sings as she mixes the pot with her spoon, and it fills with stew, then rice, then sweet fruit. She scoops stew into leaf-bowls and sets them on the roots, and the beasts enjoy it all. Anansi grins in his spot. 'I must get that spoon!'

Anansi looks hard at the spoon. A coil is etched on the dark wood, and it glows gold. He sees that when Mmoatia stops to eat, she sets the spoon by her bowl. 'That is when I will grab it!' he says with a grin.

Anansi waits. Then he dashes in, quick as a raindrop, grabs the spoon, and runs. He hoists the spoon high and races into the deep forest. Mmoatia does not run after him. She does not yell. She just sits still by her empty pot and looks on.

Anansi runs home and sets his big container on the floor. He dips the spoon in and mixes. Nothing. He mixes fast. He shakes the spoon and taps it on the rim. 'Fill!' he yells. 'Fill up!' The spoon glows for a blink, then it goes dark and cold. Anansi is foiled.

Anansi walks back to Mmoatia. 'It will not work,' he says, and he drops the spoon by her pot. His empty gut is noisy. Mmoatia looks up at him. 'I know,' she says. 'It never fills a pot for a greedy fist.' Anansi sits. He is upset, and he still has no food.

'An open hand fills each pot,' says Mmoatia. 'The spoon mixes for one who means to feed others.' Anansi chews on this, and his gut chews on nothing. 'What if I mix it, and we both eat?' he asks. 'Will that work?' Mmoatia hands him the spoon and points at the pot. 'Try,' she says.

Anansi holds the spoon and thinks. He thinks of the leaf-bowls Mmoatia set for the beasts, and of the kids with their sweet fruit. He mixes slow, not grabbing, not yelling. The coil on the spoon starts to glow gold, and rich hot nut stew fills the pot to the brim.

Anansi looks at the full pot. He looks at Mmoatia. His gut bangs like a drum. Then he scoops the first bit, the best and richest bit, into a leaf-bowl and sets it by Mmoatia. He fills his own bowl and eats. What joy!

The stew is the best food Anansi has ever had. The pot keeps filling, and he eats until he is full. Then he packs the rest of the stew in a big leaf and sets it on the path where the kids will find it. He does not speak of it at all. He walks home by moonlight, and joy fills him from leg to leg to leg.

Mmoatia still lives deep in the forest, and the spoon still works for an open hand. Anansi visits her. He still tries to think up a ploy to keep the spoon, because that is just Anansi. But when his fist is greedy, the pot stays cold, and when he fills a bowl for Mmoatia first, the stew fills to the brim. An open hand fills each pot, even a spider's.