The Man Who Shouted Teresa

by Italo Calvino
I stepped off the pavement, walked backwards a few paces looking up, and, from the middle of
the street, brought my hands to my mouth to make a megaphone, and shouted toward the top stories of
the block: "Teresa!"
My shadow took fright at the moon and huddled at my feet.
Someone walked by. Again I shouted: "Teresa!" The man came up to me and said: "If you do not
shout louder she will not hear you. Let's both try. So: count to three, on three we shout together." And he
said: "One, two, three." And we both yelled, "Tereeeesaaa!"
A small group of friends passing by on their way back from the theater or the caf saw us calling
out. They said: "Come on, we will give you a shout too." And they joined us in the middle of the street
and the first man said one to three and then everybody together shouted, "Te-reee-saaa!"
Somebody else came by and joined us; a quarter of an hour later there were a whole bunch of us,
twenty almost. And every now and then somebody new came along.
Organizing ourselves to give a good shout, all at the same time, was not easy. There was always
someone who began before three or who went on too long, but in the end we were managing something
fairly efficient. We agreed that the "Te" should be shouted low and long, the "re" high and long, the "sa"
low and short. It sounded fine. Just a squabble every now and then when someone was off.
We were beginning to get it right when somebody, who, if his voice was anything to go by, must
have had a very freckled face, asked: "But are you sure she is home?"
"No," I said.
"That is bad," another said. "Forgotten your key, have you?"
"Actually," I said, "I have my key."
"So," they asked, "why dont you go on up?"
"I don't live here," I answered. "I live on the other side of town."
"Well, then, excuse my curiosity," the one with the freckled voice asked, "but who lives here?"
"I really wouldn't know," I said.
People were a bit upset about this.
"So, could you please explain," somebody with a very toothy voice asked, "why you are down here
calling out Teresa."
"As far as I am concerned," I said, "we can call out another name, or try somewhere else if you
like."
The others were a bit annoyed.
"I hope you were not playing a trick on us," the freckled one asked suspiciously.
"What," I said, resentfully, and I turned to the others for confirmation of my good faith. The others
said nothing.
There was a moment of embarrassment.
"Look," someone said good-naturedly, "why don't we call Teresa one more time, then we go home."
So we did it one more time. "One two three Teresa!" but it did not come out very well. Then people
headed off for home, some one way, some another.
I had already turned into the square when I thought I heard a voice still calling: "Tee-reee-sa!"
Someone must have stayed on to shout. Someone stubborn.
Italo Calvino
from Numbers in the Dark

The Scorpion and the Frog

One day, a scorpion looked around at the mountain where he lived and decided that he wanted a
change. So he set out on a journey through the forests and hills. He climbed over rocks and under vines
and kept going until he reached a river.
The river was wide and swift, and the scorpion stopped to reconsider the situation. He couldn't
see any way across. So he ran upriver and then checked downriver, all the while thinking that he might
have to turn back.
Suddenly, he saw a frog sitting in the rushes by the bank of the stream on the other side of the
river. He decided to ask the frog for help getting across the stream.
"Hellooo Mr. Frog!" called the scorpion across the water, "Would you be so kind as to give me a
ride on your back across the river?"
"Well now, Mr. Scorpion! How do I know that if I try to help you, you wont try to kill me?"
asked the frog hesitantly.
"Because," the scorpion replied, "If I try to kill you, then I would die too, for you see I cannot
swim!"
Now this seemed to make sense to the frog. But he asked, "What about when I get close to the
bank? You could still try to kill me and get back to the shore!"
"This is true," agreed the scorpion, "but then I wouldn't be able to get to the other side of the
river!"
"Alright then...how do I know you wont just wait till we get to the other side and THEN kill
me?" said the frog.
"Ahh..." crooned the scorpion, "Because you see, once you've taken me to the other side of this
river, I will be so grateful for your help, that it would hardly be fair to reward you with death, now
would it?!"
So the frog agreed to take the scorpion across the river. He swam over to the bank and settled
himself near the mud to pick up his passenger. The scorpion crawled onto the frog's back, his sharp
claws prickling into the frog's soft hide, and the frog slid into the river. The muddy water swirled around
them, but the frog stayed near the surface so the scorpion would not drown. He kicked strongly through
the first half of the stream, his flippers paddling wildly against the current.
Halfway across the river, the frog suddenly felt a sharp sting in his back and, out of the corner of
his eye, saw the scorpion remove his stinger from the frog's back. A deadening numbness began to creep
into his limbs.
"You fool!" croaked the frog, "Now we shall both die! Why on earth did you do that?"
The scorpion shrugged, and did a little jig on the drowning frog's back.
"I could not help myself. It is my nature."
Then they both sank into the muddy waters of the swiftly flowing river.

How Anansi Became King Of All Stories

Once upon a time, all tales and stories belonged to Nyame, the Sky God. But Kwaku Anansi, the
spider, yearned to be the owner of all stories known in the world, so he went to Nyame with the request
that he be named King Of All Stories and offered to buy them.
Nyame told Anansi that many people had come to him offering to buy the tales and stories, but
they were unable to meet his demands. The Chiefs, Great Warriors, Rich and Powerful families had not
been able to pay Nyame or meet his demands.
He asked Anansi, "what makes you think that you will be able to do it? Do you think you can do
it?"
Anansi replied, "I can do it. What is the price?"
Nyame, the sky God, then said to Anansi, "you could get the title only if you could catch Osebo,
the Jaguar with teeth like daggers, Mmoboro, the Hornets whose sting is like fire, and Onini, the great
Python. For these things I will give you the title of King Of All Stories and the right to tell all the
stories."
"Very well," Anansi said. "I shall bring them to you."
Anansi went home and made his plans. He first cut a gourd from a vine and made a small hole in
it. He then took a large bowl, filled it with water and went to the tree where the hornets lived. He poured
some of the water over himself, so that he was dripping. He then threw some water over the Hornets, so
that they would think it was raining.
Then he put the bowl on his head, as though to protect himself from a storm, and called out to the
hornets, "are you foolish people? Why do you stay in the rain that is falling?"
The hornets answered, "where shall we go?"
"Come here, in this dry gourd." Anansi told them.
The hornets thanked him and flew into the gourd through the small hole. When the last of them
had entered, Anansi plugged the hole with a ball of grass, saying, "Oh, yes, but you are really foolish
people!" He felt pleased with himself: 'Kwaku Anansi has tricked Mmoboro into pretending it's raining
and offered them a hiding place in a calabash.'
Anansi took his gourd full of hornets to Nyame and he accepted them with surprise, but then
said, "there are two more things." Anansi nodded. Anansi returned to the forest and cut a long bamboo
pole and some strong vines. At a nearby river, he sat on a log; he waited and waited until a snake came
along.
Then he walked toward Onini, the great python, talking to himself in a very loud voice and
pretending to be arguing with someone. "I say he is longer and stronger. My wife says he is shorter and
weaker. I give him more respect. She gives him less respect. Is she right or am I right? I am right, he is
longer. I am right, he is stronger."
When Onini, the python, heard Anansi talking to himself he said, "why are you arguing this way
with yourself? What's wrong?"
Kwaku Anansi replied, "Ah, I have had a dispute with my wife. She says you are shorter and
weaker than this bamboo pole. I say you are longer and stronger."
Onini said, "it is useless and silly to argue when you can find out the truth. Bring the pole and we
will measure."
So Anansi laid the pole on the ground, and the python came and stretched himself out beside it.
"You seem a little short." Anansi said. The python stretched further.
"A little more." Anansi said.
"I can stretch no more." Onini replied.
"When you stretch at one end, you get shorter at the other end." Anansi said. "Let me tie you at
the front so you don't slip."
Anansi tied Onini's head to the pole. Then he went to the other end and tied the tail to the pole.
He wrapped the vine all around Onini, until the python couldn't move.

"Onini," Anansi said, "it turns out that my wife was right and I was wrong. You are shorter than
the pole and weaker. My opinion wasn't as good as my wife's. But you were even more foolish than I,
and you are now my prisoner."
Anansi carried the python to Nyame, the Sky God, who was pleased. "Anasi, I'm impressed," he
said, "you've done two of the three. Now bring me the Osebo, the leopard and the stories are freed."
Anansi nodded and, again, rushed home and started to plot.
Anansi went into the forest and dug a deep pit where the leopard liked to walk. He covered it
with small branches and leaves and put dust on it, so that it was impossible to tell where the pit was.
Then he went away and hid. When Osebo came prowling in the black of night, he stepped into the trap
Anansi had prepared and fell to the bottom of the pit. Anansi heard the sound of the leopard falling and
said, "Ah, Osebo, you are half-foolish."
When morning came, Anansi went to the pit and saw the leopard still there. "Osebo," he asked,
"what are you doing in this hole?"
"I have fallen into a trap." Osebo said. "Help me out."
"I would gladly help you," Anansi said, "but I'm sure that if I bring you out, I will have no thanks
for it. You will get hungry and later on you will be wanting to eat me and my children."
"I promise it won't happen!" Osebo said.
"Very well." Anansi said. "Since you promise it, I will take you out." He then bent a tall green
tree toward the ground, so that its top was over the pit, and he tied it that way. Then he tied a rope to the
top of the tree and dropped the other end of it into the pit.
"Tie this to your tail." He said. Osebo tied the rope to his tail.
"Is it well tied?" Anansi asked.
"Yes, it is well tied." The leopard said.
"In that case," Anansi said, "you are not merely half-foolish, you are all-foolish."
And he took his knife and cut the other rope, the one that held the tree bowed to the ground. The
tree straightened up with a snap, pulling Osebo out of the hole. He hung in the air head downward,
twisting and turning. As he twisted and turned, he got so dizzy that Anansi had no trouble tying the
leopard's feet with vines.
Anansi took the dizzy leopard, all tied up, to Nyame, the Sky God, saying, "Here's the third
thing. Now I have paid the price."
Nyame said to him, "Kwaku Anansi, great warriors and chiefs have tried, but they have been
unable to do it. You have done it. Therefore, I will give you the stories. From this day onward, all stories
belong to you and, whenever a man tells a story, he must acknowledge that it is Anansi's tale."
And that is why, in parts of Africa, the people love to tell, and love to hear, the stories they call 'spider
stories'. And now you have heard one too.