Fleabags

You know, they reckon Ken The Wizard and Clive The Magician had one of the best flea collections in world history. Those fleas were the cleverest, liveliest, strongest fleas of their era, and most useful for all sorts of spells. Ken and Clive never went anywhere without at least a thousand fleas on them, always kept safely in one of their bizarre glass bags, so that everyone could appreciate the fleas' special qualities.

One time, Ken and Clive happened upon each other in a forest. Chatting and joking, time passed by quickly and they realised that it was so late that they would have to camp out in the forest that night.

While they were sleeping, Clive The Magician sneezed with such magical violence that thousands of white-hot sparks shot out of his nose. Ken and Clive had left their precious fleas on some leaves for the night and, unfortunately, one of the sparks landed on a leaf and the whole lot set alight. As the fire started spreading, the two magicians continued sleeping, and their fleas began to look decidedly nervous.

They were all terribly clever and strong, so each one of the fleas thought of their own strategy to escape the fire. However, as they were still inside the bags, and they each jumped in all different directions, this meant that the bags stayed exactly where they were.

One of the fleas noticed how they were all leaping in different directions, with no coordination. He realised that they would never escape like that. He stopped jumping, and gathered a group of fleas who he convinced to jump all at once. As they couldn’t agree where to jump to, the flea suggested that they all jump first forward and then backward.

The group started jumping together, and the rest of the fleas in the sack didn't take long to understand that jumping together would make it easier to escape the fire. So, soon all the fleas were jumping forwards, backwards, forwards, backwards...

The fleas in the other bag saw this and imitated it. The two glass bags were now rolling backwards and forwards, towards each other, and with one last effort they collided and both bags shattered into a thousand pieces, setting the fleas free. By the time the fire had woken the magicians, it was already too late. Although they managed to put out the fire, their precious fleas had jumped far off into the night.

And nothing more was ever heard of those truly exceptional fleas, although some people say that to this day they still work together to help each other survive the dangers of the wild.