Daisy the Duckling and the Garden of Many Flowers

Chapter 1: Not Everyone Like You

In a bright meadow called Buttercup Bend, there lived a young duckling named Daisy. Daisy was kind, cheerful, and eager to please. She had one big wish: she wanted every single animal in the meadow to like her.

"If I'm nice enough," she would say, "everyone will love me."

So Daisy shared her berries with everyone, even when her own tummy was rumbling. She laughed at every joke, even the ones that weren't funny. She said yes to every request, and she changed her opinions to match whoever she was talking to.

Most of the animals liked Daisy just fine. But there was one who didn't: Gruff the goat.

"Hmph," Gruff would say whenever Daisy waved hello. "Too bubbly for me."

Daisy couldn't understand it. "I brought him the sweetest clover," she told herself. "I smiled at him every morning. What am I doing wrong?"

So she tried harder. She brought Gruff more clover. She complimented his horns. She even stopped singing her favorite songs near his corner of the meadow, because she thought they might annoy him.

But Gruff only grumbled, "Still too bubbly."

Soon Daisy was exhausted. She had stopped singing altogether. She no longer told her silly jokes, and she hardly ever played the games she loved. She was so busy trying to please one grumpy goat that she was forgetting how to be herself.

One evening, she sat by the pond with her head hanging low.