'The girl who always asked 'Why?', the apple tart and the wasp' by Jane Claire Jackson

In a small hamlet in Normandy lived a girl who always asked 'Why?.' One summer's day, she was sitting in the garden with her parents, eating a slice of apple tart, when a wasp started buzzing around and her mother suggested calmly, 'Why don't you put your tart on your plate so that the wasp doesn't sting you?'

'Why does it want to sting me?'

'Because it likes apples and wants your tart, that's why!'

The girl placed her slice back on her plate and watched the wasp land on the table and her mother place an upturned glass over it, trapping the wasp, and she wondered why the wasp liked apples so much.

She asked her mother, 'Why does it like apples?'

'Why do you like apples?', her mother asked in return.

'I like apples because they’re yummy and you say they’re good for me, but you've never said why," the girl replied.

'Apples are a fruit and everyone knows fruit is good for us, but a doctor would be able to explain why better than me.'

'Are they good for wasps and that's why it wants to steal it from me?'

'I think wasps like anything sugary and that's why you must be careful if you stand near the apple tree in summer in case the wasps sting you.'

'Why would they sting me when they can eat all the apples that fall on the ground?'

'The wasps get drunk on the rotten apples, just like your father when he has too much cider, and they don't know why you're there or if you're a friend or an enemy come to take their apples away,' her mother joked.

'Now, why don't you stop asking questions and hurry up and eat your apple tart before another wasp comes!'