The Scared Letter U
by Daniel Errico
Illustrated by Michiko Cayce
The Letter U lived in the Land of Words.
He was afraid of everything.
It all started when he was a lowercase u.
He was scared of dogs, so he carried around a fence to keep them away.
He was scared of the candles on his birthday cake, so he called the Word Fire Department to put them out.
He was scared of snow, so he melted it with a hair dryer.
His parents gave him a bicycle, but he was so afraid of it that he took it apart that very same night and sold it for parts. He kept the helmet.
When he grew up, the Letter U became a mailman.
He delivered all the mail in the Land of Words.
He threw the mail into the yards that had a dog, and then he ran on his way.
One day when it was snowing hard, the Letter U was out delivering mail.
He came to a large house with a doghouse. Just as he was about to toss the mail into the yard, he was hit by a snowball!
He saw that three small letters were hiding behind a snow fort and throwing snowballs at him.
The Letter U was afraid of snowballs and didn’t know what to do.
He didn’t even have his helmet on!
The young letters kept throwing snowballs as Letter U hid behind a tree.
“I must deliver this mail,” he thought.
He peaked out from behind the tree, and a snowball whizzed by his head.
He was very scared of getting hit again.
“Oh, no,” he thought, “I have a job to do, but I’m scared.”
And that’s when he decided that he was going to do it anyway.
He packed five big snowballs together and charged towards the house.
The young letters ran away when they saw him coming.
He was the only letter that had ever stood up to their snowball attack!
In fact, even the dog was too scared to come out of his dog house because he was afraid of all the snowballs.
The Letter U went right up to the mailbox and delivered the mail, although it was a little bit soggy from the snow.
From that day on, he delivered the mail to every door, even on the days when he was scared.
In the Land of Words, it’s okay to be scared sometimes.
