Trust and Brave

Translator: Mehmet Akif Acar (16 years old)

Author: Lina Birinci (10 years old) Illustrator: Hanne Zeynep Dönmez (9 years old)

- Hi! I’m Brave. Of course, I am like my name and one of the main, yeah, one of the main characters of this story. Yeah, I know, very cool. Oh, wait a second. Hey, writer! Have you decided if I’m a human or a lion?

- Yep, you’re a lion. I couldn’t say no.

- Awesome! I’m a lion. They call us the king of the forest, but I live in the savanna, not a forest. Like, it’s good to be king, but how do people make us kings without even knowing where we live? Also, the existence of millions of kings is nonsense. Although… a king’s crown would suit this beautiful golden mane very well…

- Hello! I’m Trust. I’m trustful, like my name, and one of the main characters of this story. Yeah, I’m aware this is boring. I wonder, writer, human or—

- Wolf. I thought that a human and a lion couldn’t get along well.

- How beautiful! I’m a wolf. If you know the werewolf from movies, you may think that’s offensive to us. You even think of it as it. There are two misconceptions about werewolves: First, not every werewolf is bad—because not every wolf is bad. Secondly, not every wolf must have grey fur. They might have snow-white fur and ice-blue eyes, like me.

- I’m the writer. These two are really opposite friends, and they met in a really weird way. They both came from the same story. You know, the ones told to toddlers before sleep—

- Stoop! I’ll tell that part. I know the story best—as a lion. You know the tales told to toddlers before sleep, where the villains do merciless things, the kids fall asleep before the end, and then wake up in a sweat when they suddenly dream of everyone turning into them—because they never heard that the villains were defeated while tasting the best ice cream in their dreams.

- Thank you, Brave. You see, in one of those tales, the writer of the tale—

- Stoop! First of all, since the readers are human, they might not like bad tales and report us.

- Don’t worry, Trust. If they like bad tales, they’ll read them to their kids instead of reading them themselves.

- But everything is expected from humans. I even expect you to make me the villain right now. For sure, you know these things better—right, reader?

- Ugh! Humans don’t understand anything properly. As proof, we’re not human—and totally brainboxes.

- Kids, let’s start this tale from the beginning, like you want.

- Okay.

- Told you, they’re so opposite.

There are some tales—tales told to toddlers before sleep—where the villains do merciless things, the kids fall asleep before the end of the tale, and then wake up in a sweat when they suddenly see everyone turning into them—because they never hear that the villains are defeated while dreaming about eating the best ice cream.

-You told it perfectly. Well done, writer.

The worst is chosen among those tales. Bad writers want to be on top of this list. Do you know the 3rd worst tale? Of course you don’t—because only a few can know them: the characters that spoil the flow of the story. These characters are separated into groups. If characters in one tale get caught escaping to spoil the flow of another, both the writer and characters take huge punishments. The purpose of these writers is to take the first place on the “worst” list. And the other group is—

- Hey, stoop! This group is best described by those who are in it. These are the ones who get disgusted and try to escape from the evil plans of both writers and characters. This group doesn’t get punishments. There is something that separates these two groups. In every tale, there’s an exit. This exit stays high. If you have no role in a tale, you can hear the writer humming the story from that exit door. You start rising toward the door, and since you rise involuntarily when you exit the story, your character becomes void—because it was erased. Whoever exits as bad gets a gun, while whoever exits as good gets a white badge. The void ones get a transparent one. The first letter of your name is written on the badge—except for the void ones. I always get out as a wolf, and Trust as an example. And the third tale is ours: The Spider Venom Tale.

- It was awesome, thank you, Trust. Yes, in this story there are two characters: Lupus and Leo.

Lupus means trust, and Leo means brave in Latin. These characters are killers, but they hate their role. In the tale, they were slaughtering animals they came across, attacking humans. They were begging the writer, but instead of fixing them, he made them even worse. Even though they didn’t get along well, they decided to escape at midnight. When they began to rise, the writer noticed and sent all the tale’s characters after them—but it was no use. They were already in the middle world—namely, where the books are held.

They knew this place like the back of one’s paw—because they had come here before. And since they came together, they knew exactly which book they would like. Actually, they met here for the first time. Trust was created by an English writer. He wasn’t happy about the book he was in, because he was a slave. And you must know—Trust can’t live without freedom. That’s why he escaped the book. Brave was created by a German writer and was the king of the forest. But Brave can’t live in a forest—lions live in the savanna. Also, Brave was lazy.

The doors to their books were too close to each other. They both got out, bumped into each other, and started an immortal friendship right there.

Now let’s get to our story—because we can’t finish telling the stories of these two.Middle Earth is so silent that their hearts sound like the deafening roar of a great drum. As both walked away, the roar faded, and they started hearing the beautiful humming of the writer. This sound was like a lullaby sung to them as they prepared to sleep in the softest bed… and then they jumped into the book it came from.

Now they're with me—and a part of every book I read.