Habu was an asp, a slithering snake with a forked tongue and dark brownish-purple triangles along the top of his long slender body. He had two sharp fangs and his scales were very slippery, allowing him to move through the sand quickly. Habu had a loud hiss that warned other animals that he was coming so they could run away quickly and hide. They were afraid of that hiss.

Habu noticed that whenever he slithered by, all the animals disappeared. He didn’t understand why they did that. He wouldn’t hurt any of them. In fact, he was rather afraid of several of them. Habu was terrified of Hamse the elephant. He didn’t want to be crushed by Hamse’s huge legs. He was also scared of Najud the hawk. If she happened to fly overhead and see him, she’d swoop down and scoop him up in her beak and take him back to her nest to eat. Habu was also afraid of Yasmine the crocodile. One bite from her sharp teeth and he’d be bit in half.

One day, as Habu was scooting across the hot sand, he noticed that the wind was beginning to blow. He looked up and saw a wall of sand moving towards him. He hissed loudly and slithered off, looking for somewhere to get protection from the stinging, blowing sands.

The wind started getting stronger. Habu could hardly see. Suddenly he bumped right into something. It was hard. He went around it, feeling it with his long scaly body and flickering tongue. It was made of wood. Sensing no danger, he crawled up inside of it. It was filled with ripe figs. He slunk down under them and hid, waiting for the sandstorm to pass. He could hear little grains of sand pelting against the wooden bowl as the wind howled. Habu dozed off. He was feeling sleepy from all the dust in the air. He slept for hours. The sandstorm passed by and still Habu slept under the ripening figs.

As the sun set in the sky that night Habu woke up. He raised his head out from under a fig and saw that it was dark. Thinking it was still the sandstorm, he crawled back down and went back to sleep. As he slept a small girl picked up the wooden bowl filled with figs and carried it down to the riverbank. She picked up one fig at a time and started to wash them in the water. She reached in the bowl and picked up another fig, but this time it wasn’t a fig, it was Habu, the asp. The girl screamed and dropped the bowl. She ran off toward her house, and left the bowl of spilled figs lying in the mud.

Habu woke up. He yawned and opened his eyes. He wasn’t in the bowl anymore. He was out near the river. He wondered how he’d gotten there. Just as he was about to slither off, Yasmine the crocodile came crawling out of the water. Her jaw was wide open. All Habu could see was her sharp teeth. Scared, he quickly slinked away.

He didn’t know what direction to go. He saw a big tree trunk up ahead and made his way to it. He began to climb up it. But it wasn’t a tree trunk at all. It was Hamse the elephant’s thick legs. Suddenly Hamse let out a loud trumpeting sound and started dancing around, trying to get Habu off of his leg. This woke up all the other animals. They saw Habu slithering away. His tongue was going in and out of his mouth, hissing loudly. The animals ran to hide.

He hadn’t gone too far when Najud the hawk came swooping down towards him. Habu could hear her screeching as her talons came down to grab him. He quickly slithered under a root of one of the palm trees growing not far from the river’s edge. He hid just in time. Najud soared back up into the night air.

Habu was scared to death. He didn’t know where to go or what to do. He just hid under the root until the sun came up.

When daylight broke over the horizon everything didn’t seem so scary anymore. Habu came out and decided the safest place for him was back in his hole in the ground. He slithered off, passing Hamse the elephant and the wooden bowl lying on the ground with the figs dumped out. He passed the spot in the river where Yasmine the crocodile had snapped at him and finally made it back to his hole. He went down inside and breathed a sigh of relief. There would be no more going out in sandstorms for him!!!

RECIPE

¼ c. honey

¼ c. whole milk

Mix together and had to hot bath water. Soak and feel like a queen.

Cleopatra’s Barge

1 banana, not peeled

Miniature marshmallows

Chocolate chips (your choice of flavors)

Peel the banana down one side and cut a wedge into it lengthwise. Place the mini marshmallows and chocolate chips into the wedge. Cover back up with the peel, then seal whole banana in tin foil. Put in the coals of your campfire or bbq for about 5 minutes.

Egyptian Locusts

3 c. chow mein noodles

1 c. of your favorite nuts, chopped fine

1 6oz pkg of butterscotch chips

Melt the chips in a saucepan. Stir in nuts, and noodles. Drop onto waxed paper and cool.

12 large apples

8 oz jar of boysenberry jam

4 T. butter

12 gummy worms

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Core the apples from the stem end to one half inch from the bottom. Don’t push it through. Stuff each of the apples with 1 t. jam and butter.

Place in a pan and bake 35-45 minutes, uncovered. The apples should be juicy and tender but not completely mushy. Remove from oven and let cool 15 minutes. Set each apple in a bowl and spoon syrup from the baking pan. Insert a gummy worm with half of its body protruding from the top.

The Queen’s Delicassies

5 c. peanut butter crunch cereal

3 c. Rice Krispies

2 c. of skinny pretzels, broken in half

2 lbs. of white chocolate

2 ½ c. mini marshmallows

Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Melt the white chocolate in double boiler, pour over dry ingredients, spread out on wax paper to cool. Break into chunks.

1 stick of margarine

40 large marshmallows

5 c. corn flakes cereal

½ t. vanilla

2 t. green food coloring

M&M’s plain chocolate candies

Melt margarine in saucepan. Add marshmallows and cook over low heat till melted and syrupy. Remove from heat. Add vanilla and food coloring. Mix. Add corn flakes, M&M’s, and mix until well coated and bright green. Drop from spoon onto waxed paper and cool the globs of squashed asps.

Sugar cookie dough crust – pre-baked and cooled (buy in refrigerated section at local grocery store)

8oz pkg fat free cream cheese, softened

½ c. confectioners sugar

3 c. fruit (your choice could include slices of kiwis, strawberries, oranges, pineapple, peaches, blueberries, raspberries, bananas, apples)

Combine the cream cheese and sugar until well blended. Spread on cooled cookie dough crust. Top with your favorite fruit, carefully decorating it in a design. Slice the pizza into wedges and serve. Keep in refrigerator.

Note: Another similar recipes is using jello instead of the sugar cookie dough. Pour 2 pkgs. of 8 serving size jello powder into a bowl. Stir in 2 ½ c. boiling water. Stir until jello is dissolved. Spray the pizza pan, round, with non stick cooking spray. Pour the gelatin mixture into the pan. Chill in refrigerator for 3 hours. Spread whipped topping over jello and cover with fruit.

They say that the asp that killed Cleopatra was smuggled into the palace in a basket of figs. There are many uses for figs. You can add chopped figs to hot or cold cereal, to your favorite bread dough, rice dishes, muffin batter, pancakes, quiche, waffles, yogurt, and stuffing for turkeys, quail, or Cornish hens. Figs can be added to crunchy cereal and pretzel sticks to make a trail mix. You can skewer then for a shishkebab, with your favorite meat, onions, peppers, pineapple etc. They can be added to a green salad, and served with chicken and pork. You can stuff them with cream cheese and chopped nuts.

Interesting fact: Fig trees don’t have blossoms on the branches. The blossoms are inside the fruit. There are many tiny flowers inside that produce the crunchy little seeds that give figs their unique texture.

Chocolate Dipped Figs:

½ c. semi-sweet chocolate chips

20 dried figs

½ c. mini marshmallows

20 walnuts

Slit each fig. Place a nut and marshmallow inside each fig. In a pot melt chocolate chips. Dip the stuffed fig into the chocolate and place on waxed paper until chocolate hardens.

Cut a 3-4" section of a celery stick. Fill center of celery stick with your favorite peanut butter. Spread it out smooth. Cut a triangle from a fruit roll snack. Attach a toothpick to make it look like a sail. Poke the end of the toothpick with fruit sail into the celery. You can also fill the celery with cream cheese, softened, yogurt.

Cut a 3-4" section of a celery stick. Fill the center with cream cheese that has been tinted blue. Put some gold fish crackers into the ‘Nile River’.

4 plain donuts

8 t. butter

8 t. honey

8 t. shredded coconut

Slice the donuts sideways. Whip the butter and honey together and spread on each donut half. Spring each with 1 t. coconut. Toast under broiler at 350 degrees for 5 minutes.

1 egg

½ c. milk

1 6oz can frozen orange juice

Place all ingredients into a blender and whip until smooth.

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