Bouquet the sweet-smelling skunk

You obviously know what skunks do when they are scared and want to defend themselves, don’t you? Well, if you didn’t here it is. Skunks spray a foul-smelling liquid to turn their enemy away. If you ever get to smell it, you would probably first pucker up your nose, then clam it shut as fast as you can and vrroooooom out of there!!

But Bouquet was a very special skunk. Instead of the foul smelling liquid that the other skunks sprayed, Bouquet sprayed a sweet-smelling perfume! The perfume smelt like vanilla mixed with lavender and sprinkled with green apple. Sometimes the smells attracted many butterflies and bees, who, on arriving would puzzled at not finding any flowers!!   Now, such a strange phenomenon would certainly not go unnoticed. So the news of the sweet smelling skunk spread far and wide and a few scientists got the whiff of this strange skunk. So one night, they crept into the Shamia woods and trapped poor Bouquet when he was fast asleep.   

When Bouquet awoke the next morning he was in a tiny cage in a room with many other animals. He was too dazed and scared and called out for his mother. But no one responded. Suddenly, few men in white coats walked into the room and tried to get Bouquet out of his cage. Scared, Bouquet used his defense mechanism. And at once the entire room filled with this wonderful aroma and brought a beatific smile on the scientists’ faces.  

“Hmmmm this smells really, really good!” Said the chief scientist. He even sat down in a trance and continued to say, “Mmmm….mmmmm, I could live in here forever!”

The other scientists shook him hard and told him they had work to do! And that they had to catch the skunk first!  “Ahem, ahem. Yes, yes, let’s catch the skunk!” He said, getting up purposefully.  Bouquet was much too small to fight against these big white-jacketed scientists. So she gave in. The scientists carried him to a smaller room. They put him on a bed and stuck many needles all over his body, they made him drink some liquid, and took some blood from him. They did many kinds of experiments but zilch! They just couldn’t find out why Bouquet smelt so sweet!

Then  along came a very, very clever and kind scientist…

The scientist spoke gently to Bouquet, who seemed to understand that he meant no harm. He poked a needle and gently took some blood. He then mixed it with some other solutions, made some calculations on the board, waited for a while then added some more solution. And then Eureka!!  He found that a bee had bitten Bouquet, when he was still a baby.

The bee, which had actually come from some exotic land had sucked from various exotic flowers before biting Bouquet. Bouquet felt queasy after the bite and had even fallen ill for a short while. But after that when he sprayed, it was mmmm…. so sweet smelling!!