The Bat Who Couldn't Fly

Well as these things often begin, once upon a time in a far off kingdom there was a bat who couldn’t fly. His name was Bernard. Now don’t you be holding that against him. Bernard had always wanted to fly; he tried very hard at it, a lot harder than his 14 sisters, and 181 cousins, and even harder than his 534 second cousins. In fact flying was pretty much instinctive to everyone except Bernard. Of course his poor mother didn’t know what to do. She had tried everything, physiotherapy, dentistry, psychoanalysis, well lots of complex word things. In the end everyone gave up, and Bernard felt sad. Then one day whilst Bernard was at the stream, Bernard looked at himself in the reflection, then to his 534 second cousins, then back to himself, then to his 181 cousins, then back to himself, then to his 14 sisters, then to himself and finally to his mother, before abruptly turning back to himself. And that was when Bernard realised he wasn’t a bat at all.