The Grobblesome Tools

"A bad worker blames his tools."

Grumblegut the Ogre is usually a very confident smasher of things, but today he is trying to be delicate. He wants to carve a giant stone centipede as a birthday present for his favorite aunt, Auntie Gravel-Guts! The only problem is that every time he taps his chisel, the stone shatters. Panic bubbles in his belly because the birthday is tomorrow!

Instead of slowing down, Grumblegut loses his temper and blames everything but himself:

• The Stone: He claims the first rock is too soft, so he climbs the steep Moonshadow Mountains to drag back a massive slab of hard Midnight Granite.
• The Hammer: When his old wooden mallet dents against the granite, he screams that it's a "marshmallow on a stick" and gets Sir Chucklenugget to forge a gleaming steel hammer called The Master-Whacker.
• The Chisel: When he hits the granite too hard and knocks the centipede's head right off, he blames his rusty chisel and runs to Sparky Flarkbottom for a high-speed, steam-powered Smash-hammer machine.

The roaring machine completely gets away from him, exploding his third rock into a pile of red sand! Surrounded by three ruined rocks and three failures, Grumblegut falls to his knees in a hopeless rage.

Thankfully, Lexi Lightdancer the pixie floats down to help. She gently reminds him that the stone reflects the spirit—if you are jagged inside, the stone will break. She teaches him a magnificent breathing exercise: Mountain in, sand out.