Chapter 12: Stinginess and Selfishness
The richest man in town was the owner of the video rental store in Lazytown. The townspeople were basically always renting or buying videos so he’d become very wealthy. His son was named Nenni and he got nearly everything he wanted. If he wanted a toy then his dad*1 would buy it for him. All he had to do was lay on the floor and scream. He demanded this and that. He had an electric car*2, a plane*3 that could fly, soccer shoes, a basketball*4 and many things. But he never used any of this. He just wanted to own it. If he didn’t get the newest in everything, then he just laid face down, hit the pavement and screamed until his parents gave up and bought what he wanted.
Kids who have everything often become selfish. And that was Nenni. Because of this, he went under the name of Nenni Penny-Pincher.*5 He never shared anything he had. It was the same no matter how much of it he had. Let alone give gifts!
Notes:
*1 Most languages aren’t quite as diverse as English in how parents are referred to. English has a difference between “mom and dad” and the more childish “mommy and daddy”. In Icelandic, “pabbi” can mean “dad” or “daddy”. In most contexts, I translate this as “dad”, which is more common, though when more childish characters say it, I’ll use “daddy” to match. The narrator says “dad” but Nenni himself, as a very immature kid, would say “daddy”.
*2 This most likely means an electronic toy, not a real electric car, but it seems that Nenni/Stingy has always had a car!
*3 The Icelandic word for plane literally means “flying machine” and I’m noting that because there’s something amusing to me in how direct that is. English words that had to be created as new things were invented were often named based on Greek and Latin words, while Icelandic just sort of calls things what they literally are. It actually makes more sense that way.
*4 Okay, so we go from probably expensive electronic toys to “he had a specific type of shoe and a ball!”. That is not in any way impressive.
*5 I decided to use this as Nenni’s nickname in an earlier chapter, but it’s a bit confusing because Nenni is selfish in multiple ways. He demands a lot, doesn’t share what he has, and he puts a lot of value on money. We have selfish as in “greedy”, selfish as in “stingy”, and selfish as in “cheap”, so it’s actually hard to nickname him while still using a rhyme or alliteration. The nickname I ended up with refers to the third definition only, so I’m willing to take suggestions for a better one, but as of right now, we’re kinda stuck here.
The good book*1 says: If you have two of something then you should share it with others. -But Nenni Penny-Pincher knew nothing about that.
The Sports Elf was standing at a bus stop*2 right in front of Nenni’s house. He sat down to stretch out and rest for a little bit. The shelter there was naturally not used much because the townspeople didn’t bother to use the buses.*3 When he’d just gotten comfortable, he heard a scream from the steps of Nenni’s house:
“Get out of the bus stop! Get out of the bus stop!”
He looked out from the shelter and saw Nenni Penny-Pincher shouting and red in the face from the steps of his house.
“Go away! That’s my shelter! That shelter’s mine!*4 You must leave the bus stop!”
The Sports Elf was astonished. Who could own a bus stop? They’re public property. That’s why we must treat them well. We must never draw on or crack the walls. That’s ugly.*5
“Who on Earth stands on the steps for their home and screams that he owns a shelter?” the elf thought to himself.
He looked at the house to see who was there. There was Nenni coming across the yard. He walked across the pavement and screamed:
“You must leave the bus stop! That bus stop is mine! This garden*6 is mine! This street is mine! This is my street!”
He carried on just like that until he came to the shelter. When he saw that there was an elf sitting there, he asked in astonishment:
“Who are you, exactly?”
“I’m a sports elf” said the elf “And I came to get you to compete in the sports festival.”
“I never compete with other people. If I compete in a sporting event then it’s my event, my competition, and I win!*7” said Nenni Penny-Pincher. “And you must get away from this shelter! This shelter is not to be used! It’s mine!”
He threw himself on the ground.
The Sports Elf couldn’t help but smile and said:
“Do you know that the worst thing a person can be is to be selfish? It would do you good to come and exercise with me in two days. I live on the hill just outside of town. I want you to please come over.”
“Do you mean the hill above the town?” asked Nenni from where he laid on the ground.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Yeah, but you know that I own that hill.” said Nenni.
“Nuh-uh*8, you don’t own that hill.” said the elf, laughing. “I live on this hill. I want you to come over there to workout sometime this week. It will do you good to come to such a workout because then you will learn to work well with people. Sports are based on learning to be around other people, to include others, work together as one whole and reap the benefits after. Sometimes you lose and sometimes you win.”
Notes:
*1 Since this book is completely secular outside of this one biblical reference, it feels weird for religion to just be dropped into this. This book thinks that Nenni needs more Jesus and I don’t know what to say to that. I’ve got no problem with religious kids’ stuff as long as it’s not used to preach about sinners and Hell. But, this isn’t a religious thing. At least, it shouldn’t be.
*2 The phrase here literally translates to “bus shelter” referring to the shelter at outdoor bus stops where people tend to crowd if they have to wait for the bus in the rain. I’ve decided to just say bus stop when the whole word for “bus shelter” is used, but to translate “shelter” by itself as “shelter”.
*3 It doesn’t take a lot of effort to ride a bus. It actually requires less work than driving a car. Unless the bus drivers are too lazy to work, I don’t see why they wouldn’t take buses when they could.
*4 Nenni’s catchphrase is “ég á X” meaning “I have” or “I own”. “I own X” can often sound odd in English, so I threw in a few “X is mine!” lines, because why not? The subtitles made for the plays do this as well, though in Áfram, it’s actually a bit confusing, since the various “mines” in Áfram’s Mine Song (Just called Nenni Níski) are both about things that he owns in the location he’s in and things he owns in general. So, switching “I own this street.” with “This street’s mine” makes sense, but “I have a fat elephant” got swapped with “that fat elephant is mine.”, which doesn’t make sense in context. So, I used “mine” where it fit and didn’t where it didn’t.
*5 This has been a Random Moral. There was no reason to talk about this at this time, so now the narrator is just finding extra things to lecture about.
*6 As is often the case in the UK, what an American would normally call a yard is called a garden here, but, like with football/soccer before, I’m leaving it this way, because it’s easy to figure out what was meant.
*7 The Selfishness Character has both the Sharing Moral and the Good Winner/Loser Moral for some reason. He’s also competitive or incapable of accepting loss. Nenni seemed to be intended as a collection of flaws within the same vague category. If this hadn’t been done, there could’ve been a character in the second book whose flaw was a “winning is everything” mindset, which would’ve worked better than a lot of what the second book actually did. It would’ve been better than having a second “stealing is bad” message. I’ll get into that more when we get to the second book.
*8 “Nehei” is “nei” or “no” but said while laughing. Nuh-uh is sillier than a simple “no”, so that’s why I used it.
Nenni Penny-Pincher said he didn’t want to reap those benefits with others. He just wanted to reap them and get all the prizes himself.
The Sports Elf took out his notebook, wrote a date on a page, gave it to Nenni and said:
“Come to exercise at eight o’clock*1 on Friday. You may have this paper!*2”
He took off before Nenni Penny-Pincher could read what was on the paper.*3
And so the day went. The Sports Elf rushed from house to house and gave different advice*4 and had written through nearly all the pages in his notebook before the day was over.
The last house that he came to was the Mayor’s house. He was very worried that there were now only five days until the sports festival. No one had announced their participation and he hadn’t even had any help. He knew nothing of the little bit of help that was going to fix everything in the gym.*5 It hadn’t been used in so long. The Sports Elf knocked at the Mayor’s door. He was startled and quick to open the door. It wasn’t very often that guests came to his house.
“Good evening.” said the Sports Elf.
The Mayor stirred up his courage*6 and asked:
“How are you? How did it go?”
“It’s gone very well.” the elf answered. “I’ve gone to every single house in town. I intend to come back in a week and see how it’s gone. I also intend to get all the kids to exercise with me up on my hill and go over what they’re supposed to do.”
While they were chatting about this, the Mayor made rice porridge and then they both ate the porridge with a big appetite, as it had been a very difficult day- but maybe the best ever for Lazytown.
Notes:
*1 AM or PM? If we’re on a 24 hour clock, that would mean AM, but either way, that’s a bad time. You’re either dragging people to a workout at a time before a grade school would normally start, possibly depriving these kids of needed sleep, or this is happening around what’s supposed to be bedtime. Why was this time chosen?
*2 Nenni, having been bribed with yet another thing that he could own, decided to go along with this. Considering how he doesn’t really learn anything from his chapter, that’s the only way this would make sense.
*3 Like I said in *2, while the other five chapters ended with the kids thinking about changing their ways, Nenni never said anything to imply that anything the Sports Elf said had convinced him of anything. He’ll magically lose his flaw like everyone else, but it’ll somehow make even less sense. The play does this too, so this was never fixed. How did Nenni actually learn to be less selfish? He just ignored everything he’d been told. Both the book and play (meaning the play of Áfram, as GGIL rewrote the characters) characterize him as a very young, or at least very immature child, making it hard to say if he even understood it.
*4 Here’s another preview for the second book. Most of the new kids introduced in the second book are said to be from out of town, but a few of them, such as Eyrún’s male counterpart, are treated as if they’ve always been there. For some reason, The Sports Elf either didn’t give them advice or they ignored it, only to stop ignoring it when it was later repeated.
*5 The word for “gym” is “Íþróttahús” literally meaning “Sports House”.
*6 Please remember that elves are powerful supernatural being who can cause serious problems for people who piss them off. The Mayor made a sort of deal with one, which is naturally a little bit scary.
The next chapter will be as bad as Goggi’s chapter with translating instructions.
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