Juan the Seer

Long long ago there lived a very lazy boy named Juan Pusong. He always tried to shirk his duties and hated studies very much. Neither the fear of punishments nor the offer of a reward could make him go to school. Even though his parents sent him to a good school and dropped him off there by themselves, he often sneaked out of school with some other boys and played with them in local playgrounds during school time.

But his mother did not know about this. Every day, she prepared something nice for her son so that Juan could enjoy a nice meal at home after his classes were over. She was ignorant of the tricks Juan played on her and did not suspect that her son was rarely attending school.

One day, Juan planned to trick her mother even more. She went to her and said,

"Do you know mother? I am feeling that I have qualities of a seer hidden in me. I can tell what is going to happen in the future."

"Really?" his mother could not believe her eyes.

"Yes mother." replied Juan confidently, "Let me come back home this afternoon. I will tell you what you have prepared for me."

"Will you?" said his mother joyfully, for she believed all he said, "I am going to prepare something new this afternoon. I doubt if you will be able to guess it."

But Juan was confident and he pretended to go to school. As soon his mother shut her door, he turned back and went to the back of his house. Then he climbed a tree which stood near the kitchen, and hid himself among the leaves. He could clearly see through the kitchen window all that his mother did.

He saw his mother bake a bibingca (a cake made of rice and sweet potato) and hide it in a jar. He could even hear his mother telling her daughter, Juan's sister, not to reveal to her brother what she had made for lunch. He also heard her say,

"I will see for myself how great a seer Juan is. I can bet he will not be able to guess what I have made for him."

Juan laughed at his mother's self-conceit. When it was time for school to close he got down, and taking his satchel of books in hand, he came back home as though he had really come from school. Then he went up to his mother and said: "Mother, I know what you have prepared for me."

"What is it?" asked his mother.

"At school I had a vision that there is a bibingca hidden in the jar in the left corner of our kitchen."

Juan's mother became speechless with surprise. "Is it possible?" she asked herself, "my son is indeed a seer. I am going to convey this great news to everybody."

So Juan's mother told everyone she knew about her son's special powers. The news soon spread far and wide and many people came to make test his powers. In these he was always successful, for though lazy Juan was a great cheater.