The Grickle

Once, in a far away country there lived an old woman who had three sons called Jack, Jacob and Joseph.
 And one day, their mother was working in the barn when she saw a tiny purple fairy creature called a Grickle scurry out from under some hay and, worriedly, she said to her youngest son Jack,
"Jack there is a Grickle in the barn, please catch it before it starts to grow".
But Jack didn't want to chase a Grickle around, he just wanted to play with his friends and though he chased the Grickle around for a little while before long he got bored of it and went off to play instead.
The next day however, when his mother went into the barn she saw that the Grickle was still there and had doubled in size.
And so she said to her second eldest son,
 "Jacob, I told Jack to catch that Grickle in the barn but he was too irresponsible. Now its twice as big. Will you go into the barn and catch it, please. If someone doesn't do something about it now when its small, before long it will become a Giant and then what will we do?".
Jacob told his mother not to worry; assuring her that he would catch the Grickle.
But Jacob was too lazy to chase the Grickle around and, instead of doing what he had promised his mother, he just fell asleep upon a bale of hay.
The next day however, when his mother went into the barn, she saw that the Grickle was still there and, not only that, it had trebled in size so that it was now even bigger than her and eating all the hay in the barn.
And so she went to her eldest son and said,
"Joseph. I told Jack to catch the Grickle but he was too irresponsible and I told Jacob to do it but he was too lazy. Will you please catch the Grickle in the barn? If it isn't caught, before long it will be taller than the house".
And so Joseph swore to her that he would deal with the Grickle and went into the barn.
But the Grickle had grown so large that Joseph was slightly afraid of it and when it growled at him he just ran out of the barn and hid behind a tree.
The next day, however, when the mother went to the barn the three brothers all heard her give a terrible loud shriek and running out of the house saw that the Grickle had grown just as big as the barn and was holding their mother like a cookie in one of its big purple hands, ready to eat her.
So, all three brothers running into the house, Jack got hold of his sling shot and Jacob picked up his bow and arrow and Joseph picked up his woodcutters axe.
And when Jack used his sling shot to hit the gigantic Grickle with a stone, the Grickle, with a little cry of pain got slightly smaller then Jacob fired an arrow at it and when his arrow struck it, with another slightly louder cry of pain it shrank further still, letting their mother go, finally Joseph hit it with his axe and, letting out an extremely loud cry of pain the Grickle shrank back down to its original size before, looking terrified, it ran out of the barn and far away.
Then all three of the sons said to their mother how sorry they were that they hadn't dealt with the Grickle when it was smaller.
"Thats alright", said the mother, forgiving them, "By himself each of my sons may be irresponsible, lazy or a coward but today you've shown me that, when you work together, you can deal with any problem however large it gets".