The Sly Fox, The Sneaky Snake And The Dirty Rat
Published by Mike Jones at Smashwords
Copyright © 2012 Mike Jones
ISBN: 978-1-4657-2893-7
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Once upon a time...
There was a little girl who lived in a little house on the top of the hill with her grandma. Her grandma was always busy cleaning, cooking and looking after the house. The little girl was a nice little girl. She would follow her grandma around the house helping where she could. Grandma enjoyed teaching the little girl all kinds of things.
One day
the little girl said. “Grandma, I am a big girl now. Can I go to
the market for you?”
“Well,” said grandma. “You are not
yet a big girl but I suppose you are growing up and you will have to
learn to go to the market by yourself at sometime, so it might as
well be today. You must be careful though. You just don’t know who
to trust.”
“Oh stop worrying,” said the little girl. “I
think I know who I can trust and nobody can trick me.” She grabbed
her basket and off she went.
The
little girl found her way to the market. She had gone there many
times with her grandma and she knew her way around.
“Can I have
12 of your nice big eggs?” asked the little girl.
“Certainly,”
replied the man. And he counted them out and put them into a paper
bag.
“12 eggs, that will be 6 pence,” said the man.
“But
you only gave me 11 eggs,” replied the little girl.
“11
eggs,” said the man. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” answered
the little girl.
So the man counted them out again and sure
enough there were 11 eggs.
“My mistake,” said the man as he
gave the little girl one more egg making a total of 12 eggs. The
little girl put the eggs in her basket and went on her way.
“Oh,
what’s that lovely smell?” said the little girl. It was the smell
of freshly baked bread.
“Can I have one of those loafs?”
asked the little girl. “They smell delicious.”
“They are,”
replied the old lady. “That will be 3 pence.”
The little girl
gave the old lady a 5 pence coin and the old lady gave the little
girl 1 pence change. “I think that should be 2 pence change,”
said the little girl.
“Off course it is,” said the old lady.
“My mistake.” And she gave the little girl one more pence making
a total of 2 pence. The little girl put the loaf of bread in her
basket and went on her way.
“Would
you like to buy some of my cheese,” said one man. “They are all
delicious.”
“Yes please,” said the little girl. “They do
look nice.”
The man picked out a lump of cheese from a box he
had in the corner behind him.
“Here you are,” said the man.
“Delicious cheese.”
But when the little girl looked closer at
the cheese she said.
“There are maggots in this cheese.”
“Are you sure?” said the man.
“Yes,” said the little
girl.
“My mistake,” said the man. And then he took the old
cheese back and gave the little girl a nice lump of cheese with no
maggots. The little girl put the lump of cheese in her basket, paid
for it and went on her way.
By this
time the little girl’s basket was starting to get a little heavy.
“Well,” said the little girl. “I better start making my way
back home.”
On the way out of the market she spotted some
apples, they were rosy red and irresistible.
“Please may I have
6 of those rosy red apples?” asked the little girl.
“Certainly,”
replied the lady. And she counted them out. “1, 2, 3.”
And
the little girl continued, “4, 5, 6.”
“Exactly,” said the
lady.
“And no mistakes,” answered the little girl. The little
girl put the rosy red apples in her basket and went on her way.
The
little girl was feeling quite pleased with herself because she found
her way to the market and she bought lots of food without being
cheated or tricked by anyone.
“Grandma will be pleased,” said
the little girl.
The
little girl’s basket was now full. She had eggs, bread, cheese and
apples. On the way back she stopped to rest for a while. She put the
basket on the ground.
“Hello little girl,” said a sly fox.
“Where have you been?”
“Oh,” said the little girl. “I
have just been to the market and I have bought lots of food. I have
12 nice big eggs, one freshly baked loaf of bread, a lump of
delicious cheese and 6 rosy red apples.”
“That’s a fine
looking basket of food you have there,” said the sly fox, licking
his lips. “It looks so heavy. Where are you going?”
“I am
on my way home,” replied the little girl. “I live in the little
house on top of the hill with my grandma.”
“Oh,” said the
sly fox, still licking his lips and dribbling at the mouth. “Why
don’t you let me help you? I am going that way so I could carry
that bag of eggs for you.”
“That’s very kind of you,”
said the little girl. “Here you are.”
And she handed the sly
fox the paper bag with all the eggs. The little girl turned to pick
up her basket of food from the ground and when she turned around to
thank the sly fox for helping her. He was nowhere to be seen. He had
run off with all the eggs.