Generous Piggy Says “Not Today”

Generous Piggy loved giving. She gave Workhorse her extra muffin. She gave Fearless Cub her scarf. She gave Drama Llama her front-row seat, Smarty her favorite pencil and Panda her softest cushion.

By evening, Piggy had given away her lunch, her blanket and her afternoon. Her tummy grumbled. Her toes were cold. And she was so, so tired.

That’s when Chaos Cat bounded up to the snack stand. “Piggy! Can I have one more berry? Just one? Please, please, please?”

“NO!” Piggy shouted. “No, no, NO! Can’t ANYBODY get their own berries?!”

Chaos froze, mid-bounce. A few animals turned around. Generous Piggy, shouting? It had never happened before.

“Wow,” someone whispered. “Piggy’s mean.”

But Negative Natalie, who notices what everyone else misses, had been watching all day. She’d seen Piggy give away her lunch. She’d seen her shiver. She walked over and draped her own blanket over Piggy’s shoulders.

“She’s not mean,” Natalie said. “She’s empty.”

Piggy burst into tears. “I’m sorry, Chaos. I didn’t mean to yell. I just didn’t have anything left.”

Chaos thought hard, which for Chaos was quite a lot of effort. Then he went to the berry bush, picked the two biggest berries, and gave them both to Piggy.

The next day, when Smarty asked to borrow her pencil again, Piggy took a breath and said, “Not today. I need it.” Smarty just nodded. And nothing bad happened at all.