The Smelly Chicken-Pig

(check out the new pictures in the illustrations section)

Ben hated washing his hair. It was yucky! Water always ran all over his face and into his eyes. Tonight, it was bathtime again, but he would not let his mum wash his hair. No way!, Ben thought.

Unfortunately, his mum had other ideas. She washed his hair once more, no matter how he squirmed and wiggled, and wriggled. When she was finished, he told her that he had had enough, there would be no more hair washing ever again.

His mum was not convinced, “Your hair will get all smelly, itchy and yucky!”

Ben would not give in, “It doesn’t matter”, he said.

“Alright then, have it your way! I don’t want to get wet all over, or listen to your screaming every time I wash your hair. No more bathtime. Be a smelly pig, if that’s what you want!”, his mum told him.

Ben was very pleased.

When his dad heard about it, he called him a chicken. Ben said that he was not afraid of washing his hair. “I just don’t like it. Anyway, my hair will be fine”, he told his dad.

His father shook his head, “You’ll be terribly smelly, just wait and see, Chicken.”

This upset Ben. He did not like his dad calling him a chicken. He told Bear about it. “I just don’t like washing my hair. There’s nothing wrong with that. No need to call me a pig or a chicken!”

Bear did not say anything. He just stared at Ben. Then again, he was just a toy, he probably did not know very much about washing his hair.

A few days later, Ben still had not had a bath. His hair did itch a bit, but not a lot, so Ben just ignored it.

After a week, Ben noticed that his friends at school did not play with him very often. When he asked his friend Timmy about it, he told him, “You stink!”

Ben decided that Timmy was not his friend anymore.

His mum had not given him many cuddles recently either. Ben wondered about this. “You haven’t cuddled me in ages, Mummy!”

“You are a bit smelly. It’s not very nice coming close to you, sorry”, his mum explained.

Ben did not like that. He only had the one mum. Maybe a bath would not be too bad? On the other hand bathtime meant he had to wash his hair. Perhaps life without cuddles would not be so bad after all.

The next day he noticed something funny. When he pulled up his trousers, they got stuck half way up his bottom. Ben turned around to see what had caused the problem, but could not see anything. He went to his parent’s bedroom and looked in the big mirror. There was a little pig’s tail growing on his behind. [...]