Rump and Musky

"Oh, no!" squealed the first Little Piggy, who was always the nervous type, and rightfully so this time. He was reading his news feed on Substack.

"The Big Bad Wolf is at it again!" he lamented.

"Can't be!" replied the second Little Piggy, who tended toward naivete and found it hard to face facts. "Isn't Rump," he retorted, "that bad old wolf, supposed to be in jail?"

"We'd better take cover," said the wise and calm third Little Piggy, also reading her news feed. "Rump and his bad muskrat buddy Musky are causing more trouble."

The piggies shivered and ran to shelter in the strong brick house.

It was the only house the Big Bad Wolf could not blow down.

They quickly plugged in their devices. After all the huffing, puffing and blowing down of houses four years ago, the Little Piggies always kept their devices charged. They knew they had to stay informed about what was happening in Piggy Country.

"What?!" exclaimed nervous Little Piggy, looking again at his cell phone in shock and disbelief. "I still haven't gotten over how Rump opened the cages at the convicted animals' impoundment center and let them all out. Jackals, hyenas, and ravenous wild dogs running free. Now, he is sending piggies to a prison in Central America. How could he do such a thing? They are going to eat us all up!"

He visibly trembled. "What are we to do?"

Naive Little Piggy still had trouble accepting reality. "Can't be!" he squealed. "It must be fake news."

Wise and calm Little Piggy was somehow able to concentrate and started typing furiously on her computer. She searched for the latest news about Rump and Musky on Piggle.

"Look here," she said, "Things are worse than we could have ever imagined." She groaned with a disbelieving frown. "After Rump gave Musky access to the Piggy Central Payroll, he's got his paws all over our private information, our personal data, and our retirement. Now they're cutting benefits to our veterans!"

"What are we to do!" squealed nervous Little Piggy. He took off in the direction of the living room and hid his head under a pillow.

"Can't be," squeaked naive Little Piggy, who headed to the TV room to watch his favorite sitcom, preferring, as usual, to distract himself.

Wise and calm Little Piggy realized it was up to her to do something.

She started thinking. An idea was forming in her brilliant piggy mind. She remembered her social networks and all the piggy followers she had built up over the years with her entertaining piggy posts.

Then, there was a knock on the door. And another. Two knocks on the door. Pound, pound, pound! Loud, hard, thunderous knocks.

"Little pigs, little pigs, let us come in," growled two very big and very bad boys at the door.

Rump and Musky were sounding bigger and badder than ever.

Wise and calm as always, Little Piggy composed herself and stood tall in the entrance hall. Using her biggest and bravest voice, she shouted out as loud as she could:

"Never! Not by the hair of our chinny chin chins!!"

Her bravery so moved the nervous and naive Little Piggies they came running to the hallway and joined in, shouting:

"Never! Not by the hair of our chinny chin chins!!" at the top of their lungs.

That big old bad wolf and big old bad muskrat huffed and puffed and huffed and puffed, but they could not blow the house in.

They growled with frustrated anger and stamped their feet. "Let's go up to the roof," growled Musky. "Yes," snickered Rump, "We can slide down the brick smokestack and eat those piggies up!"

It's a good thing our wise and calm Little Piggy was a fast thinker.

She got out every mirror in the house and surrounded the fireplace with them.

She found small mirrors, big mirrors, handheld mirrors, standup mirrors, and full-length mirrors and lined them up in direct view of the hearth.

She found hairbrushes, combs, hair gel, and hair spray and borrowed some cologne from the other two piggies. She lined them all up in a neat row near the mirrors.

Now came the best part of her plan:

She pulled out her device and sent a broadcast message to all the hundreds of piggies she knew.

"Get here quick. The big bad boys are in town and want to eat us up!"

Before you could say, "Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin," a rescue team of Piggies were surrounding the house. Firefighter Piggy, Carpenter Piggy, Farmer Piggy, Kindergarten Teacher Piggy, Library Piggy, and Public Health Piggy were just a few of the dozens of Piggies who carried an array of supplies, including ropes, lumber, hammers, and nails.

But wait.

The Big Bad Wolf and the Big Bad Muskrat had climbed down the chimney!

And lo and behold, guess what happened when they saw all those mirrors?

Captivated by their looks, they began to admire themselves from every angle. They couldn't take their eyes off their reflections.

They turned this way and that.

They looked at their bushy tails.

They admired their fuzzy faces.

They showed the white of their shiny big teeth in the mirror.

They turned and looked, admired, and fussed in big mirrors, small mirrors, full-length mirrors, and all the mirrors.

Rump was the first to grab a comb and some hair gel. Smirking as he gazed in the mirror, he styled his blondish locks, first parting his hair one way and then parting it another.

Musky began spraying cologne all over his fur and reached for a hand brush, grooming his fur as he admired his reflection in the mirror.

They looked at themselves from every side, ooo-ing and aww-ing at the furry images mirrored before them.

Busy with the hairspray, they did not even notice when the rescue piggies quickly constructed a crate, encircling the two rascals on all sides, even scooting a wooden floor under them. Only when the lid was placed on top and hammered in place did Rump and Musky notice something was amiss.

It was suddenly dark, and they could no longer see themselves.

They began to moan and groan and wail and flail and growl and howl.

The piggies had built a powerful crate—a good and sturdy crate—a mighty enclosure that would survive the high seas and a trip to the nearest launching pad.

They dragged the heavy crate outside, loaded it on a truck, drove it to the dock, and hoisted it onto a ship.

Wise and calm Little Piggy was sure to place a mailing address on the top:

Upcoming Launch. Destination Mars. One-way mission.

As the ship sailed away and the growls and howls faded in the distance, the Piggies let out whoops and hollers of joyous celebration.

This goes to show that, no matter the odds, you can never underestimate the power of Piggies.

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All characters appearing in this work are fictitious.

Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is certainly not coincidental.

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For further reading:

Letters from an American | Heather Cox Richardson

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com

A newsletter about the history behind today's politics.

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A classic American tale, the original Three Little Pigs:

https://americanliterature.com/childrens-stories/the-three-little-pigs#google_vignette

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