Once upon a time a mummy god was sitting in a big armchair, darning socks, while, sitting at the dinner table, her young god was finishing his homework.
The young god worked away in silence. And when he was finished, he asked:
“Mummy, can I be allowed to make a world?”
Mummy God looked over at him:
“Have you finished all your homework?”
“Yes, Mummy.”
“Have you learnt your lessons?”
“Yes, Mummy.”
“Good boy. Then, yes, you may.”
“Thanks Mummy.”
The young god took a piece of paper and some coloured pencils and set about making his world.
*
First, he created the sky and the earth. But the sky was empty and so was the earth, and both were covered in darkness.
So the young god created two lights: the Sun and the Moon. And he said aloud:
“Let the Sun be the man and the Moon be the lady.”
So the Sun became the man and the Moon the lady, and they had a little daughter, who was called Dawn.
Next the young god made plants to grow on the earth and seaweed to grow in the sea. Then he made animals to live on the earth: some to crawl on the ground, some to swim in the sea and some to fly in the air.
Next he created people, the most intelligent of the animals to live on his earth.
When he had made all this, the earth was full of life. But in comparison, the sky looked rather empty. So the young god shouted as loudly as he could:
“Which of you animals wants to come and live in the sky?”
Everybody heard, except for the little pig, who was busy eating acorns. For the little pig is so greedy that he doesn’t notice anything when he’s eating.
Now all the animals that wanted to live in the sky responded to the young god’s call: the ox replied, and the bull and the lion; the scorpion and the crab, whose name was Cancer; the swan and all the fish; both centaurs responded, one of them being the archer Sagittarius; both bears were there, the Little and the Great; so were the whale and the hare; the eagle and the dove; the dragon, the snake, the lynx and the giraffe all responded; there was a little girl who was called Virgo; there was a whole bunch of Greek letters, and even a few objects responded, such as Libra, the weighing scales.
This crowd of creatures came together and began to shout:
“Me! Me! Me! I want to live in the sky!”
So, the young god picked them all up, one by one, and stuck them up in the heavenly vault, with the help of those big silver drawing pins that we call stars. It did hurt them a little, but they were so happy to be living in the sky that they didn’t give the star pins a second thought!
When the whole exercise was over, the sky was studded with creatures, while the stars shone in all their magnificence.
“This is all very pretty,” said the Sun, “but when I rise in the morning, I’ll grill them alive!”
“That’s true,” admitted the young god, “I hadn’t thought of that!”
He pondered for a moment, then he said:
“Right, in that case, it’s quite simple: every morning, young Dawn will get up before her father the Sun and take down everyone who lives in the sky. And every evening, when the Sun has set, she will pin everyone back up there!”
And this is what they did. This is why, every morning, the stars disappear, only to return again at the end of the day, after dark.
Everything being now thoroughly organized, the young god looked down on his world with satisfaction.
“You know,” said Mummy God, “it’s just about time for bed. You have school tomorrow!”
“I’m coming, Mummy,” said the young god.
And he was about to get up when he heard a loud noise. It was the little pig racing in, as fast as he could, all out of breath and shouting as loudly as he could:
“What about me, then? What about me?”
“Well, what about you?” the young god asked.
“Why can’t I go and live in the sky too?”
“Why didn’t you ask me before?”
“No one told me you had to ask!”
“What do you mean, no one told you!” exclaimed the young god. “Didn’t you hear, when I called for volunteers?”
“No, I didn’t hear anything.”
“What were you up to, that you didn’t hear?”
“I think,” said the little pig, blushing, “that I was eating acorns…”
“Well, hard luck for you!” said the young god. “If you weren’t such a greedy guts, you might have heard me. I did shout very loudly!”
At this, the little pig began to sob:
“Oh pleeease, Mister Young God, sir! You can’t leave me behind like this. Can’t you squeeze me in somewhere? Tell the others to shuffle up a bit… If need be, you could pin me up on top of them! But do something, please, I don’t mind kissing your feet…”
“I can’t!” said the young god. “First because there’s no more space, you can see that for yourself. The others can’t squeeze together any closer. Besides, there aren’t any more stars to pin you up there. And lastly, I haven’t time: my mother has been calling me for a good minute already!”
With these words, the young god stood up from the table and went off to bed. Within ten minutes, he was asleep, and had quite forgotten about the brand-new world he had created. Meanwhile, the little pig was rolling about on the ground, sobbing:
“I want to be up in the sky! I want to live in the sky!”
But when he grew tired of rolling on the ground, he stopped and looked around, and realized the others had left him all by himself. So he settled down on the ground, laid his snout on his front trotters and began to grizzle:
“I knew they didn’t like me! Nobody likes me. They all hate me—even that god! He’s taken against me. He called while I was eating on purpose, so that I wouldn’t hear. And he made sure to fill up the sky with everyone else double quick, so that I’d be too late. And what’s that supposed to mean: that there aren’t any stars left for me? Couldn’t he make any more, huh? Oh, but I shall have my revenge! This isn’t the end of the story! So he says there aren’t any stars left for me; well, we shall see about that!”
He got up and trotted away in search of young Dawn.
Dawn had just got up, for the night was nearly over, and she was brushing her hair, getting ready to go, when the little pig trotted into her room:
“My poor little Dawn!” he said, with a sorrowful expression. “How unhappy you must be!”
“Unhappy, me? Not at all!”
“Oh, but you must be unhappy!” said the little pig. “Your parents are so hard on you!”
“Hard, my parents? Why do you say that?”
“Why? Isn’t it hard to force a child of your age to get up before daylight in order to pull down all the stars in the sky? And to make her stay up until dark so as to pin them all up again? I’m shocked every time I think about it!”
“Listen,” little Dawn said, “you mustn’t let yourself be so easily shocked! My work is rather good fun, you know… It doesn’t bother me. And besides, it isn’t my parents’ fault! It’s the young god who ordered this!”
“Let’s not even mention the young god,” said the little pig, bitterly.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Have I upset you?”
“Forget it, it’s nothing… You know, I only want one thing in life, and that’s to serve you. But if you hate me too much to accept my offer, well then…”
“But I don’t hate you!” little Dawn protested. “What is it that you want, exactly?”
“Oh, I don’t want anything for myself. I simply thought to suggest…”
“Spit it out, then; what is it you’d suggest?”
The little pig lowered his voice:
“Well, if you like, I could come with you this morning and help you with your work…”
“Well,” said young Dawn, “if that’s all it takes to make you happy…”
“But it’s not to make me happy!” the little pig explained, loftily. “I want to help you—that’s all I want to do!”
“All right then. Let’s go!”
Dawn put down her hairbrush, picked up a vast sack and slung it over her shoulder, and off they went.
As soon as they had reached the sky, they set to work. The little pig held the sack open while Dawn tossed the stars down into it pell-mell, on top of each other. As they were unpinned, the animals living up in the sky began to come down to earth where they would spend the day.
“This is wonderful!” said young Dawn. “I’m going twice as fast as usual! Thank you so much, little pig!”
“It’s nothing, nothing at all!” puffed the little pig, chuckling to himself.
Now, just as Dawn was tossing the Little Bear’s stars into the open sack, the little pig jumped at the most beautiful one—the Pole Star, the one that shows which way is north. He caught the star in mid-air, swallowed it up like a truffle and ran away as fast as his trotters could carry him.
“Little pig! What on earth are you doing?” called young Dawn, after him.
But the little pig pretended not to hear her. He sped back to earth at top pig-speed and very soon vanished from view.
What could she do? Dawn would have gone after him there and then, but first she absolutely had to finish taking the stars down from the sky, for the horizon was already growing paler in the east. She got back to her work and only when she had finished did she set out in search of the Pole Star.
From sunrise until midday, she criss-crossed Asia. But nobody there had seen the little pig. From midday until four o’clock, she combed the continent of Africa. But the little pig had not been seen there either. From four o’clock, she searched all over Europe.
Meanwhile, knowing Dawn would be looking for him, the little pig had taken refuge in France, in a city called… —Well, what was that city called?—Oh yes! A city called Paris. And while scurrying all over Paris, he happened to turn into a street called… —What was that street called, now?—Yes, of course: rue Broca! And, on reaching a shop at number 69 rue Broca, the pig vanished into its open door. This was the cafe-grocer’s belonging to…—Oh dear, my memory! Who did it belong to?—Oh, yes. To Papa Sayeed!
Papa Sayeed was not there. Nor was Mama Sayeed. Both of them were out, I don’t know why. What’s more, their eldest daughter Nadia had been stolen away by the wicked witch of rue Mouffetard, and her younger brother Bashir had gone to save her. So now the only people left to look after the shop were the Sayeeds’ two youngest daughters: Malika and Rashida.
There the two girls were, enjoying the early-afternoon peace and quiet, when a gust of wind suddenly blew through the shop and, along with it tumbled a little pig—a rather pretty little pig, in fact, whose tightly stretched skin gave out a delicate pink glow (from the star that was glowing inside his tummy). The little pig begged them, breathlessly:
“Save me! Please, save me!”
“What should we save you from?” asked Malika.
“From a little girl! From young Dawn! She’s coming after me! She wants to kill me! And eat me whole!”
“No way!” gasped Rashida.
“She does, she does! She’s been chasing me since morning! If you don’t hide me, she will eat me up!”
And fat tears began to roll down the little pig’s cheeks.
The two girls looked at each other.
“Poor thing,” said Malika.
“We must do something!” Rashida decided.
“What if we hide him in the cellar?” suggested Malika.
“That’s a good idea!”
They sent the little pig down into the cellar and were about to close the trapdoor when he stopped them for a moment:
“Now, if anyone asks for me, you haven’t seen me. Understood?”
“All right!” said Malika.
“Oh, and I was forgetting: young Dawn will doubtless tell you some yawn of a shaggy-dog story about some star she’ll say I’ve eaten… Obviously, it’s total nonsense: little pigs do not eat stars. I hope you won’t believe her for a moment…”
“Of course not!” said Rashida.
“And one more thing! Don’t tell your parents about me, it’s better if you don’t… Parents, you know, they’re rather stupid, they don’t understand how life works…”
“Okay!” said the two girls, together.
And they let the trapdoor fall closed. Then they looked at each other:
“Why doesn’t he want us to tell our parents?” whispered Malika, anxiously. “There’s something funny about him!”
“And why does he glow in the dark like that?” asked Rashida. “Did you see him there, in the cellar, while he was talking to us? He looked like a lamp with a pink lampshade!”
Malika scrunched her nose up: she was thinking.
“Perhaps his story about the star is true, after all…”
“But then, are we wrong to hide him?” asked Rashida, very worried.
“Never mind.” said Malika. “We should have thought of that before! Now we’ve taken him in, we can’t betray him.”
At about five o’clock that afternoon, young Dawn walked into the shop.
“Hello, young ladies! You wouldn’t, by any chance, have seen a little pink pig today, would you?”
“Pink all over and glowing like a nightlight?” asked Malika.
“Just like that!”
“No, we haven’t seen him!”
“In that case, I’m sorry to disturb you,” said young Dawn. “Goodbye, ladies!”
And she left the shop. But five minutes later, she was back:
“Forgive me, ladies. It’s about this little pig… If you haven’t seen him, how do you know that he glows?”
“It’s because he has eaten a star,” replied Rashida.
“Indeed he has! Have you seen him, then?”
“No, never!”
“Oh. Right.”
And young Dawn left the shop for the second time. Hardly had she stepped outside when she stopped and frowned, then went back into the shop:
“Forgive me, ladies, it’s me again… Are you really completely sure that you haven’t seen the little pig?”
“Oh yes, quite sure! Absolutely sure!” chorused Malika and Rashida, blushing as pink as pink roses.
Young Dawn gazed at them doubtfully, but since she had no proof, she did not dare challenge them again and so off she went once more, for good this time.
At six o’clock in the evening, Papa and Mama Sayeed came home. They asked the girls:
“Any news from the shop today?”
“Yes!” they said. “Nadia was taken away by the wicked witch.”
“Oh? And then?”
“Then Bashir went to save her.”
“Oh, good! Anything else?”
“No, nothing else…”
“Very good. Go and have your tea.”
A few hours later, the day was almost over. Poor Dawn had searched the whole world but had no luck, and already it was time for her to start pinning the animals who lived in the sky back up there. She picked up her sack of stars, called all the heavenly animals and began to pin them all up again. When she got to the Little Bear, she pinned him up as best she could with the stars she had left, and she was about to go on, when Little Bear stopped her:
“Well? What about my Pole Star? You’re forgetting my Pole Star!”
“Drat!” hissed young Dawn into Little Bear’s ear. “I think I’ve lost it. But don’t tell anyone. I promise I’ll find it for you before tomorrow evening…”
But the Little Bear didn’t hear very well in that ear. She began to cry:
“Waaah! My Pole Star! Waah! I want my Pole Star! Waaaaah! The little girl has lost my Pole Star…”
She was making such a racket that the Moon hurried over:
“What’s all this? What’s going on?”
Very ashamed, young Dawn told her mother what had happened.
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“I didn’t dare, Mama… I thought I could find the star by myself.”
“Oh well, that wasn’t very clever, was it! Now we shall have to tell your father! And he does not like being woken up, does your father, once he has gone to bed!”
Poor young Dawn finished her work with her mother helping, sniffing as she went. When they were finished, they went to wake up the Sun.
That night—a beautiful, clear night—there was no Pole Star, but instead a great black space in the sky. And a great many ships that had set out for America ended up in Africa or even in Australia, because they had lost track of where north was.
“Oh, very clever!” grumbled the Sun in a thunderous voice, throwing flames in all directions. “What in heaven can I have done to deserve such a little idiot… I don’t know what’s stopping me from—”
“Now, now, don’t get so worked up,” said the Moon, impatiently. “What good will it do?”
“True,” admitted the Sun. “But all the same.”
Then, turning to young Dawn, he asked:
“Look, what is it that happened, exactly? Tell me everything.”
And, when young Dawn had finished her tale, he said:
“That little pig is doubtless hiding at Papa Sayeed’s shop. Those little girls must have hidden him. Quick, bring me my great black cloak, my black hat, my black scarf, my black mask and my dark glasses, and I’ll be there in a flash.”
The Sun put on his great black cloak, his black hat, his black scarf, his black mask and his dark glasses. Dressed like this, no one could tell that he was in fact the Sun. He went down to earth and straight away to see Papa Sayeed.
When he stepped into the shop, Papa Sayeed asked:
“What will it be for monsieur?”
“Nothing,” said the Sun. “I would like to talk to you.”
Hearing this, Papa Sayeed took him for a door-to-door salesman:
“In that case,” he said, “you can come back tomorrow! Why do you always come at this time? You can see that I have customers to serve!”
“I am not who you think I am,” said the Sun. “I have come to look for the little pig that has eaten the Pole Star.”
“What kind of a tall tale is this? There’s no little pig here!”
“And I,” said the Sun, “I am certain that there is. Your children let him in.”
Papa Sayeed called in his four children, who were watching television:
“Now, what’s this story I’m hearing about you? Have any of you four seen a little pig today?”
Nadia said: “I wasn’t here during the day—the witch stole me away.”
“Me neither,” said Bashir, “I went to save Nadia.”
But Malika and Rashida stood there in silence, looking at the floor. Papa Sayeed asked:
“And what about you two, now? Have you seen a little pig?”
“A little pig?” asked Malika, in a small voice.
“A little pig?” echoed Rashida.
Papa Sayeed lost his temper.
“Yes, a little pig! Not a hippopotamus, to be sure! Have you both gone deaf?”
“Have you seen a little pig?” Malika asked Rashida.
“Me? Oh no!” Rashida replied. “And you? Have you seen one, a little pig?”
“No, me neither. Not one little pig…”
“Really!” said the Sun. “Are you sure? A little pig, green all over, being chased by an old gentleman with a wooden leg?”
“That’s not right!” said Malika indignantly. “He was pink!”
“Besides,” added Rashida excitedly, “it wasn’t an old gentleman following him: it was a little girl! And she didn’t have a wooden leg!”
Just then, they both went quiet, looked at each other and blushed right up to their ears, realizing that they had given each other away.
“There’s our proof!” cried the Sun.
“What does this mean?” Papa Sayeed shouted. “Hiding a little pig in my shop—and what’s more, without asking! And trying to lie to me, on top of everything!”
The two little girls began to cry:
“But it’s not our fault!”
“We thought we were doing the right thing!”
“He begged us so hard!”
“He pleaded with us!”
“He told us the little girl was going to kill him!”
“Kill him and eat him!”
“Enough lies!” thundered Papa Sayeed. “Come here and let me give you each a good smacking.”
But this time, the Sun stepped in.
“Don’t smack them, Monsieur Sayeed, I am sure they are telling the truth. I know this little pig: he’s a terrible liar and quite capable of telling them all this nonsense.”
Then, turning to the two girls, he asked them gently:
“And where have you put him?”
“In the cellar,” whispered Malika.
“Would you mind showing me your cellar?” the Sun asked Papa Sayeed.
“Well… I would rather not!” said Papa Sayeed. “I don’t much like this kind of thing, myself. And besides, it could cause me problems in the future. I don’t even know who you are.”
“I am the Sun,” said the Sun.
“Then, prove it. Take off your dark glasses!”
“I really can’t,” said the Sun. “If I take them off, the whole house will catch fire!”
“All right then, keep them on,” said Papa Sayeed. “And stay back behind the counter.”
He lifted the trapdoor. All the customers in the cafe who had been listening to the conversation crowded over to see. As soon as the trapdoor was raised, a soft pink light shone out.
“He’s in there!” cried the Sun.
And, without even asking for the ladder, he stretched out one long, long arm, lifted the little pig out by his ear and sat him on the marble shop counter. The little pig wriggled and struggled and yelled as loud as he could:
“Let me go! Let me go! I want to stay here!”
“You can stay where you like,” said the Sun, “but I want my star back.”
“Star? What star? I don’t know any star. I’ve never even seen a star!”
“Liar!” said the Sun. “I can see it shining right through your tummy!”
The little pig looked down at his tummy, saw the glow and gave up pretending:
“All right—take your star, then.” he said. “I don’t want anything to do with your star! I never wanted it in the first place! I didn’t mean to eat it.”
“Don’t talk so much,” said the Sun, “and spit it out, if you can.”
The little pig tried and tried to spit out the star, but he couldn’t.
“We’ll have to make him throw up,” said the Sun.
“I have an idea,” said Papa Sayeed.
He took a very big glass and in it he put: coffee, mustard, salt, grenadine syrup, rum, pastis, brandy and beer. The little pig gulped down this horrible mixture, went quite pale and began to vomit up everything inside him—except for the star.
At three in the morning, they sent for a vet, who gave the little pig a purgative meant for horses, hoping they might get the star out by the pig’s other end. Between four and five o’clock, the little pig did quite a few things, but still no star came out.
When the clock struck half-past five in the morning, the Sun cried:
“It’s too bad! I can’t wait any longer. The day is dawning and soon I will have to rise—we shall have to use extreme measures! Monsieur Sayeed, can you bring me a knife?”
Papa Sayeed, who was also getting rather fed up, took out the long knife he used for cutting bunches of bananas. The Sun seized it and, without a moment’s hesitation, he sank the knife into the little pig’s back, making a large cut. Then he slipped two fingers into the slit, drew out the Pole Star and put it in his pocket. The little pig was weeping, but he didn’t make a squeak: he may have been a dreadful liar, but he was, all the same, a very brave little pig.
“Thank you, Monsieur Sayeed,” said the Sun. “And please accept my apologies for this sleepless night. Now I have to go, for young Dawn has already begun taking the stars down from the sky. I really don’t know how to reward your kindness…”
“Well, I know,” said Papa Sayeed. “Just keep shining as hotly as you can, so that my customers are thirsty and my business goes well…”
“Right, it’s a deal, I’ll do my best!”
Then, turning to the little pig, the Sun added:
“As for your punishment, since you so enjoy eating shiny things, you shall be turned into a piggy bank. You shall keep that slot in your back, Monsieur Sayeed will drop his tips in there, and you won’t walk free until you’re filled up with coins!”
“Great!” said the little pig. “I’ll soon be full!”
“There’s an optimist!” said the Sun.
Now, the Sun uttered a magic spell. The little pig stopped moving: he had changed into a piggy bank.
The cafe’s customers all leant in to look at the piggy bank. As they did so, the Sun skipped out of the door and flew away. Straight away, everyone, including the children, crowded into the street, to watch him go… Within a few seconds, he had vanished from view.
That day turned out rather overcast, for the Sun was a little tired. But from the day after onwards, the Pole Star shone in the sky once more, and the ships that set out for America mostly arrived in America.
As for the little pig, the Sun had been right to doubt that he would be free very soon. Naturally, customers often leave tips. Naturally, Papa Sayeed never forgets to drop the coins into the piggy bank’s slot. But since the children come and shake them out again, I won’t say every day, but maybe several times a day, there is reason to fear that the little pig may never again be entirely full up!
