'Chicken Little Brain' as told by Nanny Piggins

One night, after eating a particularly large amount of dessert, Nanny Piggins tells the tale of a chicken with a mysterious head injury and the royal monarch who dealt with it.

I’m very excited to announce that we now have merchandise for BEDTIME STORIES WITH R.A. SPRATT! You can order t-shirts, sweaters, hoodies, notebooks and coffee cups all with the show’s new logo on it. They look super cool. Here's the link to the online shop...

https://raspratt.threadless.com/designs/bedtime-stories-with-r-a-spratt-2/kids

Transcript

‘Chicken Little Brain’ as told by Nanny Piggins

It was late. Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children were sitting on the couch finishing off their finishing off their fifth helpings of second dessert and so none of them had the energy to do anything. Not even get up and switch the TV on, which wouldn’t have been hard because the remote control was sitting on the coffee table. They certainly were too sugar laden to be able to face the walk upstairs to bed yet. So Derrick came up with a brilliant diversionary tactic. ‘Nanny Piggins, why don’t you tell us a story?’

Nanny Piggins didn’t want to walk upstairs either, and talking seemed a lot easier than walking, so she announced, ‘Very well. Children, I am about to tell you a story that will shock you.’

‘Not the one about the talking parrot and the Romanian tax inspector?’ asked Boris.

‘Of course not,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘They are children present. Some things are not suitable for youthful ears.’

‘Or bears ears,’ said Boris. ‘I didn’t sleep for a week after hearing about that. But I knew the parrot personally, so I knew for a fact she only spoke the truth.’

‘I was going to tell the story of… Chicken Little,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘Is it about a Chicken?’ asked Michael. 

This may seem a strange question to ask but Nanny Piggins stories often involved revelations - that it was in fact her fabulously glamorous pig relatives of many years ago who were really the stars of the famous fairy tales or historical events we all know today.

‘No, it’s a story about a Chicken who was little,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Although not in physical size. She was a perfectly normal sized chicken. It was her brain that was little. But people thought it would be rude to call her ‘Chicken Little Brain’ which was her full name, so they abbreviated that to Chicken Little.’

‘Hang about,’ said Derrick. ‘I’ve heard the story of Chicken Little. Isn’t it about a boy chicken?’

Nanny Piggins looked at Derrick trying to figure out if he was joking. ‘My dear boy,’ she said. ‘If the story were about a boy it would be called Rooster Little. Chickens are all girls.’

The children thought about this. They realised it was true. But they also reflected that every version of Chicken Little they had ever heard had Chicken Little as a boy. Life could be very confusing.

‘So was this chicken a cousin of yours?’ asked Samatha.

‘Again,’ said Nanny Piggins slowly because she was beginning to fear for the size of the childrens’ brains. ‘She was a chicken. I am a pig.’

‘Yes, but Boris is a bear and he is your brother,’ argued Michael. ‘So it seems possible that you could have a cousin who is a chicken.’

‘Fair point,’ conceded Nanny Piggins. ‘But no, in this case. She was not a relative. At least not to my knowledge. It is a Germanic folk tale and it’s always hard to know about the Bavarian branch of the Piggins family. It’s a mystery what they get up to in the Black forest. Other than eating Black Forest Cherry Cake. Although I’m pretty sure that does take up the majority of their time.’

‘Anyway, she was walking through the forest, looking for something to eat,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Probably optimistically hoping to find a nice slice of Black Forest Cherry Cake when KAPOW! She was knocked to the ground by a violent blow.’

‘Oh gosh,’ said Boris. ‘Woods are so dangerous. If it isn’t the wolves - it’s the axe cutters! Once the wolves start carrying axes we’ll all be doomed.’

‘Calm yourself Boris,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘It was neither an axe nor a wolf that had struck her. She had been hit on the head by a falling acorn.’

‘Just an acorn?’ asked Derrick. 

Barry Nichols (the school bully) threw acorns, liquid amber seed pods, and even gravel at Derrick all the time - and it was unpleasant but it never knocked him to the ground. Except the one time Barry had found a bunya bunya pine seed pod, which was the size and weight of a watermelon. That had hurt. But fortunately been too heavy for Barry to actually throw so he had only hurt himself when he dropped it onto his own toe.

‘You have to remember,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘That Chicken Little was a chicken and like most chickens her diet was sadly lacking in chocolate, therefore she suffered from terrible calcium deficiency, which meant that her skull was tremendously thin and weak. 

That is why it is essential, as a flying pig, for me to maintain such a high chocolate diet. In case I forget to put my helmet on before being blasted out of a cannon. I can land headfirst onto concrete at 300km per hour and barely feel it. 

Chicken little was not so lucky. One acorn gave her a terrible headache and a mild concussion. Actually, in hindsight, it probably wasn’t that mild. It may well have been severe that would certainly explain the ridiculous conclusion she leapt to. 

You see, Chicken Little looked up and somehoe failed to notice the enormous oak tree towering over her. Instead she looked through the branches and saw the sky. Then leapt to the deluded assumption that a piece of sky must have dropped onto her head.

‘The sky is falling, the sky is falling!’ she cried. Before immediately falling over again because the concussion had compromised her balance. 

Now Chicken Little was no rocket scientist and she knew it. But she did realise that having discovered that a serious meteorological disaster was taking place she must do something – she must tell the king. So she jumped up again and started running towards the palace. 

Along the way she ran past a sheep.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked the sheep.

‘The sky is falling, the sky is falling,’ cried Chicken Little.

The sheep looked up. The sky was a beautiful blue with a few clouds moving slowly across it in the wind. There was no sign any part of it was dropping anywhere.

‘Really?’ asked the sheep.

‘Oh yes,’ cried Chicken Little. ‘The sky is falling, I must rush and tell the king!’

The sheep thought to herself, ‘I’ve got to see this.’ So she trotted along behind Chicken Little so she could see this all play out.

Along the way Chicken Little continued to cry out that ‘the sky was falling’ as they passed a cow, a turkey, a salt water crocodile…’

‘A salt water crocodile?’ asked Michael.

‘Yes, it was a very ethnically diverse rural community,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Also a giraffe, a mountain lion and a quokka. And, like the sheep, they all followed along to see Chicken Little make a ninnyhammer of herself in front of the king.

When Chicken Little arrived at the palace and urgently told the guards that ‘the sky was falling’ the other animals had expected them to shoo her off. But they didn’t. They immediately let her in and took her straight to the throne room, because the guards knew their monarch had been a bit depressed lately about the poor raspberry crops and could do with a good laugh. 

Before she knew it, Chicken Little followed by all the other animals, was walking into the Throne room. But when she saw the king she was a little taken aback, because the King was in fact a Queen.

‘Where’s the King?’ asked Chicken Little.

‘There isn’t a King,’ said the Queen. ‘There’s just me, the Queen. I’ve been the monarch here for 62 years. Don’t you ever read the newspapers?’

‘I can’t read,’ confessed Chicken Little.

‘Well you should learn,’ said the Queen. ‘Apart from many educational benefits of literacy, there are lots of excellent story books to enjoy that may take your mind of pestering me with your problems.’

‘But that’s just it,’ said Chicken Little. ‘I have a terrible problem. The sky is falling.’

What?’ said the Queen.

‘The sky is falling,’ said Chicken Little.

‘Yes, I thought that’s what you said,’ said the Queen. ‘But it’s so ridiculous that I wasn’t sure if I misheard.’

‘But it’s true,’ said Chicken Little. 

‘Prime Minister,’ said the Queen summoning an important looking courtier who stood nearby. ‘Make a note. I want you to immediately set up free universal education for all. It’s one thing to not know how to read, but to not realise that the sky is simply sunlight passing through a combination of gasses held close to the surface of the earth by the universal force of gravitation - that’s just an unacceptable level of ignorance. We must rectify immediately.’

‘Yes, your majesty,’ said the Prime Minister with a bow.

‘Now,’ said the Queen, turning back to Chicken Little. ‘This is precisely why you need to learn to read, then read lots of books. If you had read these fabulous stories about Sherlock Holmes you would be familiar with the notion of deductive reasoning.’

‘Huh,’ said Chicken Little.

‘It means using common sense to figure something out,’ explained the Queen. ‘Without allowing emotional hysteria to cloud your judgement.’

‘But I know it’s true because when it fell it hurt,’ said Chicken Little.

‘Yes, that’s the bit that made you emotional and clouded your judgement,’ said the Queen. ‘Now tell me, where were you standing when you suffered this blow to the head.’

‘In the forest,’ said Chicken Little.

‘Yes, we know that,’ said the Queen. ‘But where in the forest.’

‘Under an oak tree,’ said Chicken Little.

‘Ah-hah,’ said the Queen. ‘Did it not occur to you - that instead of a piece of sky falling - that instead you were more likely to have been hit by a falling acorn?’

‘Or a lump of squirrel poo,’ suggested the cow.

‘Yes, another far more likely possibility,’ agreed the Queen.

‘Or a rat who lost his footing and fell out of the tree,’ suggested the sheep.

‘Also a possibility,’ agreed the Queen.

‘Or a rock dropped by another chicken that didn’t like you,’ said the giraffe.

‘Another idea, good lateral thinking, highly possible, I’ve only just met you and I’d consider climbing a tree to drop a rock on you,’ said the Queen.

‘But it felt like the sky,’ said Chicken Little.

Now it just so happened that in the throne room was a flower arrangement and that flower arrangement featured a bough from an oak tree and that bough had several acorns attached to it. The Queen grabbed of these acorns and threw it at Chicken Little’s head.

KAPOW

She went down like a sack of potatoes.

‘Ow,’ said chicken little.

‘That’s very mean,’ said Boris.

‘You have to be firm to be a monarch,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Just ask Henry the 8th. He had two of his wives beheaded. So imagine what he would have done to Chicken Little. She was lucky to just be sconed on the noggin with an acorn.’

‘Did it feel like that?’ asked the Queen.

‘I’m not sure,’ said Chicken Little rubbing her head.

The Queen threw another acorn. 

‘Ow!’ cried Chicken Little.

‘Does that jog your memory?’ asked the Queen.

‘It does feel familiar,’ conceded Chicken Little.

‘Now what have we learned here today?’ asked the Queen.

Chicken Little though about everything the wise Queen had said and reflected on her own behaviour, ‘I have learned to apply the scientific principal of reasoning and logic to problem solving, and not to leapt to improbably conclusions, then spread fear among my peers.’

‘Well that’s good,’ said the Queen. ‘But not what I was getting at. No, the lesson in this is simple – you need to eat more chocolate. Chocolate is full of calcium which is essential for healthy bones. A high chocolate diet will ensure a thick skull, that acorns bounce off so you barely even notice them

So the Queen treated everyone to giant royal sized blocks of chocolate. They had tremendousl chocolate party. Everyone’s skulls were much thicker from that day forth and they all lived happily ever after – the end. Time for bed.