Piggly Pegolas the naughty pig

Now, when you're as naughty a pig as Piggly Pegolas, being extra naughty is really something. For the rest of us, naughtiness might mean burping or not putting your napkin back in its ring after dinner but, with Piggly Pegolas, naughty is naughty. On one of his previous really naughty days, Piggly Pegolas had pushed the man who came to feed him into the river and then pretended it had been the wind. On another occasion he'd hidden in the fridge of the Derwent Arms when the health inspector had come around. And we all know about the Incident With The Beef Sausages.

Piggly Pegolas' mind ticked away under his muddy head and his stupid curly tail wobbled excitedly as he thought of the naughtiest thing he could do. Since nothing really wicked came to mind at first, he decided to pop across to the Derwent Arms anyway to see what was going on.

It was still very early in the morning and everyone was asleep, including the rabbits and guinea-pigs in the back garden. Walking on the tips of his trotters, Piggly Pegolas crept up to the cage, found the smallest, sweetest, fluffiest, cutest little guinea-pig who was snoozing in a corner, put his snout against his ear and said "oink!" as loudly as he could.

"Eeek," said the baby guinea-pig as he shot up into the air, hit the chicken-wire at the top of the cage and landed on the back of a huge black and white lop-eared rabbit. "Heh, heh, heh," chuckled Piggly Pegolas. "The day's naughtiness has begun."

"Cedric," said Mrs Derwent. "Did you hear a scratching noise coming from the roof?" Mr Derwent yawned and said: "I expect it's those wood-pigeons building a nest like last year." "But it sounded like something awfully—awfully big," replied his wife. "Naah," said Mr Derwent. "That's pigeons, that is," and he turned over. "Oh, that's alright, then," said Mrs Derwent—but it wasn't.

He wobbled up on to the top of the water-butt. Then he stepped on to the roof of the hutch, which sagged alarmingly, so he quickly scrabbled on to the roof of the Derwent Arms, which was a bit firmer. As he tottered up the slope, he dislodged a few slates, but none fell to the ground. Then, just as he was getting to the highest part of the roof ...

"Cedric", said Mrs Derwent sleepily. "Would you be a love and go and make me a cup of tea?" Mr Derwent stirred, smiled and, after a moment, began to move over to kiss his wife. He closed his eyes, pursed his lips and then, suddenly, there was an enormous crash and something huge, pink and wet landed between them. They both screamed, opened their eyes and saw—a fat, steaming Piggly Pegolas, covered in mud and plaster, waggling his tail and smiling. "Good morning," said Piggly Pegolas, only because he said it in Piglish, it came out as "oink!"

"Piggly Pegolas," screamed Mrs Derwent. "Piggly Pegolas," shouted Mr Derwent. "You naughty pig!" "That's me, folks," said Piggly Pegolas grunting happily and bouncing up and down on the bed in the morning sunshine.