The Pig Who Refused to Be Muddy

Mabel was not your ordinary pig. While all the other pigs on Buttercup Farm loved nothing more than diving belly-first into the muddiest, squishiest, most gloriously gooey mud puddles they could find, Mabel preferred to stay perfectly, absolutely, completely clean.

“Come on, Mabel!” squealed her brother Morris, doing a belly flop that sent mud splattering in seventeen different directions. “The mud is perfect today!”

“No thank you,” said Mabel primly, dabbing her snout with a handkerchief she kept tucked behind her ear. “I simply cannot get muddy. I have standards.”

The other pigs thought this was the silliest thing they’d ever heard. A pig with standards about mud? Why, that was like a fish with standards about water, or a bird with standards about sky!

Every morning, Mabel woke up early and took a bubble bath in the horse trough (when the horses weren’t looking, of course). She brushed her pink skin until it gleamed. She even polished her hooves with a special cloth she’d found in the farmer’s toolshed.

“You’re too fancy for your own good,” said her cousin Penelope, who had mud behind both ears and couldn’t have been happier about it.

“Perhaps,” said Mabel, adjusting an imaginary crown on her head, “but at least I’m fashionably fancy.”

One Tuesday afternoon, something extraordinary happened. A long, shiny car pulled up to Buttercup Farm. Out stepped a woman wearing enormous sunglasses and a hat so big it had its own shadow.

“I am Countess Cornelia von Fluffington,” she announced in a voice that sounded like she gargled with honey and diamonds every morning. “And I am searching for the most elegant, refined, sophisticated pig in all the land to star in my new perfume commercial!”

All the pigs stopped mid-wallow. A perfume commercial? On television? This was bigger than the time Farmer Henderson accidentally brought home fancy cheese instead of regular cheese!

The Countess walked slowly past each pig, examining them carefully through a jeweled magnifying glass. She looked at Morris, who had mud in places that shouldn’t even be able to have mud. She looked at Penelope, who was using mud as a hat. She looked at Uncle Bartholomew, who was so muddy that he was basically a mud sculpture in the shape of a pig.

Then she saw Mabel.

Mabel stood at the edge of the pen, perfectly clean, perfectly poised, with perfect posture.

“YOU!” gasped the Countess, pointing a gloved finger. “You are EXACTLY what I’ve been looking for! So clean! So pristine! So… un-piglike!”

Mabel curtseyed. She’d been practicing.

“You, my dear, will be the face of my new perfume: ‘Elegance in Unlikely Places.’ We begin filming tomorrow at dawn!”

That night, Mabel could barely sleep. She arranged her hay into a comfortable bed, counted seventeen sheep (who were quite confused about why a pig was counting them), and dreamed of fame and fortune.

When dawn arrived, the Countess returned with cameras, lights, and a crew of very serious-looking people wearing all black and speaking in whispers.

“Now, darling,” said the Countess, “all you need to do is walk gracefully across this beautiful meadow while the cameras capture your elegant essence.”

“I can do that!” said Mabel confidently.

What nobody had noticed was that it had rained all night long. The “beautiful meadow” had transformed into the most magnificent, most slippery, most spectacularly muddy field that Buttercup Farm had ever seen.

“Action!” called the Countess.

Mabel took one step into the meadow. Her hoof slipped. She took another step. Her other hoof slipped. She tried to stay upright, windmilling her front legs like a very pink, very determined helicopter.

“Maintain your elegance, darling!” called the Countess.

But it was too late. Mabel’s hooves went up, her bottom went down, and she began to slide. And slide. And slide. She slid down a hill, through a puddle, under a fence, and finally came to a stop in the biggest, muddiest, most absolutely tremendous mud puddle on the entire farm.

SPLORCH!

The other pigs gasped. The Countess fainted (but gracefully). The camera crew dropped their cameras (but caught them just in time).

Mabel sat up slowly. She was covered—COVERED—from snout to tail in thick, brown, gooey mud. She had mud in her ears. She had mud between her toes. She had mud in places she didn’t even know she had.

She opened her mouth to cry, but then something funny happened.

The mud was… warm. And squishy. And actually kind of… nice?

Mabel wiggled. The mud wiggled back. She squished her hooves down, and the mud made the most satisfying SQUOOSH sound she’d ever heard.

“Huh,” said Mabel.

Then, “Hmm,” said Mabel.

And finally, “WHEEEEE!” said Mabel, and she rolled over three times like a log, splattering mud everywhere.

Morris ran up, laughing. “How is it?”

Mabel grinned the biggest grin that had ever been grinned by a previously clean pig. “It’s WONDERFUL! Why didn’t anyone tell me mud was this FANTASTIC?”

“We tried!” said Penelope, jumping in beside her. “But you were too busy being fancy!”

The Countess woke up from her faint, took one look at Mabel covered in mud with the biggest smile on her face, and clapped her hands together.

“BRILLIANT!” she exclaimed. “This is even better! We’ll call the perfume ‘True Happiness!’ The message will be: You can’t find joy by being something you’re not!”

She began filming right then and there, with Mabel and all her friends playing and laughing in the mud.

The commercial was a huge success. Mabel became famous—not for being the cleanest pig, but for being the pig who learned that sometimes the messiest moments are the most fun.

From that day on, Mabel still took bubble baths (because she liked them, not because she had to). And she still kept a handkerchief behind her ear (for sentimental reasons). But she also made sure to spend every afternoon in the mud puddle with her family, getting gloriously, wonderfully, perfectly muddy.

Because Mabel had learned the most important lesson of all: It’s good to be yourself, even when yourself is a little messy.

And every night, when she curled up in her hay bed, clean from her evening bath but tired from her afternoon of playing, she smiled and thought about what a perfect day it had been.

The End

Sweet dreams, little one. May your tomorrow be filled with just the right amount of mess and just the right amount of fun.

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