The Good Little Devil and Other Tales

by Pierre Gripari

  Almost instantly, rain began to pour down in torrents and soon the fire was under control. Half an hour later, the King was discovered in a deep faint, lying on the floor of his office, with a broken glass in his right hand.

  He was helped up, carried away and set to rights, but hardly had he started to feel better than he received terrible news: the enemy fleet had been sighted. It was approaching at top speed and would try to land an army on the island.

  The King called his advisers together and sent out all his battleships. He had little hope, for the enemy soldiers were more numerous, better armed and better trained. After giving some orders and doing everything he personally could, the King went for a walk by himself, at the water’s edge, on the very beach where the young Prince Blub had gone swimming with the mermaid. As he walked, the King grieved and wept:

  “Oh my son, my child, in what terrible straits you leave your land!”

  Hardly had he said this than Prince Blub was there before him, riding among the wavelets. He was completely naked, but still entirely decent for, below the waist, his body was nothing but the tail of a fish. Seeing his son transformed, the old King began to cry even harder, unable to say another word.

  “Don’t weep, Father,” said Blub the water sprite, in a gentle voice. “You saved my life, you managed to choose my happiness over your anger; now be reassured: you will not regret it. For now I am one of the princes of the sea and I shall protect you. Look at the horizon!”

  The old King obeyed, and trembled where he stood, for the first enemy ships were already visible and were speeding in towards them.

  “My God!” he moaned.

  “Look again,” said Prince Blub.

  The ships were still approaching, but now all around them the sea was frothing white and undulating strangely, then it grew blacker and blacker. Little by little, it was filling with strange things; living, moving things. Here and there could be seen the lash of a flipper, the twist of a tail, a mouth yawning open. The enemy fleet seemed to be sailing upon a sea of monsters.

  “Now, attack!” called Prince Blub, softly.

  And straight away the tables were turned. Tentacles flew, jaws opened, water spouts sprayed. The sea foamed and frothed and parted in every direction. A thousand sea monsters threw themselves upon the ships, snapping, chewing, gouging, twisting, breaking and tearing asunder everything that could be torn. The ships loomed and pitched, as if about capsize, then recovered, shuddered and shook, then fell back onto their sides, tilted, tipped bows first into the sea, struggled like injured animals, smashing against one another, some even rolling upon the waves like people with their clothes on fire.

  Within half an hour, the sea was deserted and calm, the horizon empty and blue and the enemy fleet entirely destroyed.

  “Let me introduce you to my wife,” said Prince Blub.

  The King looked down: there was the mermaid, pink and white once more, and the Prince had one arm round her waist.

  “I… I’m so sorry,” said the King, upset.

  “Don’t be sorry,” said the mermaid, smiling.

  “You are too good… So, tell me now: will you have children?”

  “No,” replied Prince Blub.

  “Why not?”

  “We are immortal,” explained the mermaid. “Immortal people have no need to reproduce.”

  “Fair enough,” said the King. “Sadly, the same is not true for me.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence.

  “That is true,” said Prince Blub to the mermaid. “My father has no heir, and he is worried that when he dies—”

  “There will be chaos,” the King broke in. “Chaos and war. For enemies will see their chance, as they always do!”

  “If that’s the only thing,” said the mermaid, “I can fix everything. Tomorrow morning, let Your Majesty come and bathe at this beach, with Her Majesty the Queen. When you are in the water, you will notice a silver fish that comes to play around you. Let it play, do not be afraid of it, and within a week you will have a little boy.”

  So it happened. The next morning, the old King and Queen came to bathe at the same spot. A great silver fish came to play in the water around them and, a week later, they had a little baby prince.

  All this happened a very long time ago. Even now, Prince Blub is happy as a water sprite. His parents are dead, of course, but their grandchildren still reign over the joyful island, and no enemy fleet ever dares to try attacking them.

  The Cunning Little Pig

  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 organiz
ed, 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 som
ething!” 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!”