Henny-Penny

Henny-Penny

One morning, Henny the hen was strolling through the garden, looking for seeds beneath the trees.

Suddenly—tap!

Something small fell right on her back.

Henny jumped.

“Oh! The sky is falling!”

It was actually a small acorn, but Henny was so scared that she didn’t even look up.

“I must tell the king at once!” she decided, and ran down the road.

Soon she met the rooster Cocky.

“Where are you going in such a hurry, Henny?”

“To the king! The sky is falling!”

“The sky?!” gasped Cocky. “Then I’m coming with you!”

And they ran together.

Then they met Ducky the duck.

“Where are you going?”

“To the king! The sky is falling!”

“Goodness! I’ll come too!”

Then Goosy the goose joined the company, followed by Turky the turkey.

Now a whole procession was rushing along the road:

“The sky is falling! The sky is falling! We must tell the king!”

At the edge of the forest, Foxy the fox heard them.

“Where are you going in such a hurry?” he asked sweetly.

“To the king! The sky is falling!”

The fox narrowed his eyes.

“Are you sure you know the way? I know a shortcut. Come through my cave.”

The birds were about to follow him, but old Goosy the goose stopped.

“Wait. If we are going to the king, why does the road lead to a dark cave?”

Ducky began to wonder too.

“And who saw the sky fall anyway?”

Everyone looked at Henny.

“I… felt it,” said the hen. “Something fell on my back.”

“What was it?” asked Cocky.

Henny thought for a moment.

“I don’t know.”

The fox quickly put in:

“Don’t waste time checking! When there is terrible news, you need to run as quickly as possible!”

At this, Turky shook his head gravely.

“Quite the opposite. The scarier the news, the more important it is to find out whether it’s true before doing anything else.”

“Let’s go back to where it happened,” suggested Goosy.

The fox realized that his cunning plan had failed, snorted and walked away.

The birds headed back to the garden.

Henny pointed to the tree.

“This is where it happened.”

Everyone carefully examined the ground.

“Look!” cried Ducky.

Under the oak tree lay an acorn.

Cocky picked it up with his beak.

“Henny, this must be your sky.”

The hen blushed under her feathers.

“So the sky isn’t falling?”

They all looked up. High above them stretched the blue sky, with little white clouds drifting slowly across it.

“It looks safe enough to me,” laughed Goosy.

Henny laughed too.

“Oh, my friends, I’m sorry! I was so scared that I didn’t even check.”

“That’s all right,” said Turky. “Now we’ve all learned something important.”

“What?” asked Ducky.

“Before passing on frightening news, we should stop, look, and check.”

Just then the royal gardener was passing by.

“Why are you all gathered here?”

Henny told him the whole story honestly.

The gardener laughed and gave each of them a handful of grain.

“The courage to admit a mistake deserves a reward too.”

That evening, Henny was sitting under the same oak tree. Another acorn fell from the branch.

Tap!

The hen started, then calmly looked at the ground.

“An acorn,” she said. “Just an acorn.”

Only then did she go to tell her friends the news:

“Guess what? Acorns are falling from the oak tree today!”

And this time the news was completely true.

May this story leave a little light in your heart ✨