Mary lay in her bed, feeling as itchy as ever.
She had the chicken pox and she was not feeling too great. Not only because her
skin was covered in huge, pus-filled pimples but because she felt alienated.
“Julie!” She shouted.
“Yes, Mary?” Her sister answered, rushing into
Mary’s room.
“Where did the chicken pox come from?” She asked
as though she was angry at the source of the disease.
Julie smiled, grabbed a cushion and sat on a
chair next to Mary’s bed. “Well Mary, it’s a long story.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said, giggling.
“Alright then. Back in the day, way before
grandma’s grandma was even born,” she began, “there was a farmer who owned a
large farm with all different types of farm animals: cows, pigs, horses, ducks
as well as sheep. But his best thing was a large barn filled with chickens of
different types. The farmer fed them all the time, looked after them more than
all the other animals. They were his favourite. He even washed them with
expensive shampoo.
One day the farmer received terrible news, he
was bankrupt which means that he had no money because he had spent all of it on
his chickens. He couldn’t look after all the animals and he had to sell some of
them so that he could keep the farm. He sold his pigs, cows, horses, ducks and
his woolly sheep but he kept his favourite animals – the chickens. The only
problem was that he couldn’t look after his chickens as well as he had before.
Without all the grooming, the chickens started to fall ill. All their feathers
began to fall off and soon the farmer had a large barn full of featherless
chickens.
The chickens weren’t too happy about this
situation. Without their feathers, they felt cold easily and they also weren’t
protected from mosquitoes and other insects. The chickens didn’t understand
that the farmer didn’t have money to look after them; they thought he forgot to
look after them so they hatched a plan to get back at the farmer,” they both
giggled at the pun, “so that he’d remember to look after them. They went to the
chicken witch doctor and told him to curse the farmer with chicken skin instead
of his normal human skin.
The witch doctor did what he could and the farmer was
cursed.
The next morning, the farmer woke up with gross
white and red pimples all over his body. He went to the doctor but the doctor
was unable to help. All the doctor did was to name the skin rash ‘Chicken Pox’
because the farmer looked like he had chicken skin on him. The farmer was never
healed but the doctor caught the pox and it spread all over the world. The
disease was passed on to children, their children and down to their great
grand-children, right down to us. Now, the curse has grown weaker so not
everyone gets the pox. That’s where the chicken pox came from. The end.”
Mary lay still, looking at Julie with a dazed look. “What does
‘bankrupt’ mean?”
#R.T.S.
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