Talking Pets

Peggy Pigtails was a good girl, and she was quite quiet and reserved. Not many words passed her lips, partly due to shyness, and partly because she sometimes felt she had nothing interesting to say.

But that all changed when Peggy and her family moved houses.
On arriving at the new place, she discovered a huge attic full of old junk. In one pile she found a big chest containing all kinds of strange things. Under them all, she found something special. It was an old book with a great heavy, thick cover, with gold writing on it. But what made it truly special was how it shone in the darkness of that attic, and in the most magical, fantastical way. What's more, the book was actually floating in the air. Peggy could find nothing holding it up.

She took the book down to her room and hid it there until nighttime, putting her puppy on guard duty over it. That night, when she was sure no one would disturb her, she sat with her doggy and started reading the book. It was a storybook, but Peggy could hardly get any of it read. She had only just started when her dog started speaking to her:

"What an interesting book you've found! It seems to have some lovely stories!" Peggy couldn't believe it, but the puppy continued talking, telling her all sorts of things, and asking a thousand questions. After some time, Peggy regained her composure and asked,
"So how come you're talking?"
"I don't know," answered the dog. "Instead of just thinking things, now I'm saying them too... it hasn't changed much for me; I guess it was the book that did it, though."

Peggy decided to investigate the matter, and she thought she would show the book to some other animals. One after another, the animals all started talking, and, before long, Peggy was chatting - in the most friendly manner - with a dog, three cats, two doves, a parrot, and five lizards. All the animals spoke as though they'd been doing so all their lives, and all of them had some pretty interesting tales to tell!

"Sure, babe!" Lemmy the lizard told her, "we all lead pretty incredible lives!"

Peggy Pigtails spent the next several days nattering with her new friends, and really enjoyed it. One day, though, unaware as to why, the book disappeared; and with it went the animals' voices. Peggy looked everywhere, but couldn't find that book.
Within a few days, she was missing the chats with her new animal friends so much that she could hardly think of anything else.
Then she remembered what Lemmy the lizard said to her, and she realised that she hardly spoke at all to her classmates or other children, and they probably had incredible lives too!

So, from that day, little by little, Peggy started talking more to her schoolmates, trying to find out about their lives. In the end, without realising it, she came to have more friends than anyone else in the whole school. And never again was she short of someone to have a good old natter with.

When we open ourselves to communicating with others, we enjoy getting to know them, because we all have things of value to share.