NO NOSE

Paaaa.....PAA, early morning and my girl was calling for me. "Good morning!" I said as I walked down the stairs. She saw me and dashed right at my direction and said "Heelloooo Paaa" while rubbing her face full of chocolate chips from the Choc cookies she had for breakfast.

I told her to stop rubbing so hard and that "If you rub so hard, your nose may fall off and your eyes & mouth may change shape". She rubs even harder and I had to stop her. This time she looked at me and gave a cheeky smile. I said "Why do you do that?" She replied "I want to rub off my nose so that I can change to Mummy's nose.." I asked again "Why?" She paused for a while and said "Mum said if I tell lies, my nose will grow very very long like Pinocchio. So, I want to rub it off so that you change another nose for me that will not grow longer when I tell lies..."

I looked at her innocent face for a moment and said "Look girl, you don't have to change your nose because you want to tell lies....all nose will grow when you are not telling the truth."

She immediately responded and said "Noooo, Mum tell so many lies but her nose is still the same....like when she told Poh Poh that she has lost so much weight looking after all we monkeys but at home, every time I heard she said Ohhh Man...I am sooo fat got to go gym." "And when Mum told the pork man at the pasar (market) that she only has 10 ringgit, so give discount lah...when later I saw she has more money in her pocket".

I laughed and said "Don't be silly lah...actually your nose will not grow long long even if you tell lies...this is something big people say to make small people like you not to tell lies lah. But you should never tell lies OK?"

She gave me a big grin and said as she ran out to the garden "Now I am going to tell Kakak (our maid) to throw away my porridge cos my tummy pain pain...."

I soon realized that I have made a big mistake to wipe off her belief in the long nose story. I need to think of another way to stop her from lying. Maybe a big pair of Dumbo ears should do the trick? Or is she too clever to know that this is just another scam.