The Pudding

One day little Naeem walked into his house without making salaam. His mother reminded him to enter with salaam or else shaytaan would enter with him too. He then went back outside and entered again, this time with salaam. His mother smiled and returned his salaam. 

She was pouring a hot mixture from her pot into little pudding cups. Like most children, Naeem loved pudding and ice-cream. His mouth began to water at the sight. “May I have some please,” he asked his mother. 
“Sorry my dear, you can’t have this,” she replied, putting the cups into the fridge to set. Naeem was very disappointed. There were at least a dozen filled cups. Why wouldn’t his mother let him have one?

He went to his room but kept thinking of all the puddings in the fridge. Eventually he decided to help himself to a pudding. When his mother wasn’t looking, he sneaked into the kitchen and took a cup of pudding and a teaspoon. He then ran back to his room and crept under the bed so that no one would see him.

His mother heard him running to his room and suspected that he was up to something. She went and peeped into his room and heard him rustling under the bed.

Suddenly Naeem exclaimed, “Yuck!”, and shot out from under the bed. He ran to the sink to rinse his mouth. His mother then knew that he had helped himself to a cup of ‘pudding’. She burst into laughter saying that it served him right for not obeying.

Naeem knew that he had been caught red handed. His face and ears turned red and he was filled with shame. He handed the cup back to his mother and asked her, “What is this? It’s not pudding! It tastes horrible!” His mother replied, “Of course it isn’t! It is dripping which I made by melting fat. All the pudding cups in the fridge are full of dripping and not pudding. Mummy always has a reason when she tells you that you can’t have a thing.”

 Naeem learnt an important lesson that day. Things are not always what they seem to be.