Eek!

“Eek!”, cried Vikki one day, waking up and feeling something crawling over her ankle.
Throwing off the covers of her bed, she looked down at her feet and, at first, she was terrified because she thought she saw two large spiders; one sitting on each of her feet.
However, when she looked more closely, she realized that they were not spiders at all but hands; both of her feet had turned into hands.
“Oh no!”, she said, sobbing, “What’s happened to my feet?”.
“We didn’t like being feet”, said the feet, “We wanted to be hands instead. Hands have a much better life than feet; they get to make things and write books and stuff. All we get is stood upon. What’s worse, we end up getting covered in blisters and corns and bunions. It’s awful being feet”.
“But how will I stand up?”, asked Vikki, “How will I walk if I don’t have feet?”.
“That’s not our problem”, said the feet, “We have dreams and ambitions of our own. We want to be free to do what suits us”.
“But, but you can’t”, said Vikki, “Feet are supposed to be feet not hands”.
“Who says?”, scoffed the feet.
“Well, nature”, said Vikki, “Nature made you feet for a reason; if it had meant you to write and make things, well it would have given you fingers instead of toes”.
“But don’t human beings do things which defy nature?”, asked the feet, who were obviously very deep thinkers, “Don’t they build aeroplanes to fly and submarines to travel underwater because nature didn’t give them wings like birds or gills like a fish?”.
Vikki had never thought of that and she had to admit that the feet had a point.
However, then her other body parts, hearing what the feet had said, started to become dissatisfied as well.
“Now wait a minute”, said her nose, “If they’re free to become hands then I want to be something else as well because being a nose stinks”.
“Us too”, said her ears, waggling about excitedly, “We want to be mouths because all we ever do is listen to what other people say. We want to do some talking of our own”.
“Oh no, no!”, said Vikki, terrified of what would become of her if her body parts all started changing places, “Please! You can’t! You musn’t! I need all of you to go on doing just what you’re supposed to do”.
But Vikki’s body parts wouldn’t listen; in fact more and more of them decided that they would rather be doing something else than what Nature had designed them for.
In desperation, Vikki called out to her mother.
“Mummy! Mummy!”, she cried, “Help me, please!”.
And, coming into her room, Vikki’s mother got a terrible shock for, when she looked at her daughter, she saw that all of her body parts were switching places.
Not only had her feet turned into hands but her ears had become mouths from which she was yelling and her nose had become a long, waggling finger.
“Goodness me! What’s happened to you Vikki?”, asked her mother, horrified, “I’d better call the doctor right away”.
And, running out of the room, Vikki’s mother phoned the doctor and, as soon as he heard what had happened to the little girl he came rushing round in his ambulance.
“Don’t worry”, he said when he saw Vikki lying on her bed and what had happened to her, “I know just what to do”.
And then, reaching out his hand, the doctor began to tickle Vikki’s feet.
“Oh, stop! Stop!”, said the feet, giggling, “Please we don’t want to be tickled, stoppit!”.
“No”, said the doctor, “Not until you do as your told and start behaving like feet are supposed to”.
“Oh, alright”, said the feet, giving up, “Anything you say. Just stop tickling us!”.
Then, when Vikki’s feet had returned to being normal feet again, the doctor started to tickle Vikki’s ears and now they began to laugh.
“Oh, no, no”, said the ears, laughing, “Please! We can’t take any more tickling, stop!”.
“No”, said the doctor, “Not until you behave like good little ears are supposed to”.
“Oh, alright”, said the ears, returning to a normal ear shape, “We’ll do as we’re told”.
Last of all, he tickled Vikki’s nose and, though the nose wriggled about and tried very hard to resist his tickling, in the end the doctors tickles were just too much for it to take and, with a loud ATCHOO!, the nose sneezed itself back into being a nose once more.
“There”, said the doctor, happily, “All you needed was a good tickle. Now you look like a proper little girl again”.
Vikki sighed.
“Oh thank you”, she said, relieved that her various body parts were back to normal.
“Don’t mention it”, said the doctor, “And if any part of you starts misbehaving again, just give it a tickle”.
After that, Vikki’s feet and her ears and her nose and all the other parts of her never grumbled again; in fact, they all came to realize that even though there were lots of things they couldn’t do there were also lots of wonderful things that they could do.
“Feet may not be able to write or make things”, said her feet, “But we can dance”.
“And ears can listen to music”, said her ears, fluttering like butterflies at the thought of beautiful  melodies.
“And noses can smell sweet smells like roses and lavender”, said her nose, happily.
And so Vikki, her feet, her nose, her ears and all the rest of her lived very happily ever after.