Little Miss New

This is Little Miss New. But she wasn't always called Little Miss New, she used to be called something else.

Why wasn't she always Little Miss New? That's an interesting question.

Little Miss New has a story to tell, and this is her story.

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A long time ago, in a plain, ordinary town called Normalville, Mr. Nice lived in Nice Cottage, a beautiful and well-looked after house on Normalville's outskirts.

Normalville isn't known for anything out of the ordinary, and its people go about their everyday lives without any shock or scandal at all. Yes, bad things happen, but never anything too bad. It is quite the same for anything good too!

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Here is Mr. Nice. Now if you look at Little Miss New on the first page and look again at Mr. Nice, you might notice that they look almost the same.

You might ask whether Mr. Nice is related to Little Miss New.

For example, you might ask whether Little Miss New is Mr. Nice's sister.

Or you might ask whether they are cousins.

I'll tell you later.

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Mr. Nice was, as you might expect, a nice man. He was polite to everyone, helped out his family, friends and neighbours and was generally thought of as being nice.

And like everyone else in Normalville, he never did anything at all to stand out.

Here he is baking cupcakes one day to sell at the Town Fair. But nothing out of the ordinary here.

But some of you are asking, where is Little Miss New?

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One day, in Nice Cottage, Little Miss New went to her mirror. She stopped to admire herself. She was in her full attire, with her hat and dress, and full lipstick and makeup.

"I do look beautiful today." she said, as she adjusted her hat.

And suddenly, there was a knock at the door.


As quick as a flash, Little Miss New removed her hat, dress and makeup and grabbed Mr. Nice's clothes.

On went the trousers, the shoes and plain white shirt, and then she went off down the stairs.

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The door opened. It was the postman.

"Parcel for you, Mr. Nice!" said the postman.

"Thank you. I've been waiting for this." replied Mr. Nice.

But the postman noticed something different about Mr. Nice.

He asked "Mr. Nice? I couldn't help but notice, but you have something red all over your lips. Is that lipstick?"

"Lipstick? Oh no..."

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Mr. Nice thought quickly for an excuse.

"It must be the cherry pie I had earlier. I am sorry." said Mr. Nice.

The postman had a worried look on his face.

"Cherry pie for breakfast? That's not normal at all, Mr. Nice. Well, I would love to stop and chat, but I must simply deliver the rest of my round! Goodbye, Mr. Nice!"

Mr. Nice breathed a sigh of relief.

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Well, you might be asking questions yourself about Mr. Nice. Why was Mr. Nice wearing lipstick?

Did you know that Mr. Nice and Little Miss New are exactly the same person? Mr. Nice is Little Miss New, and Little Miss New is Mr. Nice.

But nobody in Normalville knew Mr. Nice's secret.

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Mr. Nice thought about what had happened earlier. If he told other people that Mr. Nice was wearing lipstick when he delivered his parcel, there would be concerns. There may be shock! There may be even panic! People would think this sort of thing isn't normal at all!

Mr. Nice spent a while thinking about what to do. He couldn't keep this secret forever as someone was bound to find it out.

He came to a decision. He would be brave and tell them his secret.

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Tomorrow was the Town Fair, and everyone from Normalville would be there. There would be games, food, drink and a big speech by the Mayor of Normalville.

And there, Mr. Nice would reveal his secret.

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Mr. Nice usually entered the annual cake competition at the fair. Only, this time, he would enter this year's competition as Little Miss Nice.

As this was to be such a special occasion, he created the most beautiful, wonderful, delicious cake, and it was the best he had ever made!

After finishing the last of the icing, he went straight to bed to get plenty of sleep for the big day.

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Mr. Nice got up, got dressed, put on makeup and became Little Miss New.

She checked herself in the mirror again, making she was as beautiful as she always was.

She had breakfast, and just as she finished her last mouthful, the doorbell rang again!

But this time, she didn't change her clothes. She went to answer the door as Little Miss New.

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It was the postman again.

"Just a parcel for y-... This is for Mr. Nice, madam. Would you make sure he gets it?" said the postman.

"I'll make sure Mr. Nice gets it!" grinned Little Miss New.

The postman didn't seem to recognise her at all, not one bit.

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Later that morning, Little Miss New left her house to take her cake to the Town Fair.

As she walked through town, she noticed that no one recognised her at all. Some of them asked whether she had just moved into town. And some of them said how delicious her cake looked!

She met the vicar of the town church, who was a friend of Mr. Nice's and he said that Little Miss New's cake reminded him of something that Mr. Nice would have baked.

But even he didn't spot anything different!

Little Miss New carried on, smiling. She felt like a completely new person!

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Little Miss New entered her cake into the competition and browsed the stalls at the fair.

Mrs Purl was there as usual, with her knitted dolls for sale.

And so was Mrs Lollipop, from the newsagents, with her 'Guess how many sweets are in the jar?' competition.

And Mr. Sausage the butcher served lovely, hot food from his barbecue!

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As the day went on, she did hear whispers amongst people, asking where Mr. Nice was. It was quite far from normal for him not to be here. He was there every year. And he hadn't even entered a cake into the cake competition!

Suddenly, a loud voice came from the Mayor's megaphone. It was time to do the annual tombola, so everyone began walking towards the stage, where the Mayor stood ready.

The Mayor said "I'd like to select a volunteer. And that volunteer just happens to be a rather remarkable person who has absolutely excelled at this year's cake competition. Would Little Miss New come to the stage, please?"

Little Miss New blushed, as the crowd applauded!

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As she stepped up to the stage, she turned and looked to the people of Normalville.

"Just before I do the tombola, I have something to say to you all."

The crowd hushed to a silence.

"You may not recognise me, and you may think I'm new to town. But the thing is, I know so many of you so very well and I hope you can forgive me for what I am about to do." she announced.

And just then, she removed her hat, and everyone there recognised Mr. Nice immediately, and gasped!

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The Mayor rushed to her just at once.

"Mr. Nice? Well, this... well. Oh dear."

The people of Normalville looked horrified. They had never seen anything like this before, not in a place like Normalville!

And then the Mayor said, "My friends. You may think we people of Normalville are certainly more normal than everybody else. People would think that a man who wants to dress, and live, as a woman is definitely not normal at all. What if I were to say that there are men and women who feel like they're in the wrong body all around the world? Surely if Mr. Nice feels more normal when he is Little Miss New, then this is the way things should be. After all, we like it when things are normal, so I think we should not be alarmed, and we should welcome Little Miss New as one of us!"

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And at once, the people of Normalville applauded them both.

And the important message is this. Just because you're different from everybody else, doesn't mean you're not normal. We can't have normality if we can't accept people who are different from us. If everyone was the same... well, that definitely wouldn't be normal, would it?

And the winner of the tombola? One happy postman!