And this Henry didn’t like rain.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like water, he loved water. If fact, every afternoon Henry took a long swim in the lake, but rain was another matter entirely. And unfortunately the area where Henry lived got lots and lots of rain.

Henry hated the way the rain made the side of the lake muddy. Henry hated the way wet leaves stuck to his bottom whenever he sat down. Henry hated the smell of wet dirt in his duck hole. Henry hated not being able to fly because his wings were all soggy. Henry, it would have to be said, hated EVERYTHING about rain!!

So, Henry decided to move to the desert. He figured that any place that had almost no rain would be a great place to live. And for the first few months Henry did love living in the desert. He’d found himself a lovely oasis with its own little pool of cool, refreshing water, 3 palm trees and a rock to shelter under. It even had a small patch of grass.

The problem was, after a few months Henry had eaten all the grass and was now having to eat grasshoppers (which, he discovered, don’t taste anything like grass). Worse than that, Henry had noticed his little pool getting smaller and smaller with each passing day and before long, it was no more than a large puddle.

The good news was, it hadn’t rained once since Henry had arrived. So he was willing to stay and see how things turned out. Besides, his little oasis really was feeling like home and Henry was sure it would eventually rain, just enough to fill up his pool and bring back the little patch of grass. But as the weeks went by it didn’t rain. Henry had to start digging for water to drink each morning and it wasn’t long before he was too tired to even hunt grasshoppers.

After another week Henry’s water ran out completely. Now he was so weak there was no way he could fly, in fact, he could hardly even raise his head. He spent his days sitting in the shade, dreaming about grass, dreaming about cool refreshing water, even, dreaming about RAIN!    

So when the rain finally began to fall, Henry thought he’d never seen a more wonderful sight in his whole life. He rolled down the sand, into the now empty pool and lay on his back in the rain catching water in his mouth.

It took three days of constant drinking before Henry was strong enough to fly again, but as soon as he could fly he left the desert forever.

All the ducks welcomed Henry home and he moved straight back into his old duck hole. For the first few weeks he often had ducks drop in to ask about his adventures. It wasn’t long though before life was pretty much back to normal for Henry, well, normal except for one thing. Henry no longer complained about the rain, not ever. In fact, whenever it rained Henry could usually be seen outside, lying on the ground, catching raindrops in his mouth, looking like he was having the time of his life!

And that’s the story of Henry the Duck.

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This is a free bed time story from www.henrytheduck.net ©2009, all rights reserved.

his is the story of Henry the duck, but it’s a different Henry to the Henry you might know.  Because, not everybody knows this, but just about every duck is called Henry! 

And this Henry was black, from head to toe.

His feet were black, his bill was black, even his skin and feathers were black. As far as Henry knew he was the only black duck in the whole world. Other ducks often asked him how he came to be so black and it was a story that Henry loved to tell. You see, Henry hadn’t always been black. In fact, he was just like every other duck for the first few years of his life. He’d kind of, become black during a trip to Sydney and it was a trip he’d never forget.

Henry had visited a friend in Sydney and then he’d decided to head to the beach. He’d spent hours body surfing in the waves and was having the time of his life, much to the surprise of the people swimming near him but after a while he’d decided to go for a snack.

Henry had always wondered whether seaweed was anything like the duck weed that he ate back home. So he headed off to the rock pools at the end of the beach to find out (well, truth be told, he was actually hoping he might see a star fish but the seaweed excuse was as good as any other he could think of).

Henry had been hopping from rock to rock around a particularly big pool of water when he’d slipped on a slimy rock and fallen in. Which was pretty embarrassing even for a duck and Henry was very glad that no other ducks had been around to see him. It was as he was climbing out, having a little chuckle to himself, that he was suddenly grabbed and dragged under the water!

Henry could feel arms wrapping around him but the more he tried to push them off the tighter they held him. Even using his wings, his feet and his beak, Henry still found he couldn’t break free. Whatever had a hold of him seemed to have two hands for every one of Henry’s and that’s when it suddenly dawned on Henry that he was about to become lunch to an octopus.

Henry had never heard of a duck being eaten by an octopus before but he realised, as he struggled, that if he didn’t get free soon then no-one would hear about him being eaten by an octopus either.

So with renewed desperation, Henry twisted his neck around and began to peck the octopus as hard as he could in as many places as he could and just when he thought he’d run out of air the octopus finally let go and everything went dark.

Henry couldn’t see a thing, it was as though it had suddenly become night time and Henry realised the octopus must have sprayed it’s ink all over him as it ran away in search of an easier dinner. The problem was that now Henry had no idea which way was up or which way was down and he really needed a breath of fresh air.

Henry thrashed about trying to clear the ink so that he could see and was overjoyed when he felt his foot break water. He shot out of the pool and flopped onto the rocks, gasping for air. And it was only after he’d gotten his breath back that he realised he was black all over.

Henry had tried all sorts of ways to wash the ink off, but nothing had ever worked and even over a long time, the ink hadn’t faded. Luckily Henry had gotten used to it fairly quickly and it really wasn’t so bad in the end. Besides, it always gave him a great story to tell at parties! 

And that’s the story of Henry the duck.

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This is a free bed time story from www.henrytheduck.net ©2009, all rights reserved.

And this Henry lived in Bethlehem around the time that Quirinius was governor of Syria.

Caesar Augustus had just issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world and so Bethlehem had been flooded with people returning home to be counted. To make matters worse the king and queen duck had decided it was a great chance to count all the ducks too. Henry had never seen so many ducks on his lake, the NOISE alone was driving Henry crazy.

There was simply no room left anywhere in town and so just that morning Henry had given his home to a poor family with 5 ducklings who had nowhere to stay. Which meant, of course, that now Henry had nowhere to stay. He was happy though, knowing that now the ducklings would stay warm at night, and besides, they would soon leave and he would have his house back.

That night, with nowhere to stay, Henry decided to get away from all the noise and fly up to the hills with the shepherds. It was a night that Henry would never ever forget his whole life, because that night an Angel appeared to the shepherds and Henry was right there to see it.

Henry was just thinking about finding a warm spot to sleep when suddenly it was as light as day. The shepherds were terrified and even Henry was a little scared when he looked up and saw the angel. But the angel told the shepherds not to be afraid, he said that a baby had just been born in a manger in Bethlehem. A baby who was Saviour. A baby who was Christ the Lord.

Then suddenly, the sky was full of angels singing glory to God and announcing peace for mankind because of the birth of the baby. As suddenly as they’d appeared, they were gone again and Henry and the shepherds were again in darkness.

Henry thought this baby must be pretty special, after all, how many babies had their birth announced by God’s own special messengers?? So when the shepherds decided to go and look for the baby Henry knew he had to go too. In fact, Henry had a pretty good idea where the baby might be because he’d flown all over Bethlehem and knew all the inns that had stables.

So while the shepherds were climbing down the hill, Henry flew ahead to find the baby the angels had spoken of. It didn’t take Henry long to find him and once he had he didn’t want to leave. But Henry wasn’t sure the shepherds would find him by themselves so he flew back to them and led them straight to Jesus.

For the rest of the week, Henry slept every night in the stable with Baby Jesus and every day he went out to tell all the ducks he could about the special baby who’d been born.

Not everyone believed Henry when they first heard the story, after all, no other duck had ever seen an angel. But it wasn’t long before the ducks found out that the shepherds were also spreading the news and their story was the same as Henry’s. Many of the ducks went to visit the baby Henry had spoken of and all those who went had no doubts at all the he was a very special baby indeed. And once all the ducks had been counted, the ducks from Bethlehem took the news of baby Jesus back to all the other ducks.

Which is why to this very day, ducks also celebrate Christmas every year!

And that’s the story of Henry the duck. 

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This is a free bed time story from www.henrytheduck.net ©2009, all rights reserved.

And this Henry lived in a park that was VERY popular at Christmas time.

In fact, almost everyone in town had their Christmas parties in Henry’s park, which made the park very noisy and very messy.  The problem was that everyone brought tinsel and balloons and streamers and decorations to the park, but no-one bothered to take them home again.  Every morning Henry and his friends woke up to find their park covered in rubbish, including left over food and bottles.  As Christmas got closer, the park was so messy that people had stopped visiting the park during the day and that meant no bread for the ducks.

Henry decided to call a meeting to see what could be done and that night, after all the parties had finished, the ducks got to work cleaning the park.  The problem was, the bins were soon full to overflowing and the ducks had to pile the rubbish up around them.  Finally they’d gathered up all the rubbish, the park was clean and lots of very tired ducks waddled home to bed. 

But the next morning they woke to find their park was dirty once more!! Not only had the wind blown the rubbish around but other animals, searching for food, had spread rubbish all over the park.  With Christmas being such a busy time Henry knew that the overflowing bins weren’t likely to be emptied any time soon.  He needed to work out a way to clean up the park and stop the rubbish from blowing away.  It took Henry all day, but he finally knew what had to be done. 

That night Henry called another meeting and when the ducks heard Henry’s plan they agreed it was a great idea.  They all set to work right away and they didn’t get to bed until the sun was coming up the next morning.  But as they waddled off to bed, exhausted and sore they knew that this time, the park would stay clean.

Henry didn’t wake up until after lunch time and he was one of the first ducks out and about.  He found, much to his surprise that the park was FULL of people, even people from the television stations and newspapers. And EVERYONE was taking photos of the big pine tree in the middle of the park.

It was covered from top to bottom in tinsel and streamers and balloons and decorations which had all been tied onto the branches.  There were even empty bottles stuck onto some of the branches, all glittering in the sunlight.  It all made the pine tree look like a wonderful big old Christmas tree.

For the rest of December the park was full of visitors and Henry and the other ducks had never had so much bread in all their lives.  Their tree made into onto the Television news and into all the newspapers but no one had any idea who’d done the decorating… except Henry and the other ducks that is and they weren’t telling anyone.

From that year on, every Christmas the ducks would decorate the big pine tree in the middle of the park, cleaning up the park and making sure there were lots of Christmas visitors to feed them.  And every year their tree was always the best Christmas tree in the whole city.

And that’s the story of Henry the duck.

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This is a free bed time story from www.henrytheduck.net ©2009, all rights reserved.

And this Henry loved to tell tall stories.

Henry told lots of stories about the wonderful things he’d done.  Brave things, exciting things, the problem was, not all of them were true.  Most of the things Henry said he’d done were just made up and he’d never really done them at all. It wasn’t long before the ducks discovered Henry had been lying to them and then they stopped believing anything Henry said. Even though at least one of his stories, really did happen.

Henry had been flying home over the rainforests in Rwanda and had stopped for a short rest and it was there, in the mist, he’d seen the family of Gorillas.

Henry was very excited to see that there were baby gorillas with their Mummy and Daddy. But when he tried to get a closer look the biggest gorilla, which Henry assumed was the Daddy, stood up, growled at Henry and beat his chest.

Now Henry was very good at understanding cats and dogs and he was fluent in English (not that he’d ever been allowed to use it) but he’d never learnt Gorilla. It sounded like the Gorilla was trying to tell Henry something very important but Henry (who was never very smart) couldn’t tell what it was.

When Henry moved even closer for a better look he finally understood. The gorilla must have been saying STAY BACK, or GO AWAY or something like that, because all of a sudden the Daddy gorilla charged straight at Henry!

Henry was frozen with terror and only at the last minute did he think to fly away. The Gorilla, who wasn’t expecting Henry to suddenly leap into the air, was so surprised he ran into a tree and knocked himself out.

But just when Henry thought he was safe he saw the mother gorilla, climbing up the tree he’d landed in. She looked very, very cross and Henry was sure he didn’t want to let her catch him. Quick as he could, Henry leapt from branch to branch quacking very loudly with the gorilla right behind him.

He was right at the top of the tree when the mother gorilla finally caught up to him and as he flew up into the air the gorilla grabbed his tail feathers and pulled them right out. Luckily Henry didn’t need his tail feathers for flying and he flew home as quick as he could.

Henry was still a bit shaken when he arrived home a few days later and he couldn’t believe that he’d knocked out a Daddy gorilla, well, sort of…

The trouble was, none of the other ducks could believe it either. They thought that Henry was just making up another one of his fairy tales and for the first time in his life Henry wished he’d been more truthful. In fact, from that time on Henry tried very hard to never lie again and after a few years, some of the ducks started to believe he may actually have knocked out a Gorilla.

But only some of them.

And that’s the story of Henry the duck.

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 This is a free bed time story from www.henrytheduck.net
©2009, all rights reserved.

And this Henry was a bit of a clean freak.

Henry loved to keep his house spotlessly clean, ‘a place for everything and everything in it’s place’. He even kept the lawn around his hole nibbled to a nice even length. But one day, Henry came to a sudden and sickening realization.

Henry was swimming in the lake as he usually did in the afternoon, drinking the cool refreshing water, when suddenly it dawned on him. He’d just done a wee in the lake and now he was drinking it!!! Not only that but most of the ducks went down to the lake whenever they needed to go to the toilet, both number 1’s AND number 2’s.

Henry immediately called a meeting of all the ducks and explained to them why they needed to stop poo-ing and wee-ing in the lake. “Not even humans drink from the toilet,” said Henry, “but that’s exactly what we’re doing, every time we drink from the lake. It’s got to stop”

And it did, from that time on all ducks left the lake before going to the toilet and everyone started to feel much better about drinking the water. Even Henry was happy, for about a week, and that’s when everything started to unravel.

As the week progressed the ducks had noticed that it was getting harder and harder to get to the lake without stepping in duck poo. There was poo all over the park and already there were less people coming for picnics, which meant less food thrown to the ducks.

By the end of the second week the park was just covered in poo and no-one at all was coming to visit the park. To make things worse, the duck weed that the ducks loved to eat was starting to look very unhealthy and in places it was even dying. Even the fish seemed less healthy as they swam around the bottom of the lake.

Henry called another meeting and ducks were sent to a neighboring lake to ask for help. Luckily one of the ducks who came to help knew exactly what was wrong.

“Don’t you realise” said the helpful duck “that the plants and fish NEED our poo to live on, It’s where they get the nutrients they need to grow, it’s where they get their food. At least in the lake there lots of animals to get rid of all the poo but when you poo in the park, it doesn’t help anyone and it stays around for a very long time.”

All of the ducks could see that what he said was true. So for the rest of the afternoon the ducks cleaned the park from top to bottom. They scrapped all the poo off the lawn and threw it into the lake and when they had a drink, they couldn’t taste any difference. The water still tasted cool and refreshing.

A week later everything was back to normal, people were visiting the park again, the duck weed was looking healthy and the ducks were happily going about their business in the lake as they always had. Henry, was still a bit of a clean freak, but from that time on, whenever he had an idea for how everyone could be cleaner, he kept it to himself.

And that’s the story of Henry the duck.

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 This is a free bed time story from www.henrytheduck.net
©2009, all rights reserved.

And this Henry loved to explore, he especially loved exploring new lakes, underwater. 

One day while Henry was flying around exploring he spotted the biggest lake he’d ever seen.  From the air Henry could see that it was full of his favorite duck weed and surrounded by lovely grass.  The water of the lake looked cool and inviting and Henry couldn’t believe that it wasn’t full of ducks.  In fact, that was the only reason that Henry didn’t dive straight in for a swim.

Henry knew there must be a good reason why there were no ducks in the lake, but he couldn’t work out what it was.  The more he circled the lake the better it looked.  Henry could see berry bushes on the banks and fish swimming in the shallow water, it was by far the most wonderful lake He’d ever seen.

After two hours of flying around and around the lake looking for anything dangerous he still hadn’t seen anything wrong.   So finally, exhausted and hot, Henry decided to take the plunge, quite literally.

Henry flew up above the middle of the lake, then dove straight down.  He didn’t even slow down as he hit the water, plunging deep into the pond and straight into the jaws of the biggest crocodile he’d ever seen in his life.

It all happened so quickly that Henry was in the crocodile’s mouth and down it’s throat before he’d even realised what had happened.  The Crocodile, who’d been chasing a fish and hadn’t even seen Henry, seemed equally surprised.  But there were more surprises to come because Henry was still very much alive and in one piece, inside the crocodile.  He knew he had to escape and so he started pecking at everything he could and it wasn’t long before he could hear the crocodile groaning in pain. 

Henry knew that the crocodile was the reason there were no ducks on the beautiful lake and he also knew that he wouldn’t usually be able to hurt a crocodile but from where he was inside the crocodile it was a very different story.

In fact, it wasn’t long before the crocodile swam up onto the shore and pleaded with Henry to stop pecking him and leave him alone.  Henry made the crocodile promise to leave the lake and never come back and he wouldn’t leave until the crocodile promised. 

When he did finally climb out of the crocodile he flew above it to make sure it really left.  He kept following it until it was a long, long way from the Lake and Henry was quite sure it was never coming back.  Then, Henry went and told all his friends.

It wasn’t long before the lake was full of ducks.  Every one who came to visit ended up staying because it was such a lovely lake and all of them were very impressed that Henry had chased the big crocodile away.  Every night they had Henry tell the story again and again and many of the younger ducks thought Henry was the bravest duck who’d ever lived.  But Henry didn’t think it was something he’d like to do again and so he was very glad that the crocodile never came back.

And that’s the story of Henry the duck.

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 This is a free children’s story from www.henrytheduck.net
©2009, all rights reserved.