Once upon a time a clever guinea pig named Cuy lived in the Andes Mountains. He was a trickster and was able to outsmart everyone.

Once he escaped from Tio Antonio the fox by telling him the sky was falling. Cuy got Tio Antonio to stand underneath a big rock with his hands pressed up against it, holding up the sky. Then Cuy snuck away before Tio Antonio figured out it was just a rock.

Another time Cuy got away from Tio Antonio by telling him that the world was going to end. Tio Antonio hid inside a cave to keep safe. Cuy put a big rock over the entrance to the cave. Tio Antonio saw some smoke and flames around the edges of the big rock, so he stayed hidden inside. When Tio Antonio decided at last to come out of the cave, he saw the remains of Cuy’s bonfire. Tricked again!

Then Cuy dresses up like a farmhand and gets a job helping the farmer with his alfalfa crop. Cuy works during the day but feasts on the alfalfa at night. The farmer catches Cuy by putting a sticky gum doll out in the field. He ties Cuy to a tree until it is time to eat him for dinner. While Cuy is tied up, Tio Antonio comes along. When he asks Cuy what happened, Cuy tells him that the farmer is angry because Cuy won’t marry the farmer’s daughter because he doesn’t want to eat chicken every night (Cuy is a vegetarian.) Tio Antonio loves chicken and Florinda, the farmer’s daughter, so they trade places. When the farmer comes out and finds Tio Antonio tied to the tree instead of Cuy he is angry and wants to kill the fox. Quickly, Tio Antonio tells him that he will marry Florinda and eat roast chicken every night. The farmer wants to know where he got such a crazy idea. Tio Antonio tells him what Cuy had said. The farmer laughed so hard at Cuy’s story that Tio Antonio was able to escape. And that fox stayed away from that guinea pig for a long, long time.