The hippo’s tale

Hippo

Hippo opened his enormous mouth and roared and roared. He was very cross. Three crocodiles had swum into his river and started splashing and snapping and swishing around.

Ben and Jodi were having a brilliant time with the tub of water. They held onto the crocodiles and thrashed them around in the water. They shrieked and shouted as they played, and Hippo got madder and madder. He liked peace and quiet!

No one took any notice of his angry roaring. So he turned round and walked across the playroom to where Leona was playing with the large dolls and changing their clothes ready to go for a walk.

“Please may I sit here and watch quietly?” Hippo said politely.

But Leona took no notice of him. She was too busy with the dolls and their clothes.

So Hippo walked over to the puppets. “Please may I sit here and watch?” he asked.

“Of course you can,” said Monkey. But Monkey and Koala were chasing each other around, and their noise made Hippo’s head ache. So he wandered over to the bricks. Marc was building a tower.

“Please may I sit and watch?” asked Hippo politely.

“Of course you can,” said Marc. “But mind out: they’re just ABOUT  TO––”

Too late!

The bricks fell on Hippo’s head. Now he had a real headache the size of a football. He got up and stomped off into the forest where the king and queen and their fairies lived.

The king looked up as Hippo dragged himself to a shady corner and lay down. “You poor thing,” he said kindly. “Whatever is wrong?”

Hippo could hardly speak, he was so upset. But he managed to explain about the crocodiles, the dolls, the puppets and the bricks. “I just need somewhere quiet to rest,” he said. “That’s not too much to ask, is it?”

The king went off to talk to his wise fairies. When he came back, he whispered something in Hippo’s ears. Then he said, “Now you have a good sleep here in the woods, and then go do what we have told you, and all will be well.”

As the sun began to set behind the trees, Hippo woke from his sleep and set off towards his river. When he arrived, he noticed that Ben and Jodi had stopped splashing water. But the crocodiles were still there, chasing each other around and making a noise.

Remembering what the king had whispered to him, Hippo calmly said, “Good evening and good night!” to the crocodiles. Then he slid his huge body into his favourite stretch of the river. He went in far enough that only his nose and eyes showed above the water.

As he settled down and made himself comfortable, he realised that the water stopped any noise entering his ears, just like the king had promised. Everything went really quiet, and before long he found he could ignore the new crocodiles in his river and be perfectly happy living there alongside them. So he sighed deeply, sent a mental “thank you” to the king and his fairies, and fell asleep.

The moral of the Tale is that you can learn new ways to deal with anything and be happy again.