Animal Tales

by Terry Jones

  “There’s not a hen here who doesn’t know what she’s going through,” murmured another, and there was a lot of clucking and nodding of heads in agreement.

  “But you’ve all worked so hard!” exclaimed Fernando. “It’s such a waste!”

  “I’ll do it!” It was Flossie, the star acrobat, who suddenly spoke up.

  “What do you mean, Flossie?” asked Fernando.

  “I’ll take Gertrude’s place on the High Wire,” said Flossie.

  “What?!” cried everyone.

  “But you’ve never even set foot on the High Wire!” exclaimed Fernando. “And as for the Aerial Ballet – why! Gertrude was doing a triple somersault from one flying trapeze to the other – without a safety net! You’d never make it!”

  “I’ve been watching Gertrude closely. I reckon I can do everything she does so long as I don’t get vertigo,” said Flossie.

  “Vertigo!” squawked all the other chickens in alarm, although most of them didn’t know exactly what it was.

  Suddenly Fernando banged his paw on the table. “No! Flossie!” he exclaimed. “I can’t let you take the risk – with no safety net! It’s unthinkable!”

  But Flossie was not to be put off.

  “Fernando,” she said calmly. “You have worked so hard for this show. We all have. If we cancel tonight’s performance, as like as not we’ll never get another audience again. Word will get round that we’re quitters, and we’ll be finished in show-biz. We can’t throw away all our hard work and all that sweat and training just because one of us has gone broody! No! Fernando! You must let me go on the High Wire and do the Aerial Ballet. I’ll be fine – even without a safety net. You’ll see! You’ll be proud of me!”

  A cheer went up from the other chickens, and Fernando held up his paw.

  “Very well!” he said “Let’s get this show started! We’re half an hour late as it is!”

  Elsie’s Band was still playing, but the clowns had run out of jokes and the audience were getting bored with tricks involving eggs. Some of them had even started to slow handclap.

  However, the moment Fernando the Fox strode into the ring dressed in his Ringmaster’s costume, the audience went quiet. He looked so handsome and so commanding in his top hat and his red tailed coat, that every lady in the audience gave a sigh, and even one or two of the gentlemen.

  Then he cracked his whip and six chickens acrobats ran into the ring and formed a chicken pyramid: three on the bottom, two on the next row and one chicken on the top.

  The audience applauded politely.

  Then Flossie ran into the ring, did a perfect triple somersault and landed on top of the topmost chicken acrobat in the pyramid.

  Well, of course, at that the audience went wild.

  “And now!” shouted Fernando the Fox through his megaphone. “Ladies and gentlemen, animals, insects and…are there any reptiles in the audience?

  A couple of lizards raised their legs.

  “…and reptiles,” continued Fernando. “All the way from the five acre meadow and by special permission of Farmer Bailey, I have pleasure in presenting to you Adelaide the Dorking Hen, and her dancing cows!”

  And in trotted eight cows with pretty headdresses arranged around their horns, and on the leading cow was Adelaide the Dorking Hen herself, dressed in blue with a tall blue hat with a blue plume in it.

  She led her troupe around the ring, then they all turned, bowed, and started to weave in and out of each other as the Band played ‘The Dashing White Sergeant’.

  The farmers all clapped and the ladies in the audience murmured how tasteful the headdresses were and how they might think about wearing them too except that you’d never want to be seen in something you saw first on a cow.

  And so the show went on. Flossie the acrobat was the star turn of the first half, with her amazing repertoire of jumps and back-flips, and by the interval the audience was entirely won over. They were even laughing at the clowns when they did yet another trick involving eggs. It was clearly going to be a huge success.

  But everyone was waiting for the second half to begin, for they had been promised Roberta the Chicken Lion-Tamer and Gertrude –The Daring Young Hen On Her Flying Trapeze – with her Death-Defying Aerial Ballet (performed without a safety net). It was the climax of the show, and was pictured on the posters.

  Well the time came for the lion-taming act. The great iron cages were brought on and the safety bars to prevent the lions escaping into the audience. Then Roberta entered the ring in her lion-taming costume.

  “My word!” exclaimed more than one army officer in the audience. “Wouldn’t I like to have as much gold braid on my uniform as she has!”

  Roberta cracked her whip and six fierce lions ran down the caged run and into the ring.

  Roberta cracked her whip again and one of the lions sat up on its hind legs and begged. The audience applauded. Then Roberta cracked her whip again and the next lion ran up and crouched down in front of her as if ready to spring, whereupon Roberta turned her back on the fierce creature and lit a cigarette!

  Then she turned and blew smoke rings – one after the other – that all flew through the air, turned on their side above the creature’s head and then fell perfectly around the lion, like hoop-la rings!

  But before they could applaud, the drum started to roll. Everyone in the audience looked at each other expectantly: what was this remarkable chicken going to do next? Roberta took off her hat, bowed to the audience, then turned back to the crouching lion and prised its jaws apart with her wings. Then – to the amazement of the crowd – she stuck her head into the lion’s mouth!

  Well of course the audience roared and cheered and clapped. It was deafening. The lion, who had been used to rehearsing in peace and quiet, was so astonished by the roaring and cheering and clapping that it gulped and promptly shut its mouth – with Roberta’s head still in it!

  Roberta gave a pathetic squawk and the audience gasped in horror. However, Fernando was standing by. He leapt into the ring, and threw himself onto the lion’s back. Then he gripped its upper abdomen and performed a Heimlich manoeuvre – which is what you have to do if someone is choking. Fernando did it so efficiently that Roberta shot out of the lion’s mouth and crashed into the bars on the other side of the ring.

  Roberta’s feathers were a bit ruffled, but Fernando helped her to her feet, put her hat back on her head, and she was able to take her bow.

  Then came the moment for the Aerial Ballet.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, animals, insects and reptiles,” announced Fernando. “We were to have witnessed the Death-Defying Aerial Acrobatics of Gertrude the Daring Young Hen On The Flying Trapeze, but unfortunately she’s gone broody.”

  Everyone in the audience groaned in disappointment – except for a certain Mrs. Harris, whose husband had whistled in admiration at the poster of Gertrude, somersaulting in mid-air, in her scanty pink costume covered in sequins.

  “However!” went on Fernando. “Her place is to be taken this evening by our star acrobat Flossie!”

  The spotlight fell on Flossie as she bowed at the side of the ring, and then started to climb the rope ladder that led to the High Wire platform. As she climbed, Fernando continued:

  “I have to tell you that Flossie has taken on this role at the very last minute. She has never before performed on the High Wire. In fact she has never before even set foot on a tightrope – let alone one that has no safety net! So when she attempts this death-defying feat, ladies and gentlemen, animals, insects and reptiles, may I implore you to keep absolutely silent so as not to disturb her concentration until she reaches the other side.”

  The audience gaped in wonder at Flossie, as she climbed up and up and up to the very top of the big tent.

  It was even higher than Flossie had imagined, and when she looked down and saw the ring so small and so far below her, and the up-turned faces gazing up at her, she suddenly felt dizzy and had to cling to the rope ladder for a few moments.

&
nbsp; The audience stared up at her with round eyes. Some of them were biting their nails, others were holding hands. Everyone felt as nervous as if they were about to do it themselves. And now Flossie had reached the High Wire platform and was about to walk a tightrope for the first time in her life.

  “There she goes now!” shouted Fernando through the megaphone. “The bravest chicken it has ever been my honour to know! And don’t forget, ladies and gentlemen, animals, insects and reptiles, Flossie will be doing this for the very first time and without a safety net!”

  Suddenly someone in the audience screamed out: “Flossie! Don’t do it!”

  “Quiet please!” called out Fernando. “Please allow Flossie to concentrate. She is going to step out onto the High Wire at any moment!”

  Another member of the audience screamed. The tension was unbearable. The drum rolled as Flossie took hold of the balancing pole, and put her first foot onto the wire. Everybody in the audience gasped. Nobody dared breathe, and then Flossie put her other foot onto the wire. She wobbled and took a step back. The audience gasped again.

  “Please! Ladies and gentlemen, animals, insects and lizards!” called Fernando. “Please! Remain calm!”

  Then Flossie took another step and then another. Then she wobbled again, found her balance with the balancing rod and stood stock still for a few moments. Everybody held their breath. Not a single person could tear their eyes away. Flossie took another step, seemed to sway… was she going to fall? No! She regained her balance, ran a few steps and then seemed to be getting the hang of it. Like the star acrobat she was, once she understood where to place her feet and where to put her weight, she became supremely confident. Halfway across she even balanced on one leg, span around, jumped up in the air and landed back on the other foot.

  The crowd couldn’t hold themselves back. They burst into applause. And then Flossie turned right around, and completed the rest of the crossing walking backwards!

  The audience went wild. They cheered and stomped and applauded as Flossie reached the other side and bowed and waved to them.

  “My word!” murmured Fernando to himself. “Even Gertrude couldn’t do that!”

  Well, when the excitement and the applause had died down, Fernando shouted into his megaphone: “And now! Ladies and gentlemen, animals, insects and reptiles! For your delight, Flossie will now attempt to replicate Miss Gertrude’s elegant and yet death-defying Aerial Ballet! She will swing from one trapeze to another, flying through the air like a beam of sunshine! And may I remind you all that Flossie will be performing these feats for the first time in her life and doing it fifty feet in the air without a safety net! Such daring! Such skill has never before been witnessed in this or any other circus! Let’s hear it for Flossie!”

  And with that Flossie jumped onto the first trapeze, swinging herself and waving to the audience just as she’d seen Gertrude rehearsing it. Then she turned upside down, and clung to the trapeze with her feet. The audience applauded.

  Then Flossie started spinning herself over and over on the bar of the trapeze.

  “Ooooooh!” went the audience.

  Then she swang the trapeze higher and higher and then let go, flying through the air like…well not so much like a sunbeam, more like a chicken. She couldn’t stop herself instinctively flapping her wings a bit, as she hurtled through the air fifty feet above all those upturned face. But Flossie was in her element. She was used to spinning through the air and turning somersaults, and although she generally did it all nearer the ground, she told herself it was exactly the same thing except higher up.

  As she tried to catch the other trapeze, however, something went wrong. She only managed to get one claw onto it, the other claw grasped thin air, and she hung there on the swinging trapeze trying to reach it with her other foot, flapping her wings all the time.

  The audience gasped. Flossie flapped her wings, grabbed the trapeze with both feet and suddenly let go. The audience screamed…But Flossie knew what she was doing. The trapeze was swinging back into the centre again and Flossie was thrown backwards towards the first trapeze. She did a triple backwards somersault in mid air and landed right-way-up on the first trapeze again!

  The applause would have brought the house down if it hadn’t been a tent. The band struck up, and Fernando leapt into the centre of the ring and yelled into his megaphone: “Thank you! Thank you! Ladies and gentlemen, animals, insects and reptiles! I hope you’ve enjoyed our show. Don’t forget to tell your friends about Fernando the Fox’s Grand Chicken Circus! Good night everybody!”

  Well, after that, Fernando’s Grand Chicken Circus became the most famous Chicken Circus in the World. They toured Russia, America and even China.

  Gertrude’s chicks all hatched out and became members of her Aerial Ballet. And whenever she went broody again, Flossie would repeat her performance on the High Wire complete with the Aerial Ballet, and Fernando would always tell the audience that it was the first time she had ever done it, and the audience never believed him but they always went wild anyway.

  TIGERLINESS

  WHAT’S SO GREAT ABOUT BEING A TIGER, apart from the stripes,” said Tiger, “is bounding across the grasslands of Bengal, with a slight breeze on your fur and a fat buffalo in your sights! Yes! There’s nothing like being a tiger!”

  “But wouldn’t you rather be safe and warm in your little burrow?” asked Mole. “Sitting there, still as a mouse, listening to the busy world going on above your head?”

  “Bless my stripes!” exclaimed Tiger. “I couldn’t think of anything worse!”

  “But it’s so safe underground,” said Mole.

  “Safe?” exclaimed Tiger indignantly. “I don’t need to be safe! Don’t you know that I’m an Apex Predator?”

  “What’s that?” asked Mole, who was rather frightened by words in italics.

  “An Apex Predator,” said Tiger proudly, “is an animal that preys on other animals, but has no animal that preys on him! What d’you think of that, little mole?”

  “Oh dear, it sounds perfectly dreadful,” said Mole.

  “How could it be dreadful?” retorted Tiger.

  “Well don’t you ever feel sorry for the animals you kill?”

  “No,” said the astonished Tiger. “Should I?”

  “Well of course,” said Mole. “It isn’t very nice being chased and then eaten.”

  “Pooh!” said Tiger. “That’s another great thing about being a tiger – we haven’t any time for sentiment! We’re ruthless killers! By the way, did I tell you we can jump higher and further than practically any other kind of mammal?”

  “No you didn’t,” said Mole.

  “We can leap 16 feet into the air!”

  “Goodness me,” said Mole.

  “And 30 feet across the ground!”

  “Good heavens!” said Mole. “And I suppose you can run very fast?”

  “Very fast,” said Tiger.

  “But surely you look after your families?” ventured Mole.

  “Pooh!” replied Tiger. “Us tigers live on our own and we hunt for ourselves! We fight each other for territory and we kill a female’s cubs if she won’t co-operate!”

  “You tigers sound like a thoroughly bad lot!” Mole finally exploded.

  “Yes! We are! And we don’t care!” roared Tiger. “That’s what’s so brilliant about being a Tiger! We don’t give a fig for anything or anyone and yet everybody loves us!”

  “What?!” exclaimed Mole. “Surely they can’t!”

  “Oh yes!” said Tiger. “We are what’s called Charismatic Megafauna! We have immense appeal to human beings! We are the stars of any zoo. We can do whatever we want in the jungle! Nobody and nothing is safe from us! And yet humans still think we’re wonderful!”

  “Oh dear!” quaked little Mole.

  “And now! I am going to do you a great honour! Even though you are so small, I am prepared to eat you as a snack before I go off to do some real hunting!” said Tiger.

  “Bet you do
n’t!” said Mole.

  “Bet I do!” roared Tiger, and he pounced on Mole with his sharp claws.

  But Mole had already disappeared underground. Tiger roared in disappointment and started to dig. He dug and he dug, faster and faster, but Mole could dig faster still, and besides he knew his way underground. Well, before he realized it, Tiger had dug himself into such a deep hole, he couldn’t jump out. And he started roaring and roaring. Eventually his roars attracted the attention of some of the other animals, who normally avoided him, and they gathered round the hole and sat there the whole night laughing and making rude jokes.

  And Tiger didn’t get out of the hole until next morning, when his Mother came by and pulled him out.

  WONDERS OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM

  ELECTRIC WOMBATS

  Each wombat, when plugged into the main electric circuit of your home, provides the equivalent light of a 60 watt bulb. Throw out your old stationary lamp-stands and wall-lights! These little fellows bounce all over the house providing light in the most unexpected places! A must for birthday parties, rainy days indoors, and exciting bath times!

  THE AMBITIOUS CROCODILE

  THERE WAS ONCE A CROCODILE who just couldn’t get a job. “It’s my teeth,” he complained. “They’re all crooked and irregular. Nobody will employ me with teeth like this.”

  So he went to his dentist.

  “Open wide!” said the Dentist, and he peered into the Crocodile’s mouth.

  Snack! went the Crocodile’s jaws.

  When the Dentist’s Receptionist entered the surgery, the Dentist was already halfway down the Crocodile’s throat, and it was all the Receptionist could do to pull him back out.

  “Well I’m certainly not looking in your mouth again!” exclaimed the Dentist, as he wiped himself down.

  “But I’ve got to get my teeth straightened! Otherwise I’ll never get a job!” said the Crocodile, and he burst into tears.