Animal Tales

by Terry Jones

  “I can tell you one thing,” said the Dentist firmly, “there’s nothing wrong with your teeth!”

  And the Receptionist showed the Crocodile the door.

  “Do you think my breath smells?” asked the Crocodile as he was pouring the afternoon tea.

  “Could be,” said the Tiger, helping himself to another crumpet.

  “Well I can’t help noticing that people in the street tend to avoid me,” said the Crocodile, “and if I ever get into a lift with someone, they always turn pale and start shaking.”

  “That definitely sounds like a case of bad breath to me!” exclaimed the Tiger and he ate up all the remaining 43 crumpets.

  So the Crocodile went to the Chemist’s and asked the lady behind the counter to give him something for bad breath. The lady behind the counter was a nervous sort of person, however, and when the Crocodile leaned across for her to smell his breath, she fainted.

  “Typical!” exclaimed the Crocodile. “Trying to get served in this country is like trying to get snow in the jungle!” And he got so cross he twitched his tail and knocked over two stands of sunglasses and the shelves of stomach remedies. “And the shops are too small!” he roared, getting even angrier, as he knocked over all the tins of cough drops and throat lozenges – so they all went rolling over the floor.

  By the time the emergency services arrived, the shop was a shambles.

  “Look out! It’s a crocodile!” screamed a policeman.

  “Get the tranquilizer gun!” shouted the ambulance driver.

  “What tranquilizer gun?” exclaimed his colleague. “We’re ambulance men – not wildlife rangers!”

  But the Crocodile had leapt off the counter and everybody screamed as it crashed about the shop trying to find the exit. Then it charged off down the road at a surprising speed for a creature that had just consumed an entire shop assistant.

  “Perhaps it’s my accent?” said the Crocodile, as he and the Tiger were watching football on TV. “I have this terrible crocodiley way of speaking. Perhaps it’s putting employers off?”

  “Could be,” said the Tiger.

  “Or do you think it’s my colour? I hear there is a lot of colour prejudice in this country: perhaps they don’t like green? Or do you think it’s my CV? There’s an awful lot of sitting around in swamps, waiting for my prey in it, which I don’t suppose is the sort of thing employers in this country are looking for?”

  “Listen,” said the Tiger. “Did it ever occur to you that what might be putting employers off is your tendency to eat them?”

  “Do you think that’s it?” asked the Crocodile.

  “I’d certainly never employ someone who might eat me,” said the Tiger.

  “It’s just that I can’t stop myself,” said the Crocodile. “It’s a compulsion.”

  “Then you ought to go and see a psychiatrist,” said the Tiger.

  So the Crocodile went to see a psychiatrist.

  The Psychiatrist told him to lie down on the couch, while he got out his notebook. The Crocodile watched the Psychiatrist with his beady eyes.

  Then the Psychiatrist started asking the Crocodile questions, and the Crocodile soon found himself pouring out his heart to him. The Psychiatrist was most understanding and not at all critical. Eventually he said:

  “Your problem is that you’re satisfying a short-term need. You need to re-prioritize! Look at the long-term!”

  “Yes! Yes!” cried the Crocodile excitedly. “That’s exactly right! I will!”

  And then they went on, delving deeper and deeper into the Crocodile’s mind. It was a most satisfying session in all sorts of ways, and, by the time the Psychiatrist’s secretary came to tell him the next patient had arrived, all that remained of the Psychiatrist was his shoes.

  The Crocodile was lying on the couch looking rather shifty.

  “Where is Dr. Fonzella?” asked the Secretary.

  “Burp!” said the Crocodile.

  “The sort of job you need,” said the Tiger, “is the sort of job where they want you to eat people.”

  “Good idea!” exclaimed the Crocodile. Then he thought for a moment. “But I don’t suppose there are many jobs like that around,” he added.

  “No,” replied the Tiger. “I don’t suppose there are. But you could ask.”

  So the Crocodile went to an employment agency, and after he had swallowed the head of the agency and his assistant, the telephone rang. The Crocodile picked it up and a voice said: “Is that the Find-U-A-Job Agency?”

  “Yeeees,” said the Crocodile cautiously, not wanting to reveal that he had just eaten most of the staff.

  “Do you have anyone on your books that looks like they might really eat someone alive?”

  “Yes! Yes!” exclaimed the Crocodile. “I’m your man! I mean crocodile! I mean…” Here the Crocodile adopted a more professional voice. “Yes, Sir! We have someone on our books who will do exactly that for you!”

  “Good,” said the voice. “Send them round at once to Sharples Department Store. Tell them to report to the General Manager.”

  So the Crocodile hurried round to Sharples Department Store and knocked on the door of the General Manager.

  “Come in!” said the General Manager.

  The Crocodile peered round the door and smiled a crocodile smile.

  “Whooaaa!” said the General Manager.

  “I’ve come about that job” said the Crocodile.

  “Keep out! Get away! Help!”

  The Crocodile’s face fell. “Is it my irregular teeth putting you off?” he asked.

  “No, it’s not that,” replied the General manager.

  “Is it my breath?” asked the Crocodile and he tried to breathe on the General Manager, but the General Manager hid behind his desk and shouted: “No! Your breath is fine!”

  “Then it’s my accent?” said the Crocodile sadly. “I know it’s too crocodiley.”

  “Look,” said the General Manager. “It’s not your breath or your accent, it’s just that we only want someone who looks as if they might eat people alive! We don’t want anyone to be actually eaten! It’s just to keep people in line during the January Sales!”

  “I’ll never get a job,” moaned the Crocodile, and he collapsed into a miserable heap on the office carpet.

  Now the General Manager of Sharples Department Store was a soft-hearted man, and he felt really sorry for the Crocodile.

  “Look,” he said. “As far as appearances go you fit the job to a tee. You scared me witless when you came in just now. Do you think you could manage not to actually eat anyone?”

  “I’ll do my very best,” said the Crocodile.

  “Very well,” said the General Manager. “But the first person you attempt to eat, you’re fired!”

  “It’s a deal!” said the Crocodile.

  The Crocodile was given a smart suit, with the name ‘Sharples’ embroidered on the breast pocket, and a peaked hat with a bright yellow band around it. Then he stood outside the shop making sure that the queues for the January Sales didn’t block the street or create a disturbance.

  It was difficult work, particularly as he had to keep restraining himself every time he felt the urge to bite off some woman’s head or snap up a child as an inter-meal snack, just to stop his tummy rumbling. But the Crocodile not only managed to stop himself eating anyone, he even kept his temper. And as the word got round the town that although he might look very frightening he was, in fact, quite friendly, people came from far and near to see the Crocodile keeping order outside Sharples’ Department Store.

  That year the January Sales were the most successful and profitable ever.

  “Well done, Crocodile!” said the General Manager. “You have been a credit to the Store! Please accept this bonus!” And he handed over a large cheque. All the other employees applauded and gave three hearty cheers for the Crocodile.

  Well! The Crocodile was so overcome with happiness that, for the first time since he’d been given the job, he relaxe
d his self-control, and before you could say “See you later, Alligator!” he’d gobbled up both the General Manager and Mr. Sharples himself, who actually owned the entire Department Store.

  There was a dreadful silence. The Crocodile looked around at the shocked faces of the other employees, and realised he’d made a bad career move.

  “Oh dear! I think I’d better be going…” he murmured. And before the crowd could gather their wits he’d run off and hidden in a disused pyjama factory.

  There he thought over his life and ambitions and his hopes for the future, and realized that he was as far off achieving them as ever.

  He sighed as he lay there digesting, first the General Manager and then Mr. Sharples, and he decided that perhaps, after all, he should return to his old swamp in the badlands and go back to doing the things that crocodiles generally do.

  And so it was that the Crocodile never applied for another job ever again, and from that day forth, the Tiger had to eat his crumpets on his own.

  WONDERS OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM

  THE TRANSYLVANIAN LIMPING BAT

  This bat flies into your letterbox at night and when you pick the post up in the morning, it puts on a convincing performance of having a broken leg. However, once you have taken pity on it, tucked it up into a nice cosy shoe-box, it will revert to its true nature and become Sir Cliff Richard.

  Only specially trained handlers can stop it from singing the entire score of Summer Holiday.

  Once these bats get into your attic, it is impossible to stop them endlessly repeating the chorus of Bachelor Boy and your only solution is to demolish the house.

  THE GOLDEN SNAIL OF SURBITON

  ALONG TIME AGO, THE FIERCEST and most powerful snail in all the world lived in what is now Surbiton. He was known as The Golden Snail of Surbiton.

  Of course in those days Surbiton was very different from what it is today. Where the railway station now stands there was an anthill the size of the Great Pyramid in Egypt. The ants who had built it were as big and brawny as elephants.

  They were also a rough lot, those ants, and would think nothing of holding up passing strangers and robbing them of everything they possessed. Indeed, in those days it was a dangerous journey to travel from Tolworth to Teddington, and travellers would make out their wills beforehand.

  One day, the Golden Snail of Surbiton decided he had to teach these Robber Ants a lesson, so he called together a meeting of all the fiercest and boldest snails in the area.

  “Who is afraid of the Robber Ants?” he cried.

  “Me!” shouted one of the smaller snails.

  “What?” exclaimed the Golden Snail of Surbiton.

  “Well they’re as big as elephants and don’t care what they do to anyone! They’re mean and cruel and they have huge stings!” said the smaller snail.

  “Shame on you!” cried the Golden Snail of Surbiton. “No snail should be afraid of a mere ant! You will suffer the dreadful ignominy of staying behind while we rid Surbiton of the Robber Ants.”

  As he said this, another snail raised one of its horns and said “I’m not as afraid as the previous speaker, but I really wouldn’t mind the ignominy of staying behind. In fact I’d prefer a little ignominy to getting in a fight with some giant Robber Ants.”

  Golden Snail frowned. “Are there any other snails who think like this?” he asked in a voice like thunder.

  Several snails’ horns were raised up and then a few more and finally every snail at the meeting indicated that it would prefer a bit of ignominy to the dangers of tackling Robber Ants the size of elephants.

  “Very well,” said the Golden Snail of Surbiton. “I shall do it alone! Alone I will teach these wicked brigands a lesson they will never forget! And as for the rest of you…From this time on I disown you all. As far as I am concerned, you are no longer worthy of the name of Snail.”

  And with that he spun around on his foot and slid off over the horizon.

  It so happened that, in those far-off times, in the place where today stands the majestic Surbiton Water Works, there used to be a swamp full of deadly creatures. In it lived the Blind Swamp Lizard that had jaws so powerful it could bite the head off an elephant, if ever it saw one. There were Swamp Rats so numerous they could gnaw you to the bone the moment you fell in. There were Venomous Swamp Snakes and Poisonous Swamp Toads and the Vultures of the Swamp that hung circling in the air above, waiting for the dead things that floated to the surface. No! Take my word for it: the Great Swamp of Surbiton was no place for any living creature that didn’t belong in it!

  Well, you may be sure that the Golden Snail gave the Swamp a wide birth as he made his way towards the Great Anthill. When he arrived he knocked three times on the front door.

  “Who’s there?” demanded the Sentry Ant, sticking its gigantic head out of an upstairs window.

  “It is I! The Golden Snail of Surbiton!” roared the Golden Snail of Surbiton.

  “I can see that!” replied the Sentry. “What do you want?”

  “I have come to challenge every single one of you Robber Ants to a battle to the death!”

  “On your own?” asked the Sentry Ant.

  “On my own!” replied the Golden Snail of Surbiton.

  “You must be joking!” exclaimed the Sentry Ant.

  “Far from it!” said the Golden Snail. “Take me to your Queen!”

  So the Sentry took the Golden Snail to the Queen of all the Ants. Now if the Robber Ants were huge as elephants, you can imagine how truly gigantic their Queen was. She was the size of a Blue Whale! But the Golden Snail of Surbiton was undeterred, and he told the Queen of the Ants what he had come about.

  “We ants have no quarrel with you snails.” said the Queen of the Ants. “Why not let us get on with our business, while you get on with yours?”

  “Your activities are getting Surbiton a bad name,” replied the Golden Snail. “Travellers going from Tolworth to Teddington are now taking the long detour via Malden. Us snails haven’t seen a half-eaten sandwich or a bit of apple peel in many a year! It is my duty to call upon you ants to cease your robbery and thieving or else face the Wrath of the Snails!”

  “We accept your challenge!” said the Queen of the Robber Ants. “Do you have your army close by?”

  “I have no army,” replied the Golden Snail. “I shall fight you alone.”

  The Queen of the Ants raised a feeler in surprise.

  “I see,” said the Queen.

  “The other snails said I would beat you so easily that they couldn’t even be bothered to watch!” added the Golden Snail.

  “Very well,” replied the Queen, “you can fight our smallest and puniest soldier ant.”

  “No I shall not!” exclaimed the Golden Snail of Surbiton, “I intend to fight you all at the same time!”

  “What?!” exclaimed the Queen, and she was so surprised that her tiara fell off.

  “What!?” exclaimed all ants of the court. “You can’t be serious!”

  “We shall fight tomorrow!” said the Golden Snail.

  A buzz of excitement ran around the court of the Robber Ants, and as it spread to the workers and soldiers and all the other ants of the colony, it grew into a sound like thunder and the whole anthill shook with the sounds of amazement, which quickly turned to laughter and mockery.

  Well, the next day all the Robber Ants the size of elephants arrayed themselves in front of the Giant Anthill that used to stand where Surbiton Railway Station now stands. And the Queen of the Robber Ants stood in their midst, surrounded by as formidable an army as Surbiton has ever seen. When they were all in position they started to chant: “Where’s the Snail? Give us the Snail!”

  But the Golden Snail didn’t appear. Then the Robber Ants started taunting the Golden Snail.

  “He’s not Golden!” they cried. “He’s just yellow!”

  “We’ll squash you as flat as the Egyptian desert!”

  “We’ll pull off your horns and turn them into hieroglyphs!”

&nb
sp; “We’ll make you into a mummy!” And so on and so forth. But still the Golden Snail did not appear.

  Then Queen of the Ants grew angry, thinking the Snail was trying to make her look foolish.

  “We’ll teach these snails a lesson!” she cried to her assembled army. “I hereby declare war on the Snails of Surbiton! Let’s wipe them off the map!”

  And then there was a great noise, as the army of Robber Ants ground their mandibles together to make a sound like all the knives of the world being sharpened at once. And they raised their voices in a great roar of anger.

  “Forward, Ants! Destroy the Snails!” cried their Queen.

  And so they advanced, and with every step they took, the ground shook and all the wild life of Surbiton trembled in their burrows and dens and hiding holes.

  As they moved forward, however, they suddenly heard a voice, louder than the din they were making, and it said: “This is the Golden Snail of Surbiton speaking! I command you to lay down your weapons and halt your marching, before I am forced to destroy you all!”

  The Robber Ants didn’t know quite what to do, because the voice of the Golden Snail was so loud and so commanding. Some of them stopped and some of them went on, with the result that they all fell over each other and there was total confusion.

  “Where are you, Golden Snail?” roared The Champion of the Robber Ants, whose name was Snag-Knees Rhino-Squasher the 3rd. “I will come and fight you face to face and put an end to all this nonsense!”

  “I’m over here! To your right!” said the voice. “Come and get me!” and the army of Ants turned as one to see the Golden Snail of Surbiton sitting – as cool as a cucumber – on top of a huge mound of leaves and speaking through a megaphone.

  Well of course, the army didn’t hesitate! It charged at the Golden Snail. But the Golden Snail of Surbiton hardly gave them a glance. He was too busy munching on a leaf.

  “Kill him!” screamed the Queen Ant.

  “AAAAAARGGHHHH!” roared the Robber Ants!

  “What’s going on?” shouted the leading ants.