Chapter 01Full of questions
In the High and Far-Off Times the Elephant had no trunk. He had only a small nose, as big as a boot, that he could wriggle from side to side — but he couldn't pick up things with it.
But there was one Elephant's Child who was full of satiable curtiosity, which means he asked ever so many questions. He asked the Ostrich why her feathers grew just so. He asked the Giraffe what made his skin spotty. He asked the Hippopotamus why her eyes were red, and the Baboon why melons tasted just so.
And to every question, his aunts and uncles only scolded and shooed him away. Still he was full of satiable curtiosity! He asked about everything he saw or heard or felt or smelt or touched.
Chapter 02The forbidden question
One fine morning the Elephant's Child asked a new question he had never asked before: What does the Crocodile have for dinner? Everybody gasped HUSH! in a dreadful tone and scolded him long and hard.
When it was over, he wandered to a thorn-bush where the Kolokolo Bird sat. My whole family scolds me for my curtiosity, he said, and still I want to know what the Crocodile has for dinner!
Go to the banks of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees, said the Kolokolo Bird with a mournful cry — and find out.
Chapter 03Packing for the river
The very next morning the Elephant's Child packed a hundred pounds of bananas and a hundred pounds of sugar-cane and seventeen melons, and said goodbye to all his dear family. I am going to the Limpopo to find out what the Crocodile has for dinner.
They begged him to stop — politely, this time, because goodbyes deserve that. Then he went away, a little warm but not at all astonished, eating melons and dropping the rinds, because with his little nose he could not pick them up.
He walked from town to town and country to country, east by north, eating melons all the way, till at last he reached the banks of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees — precisely as the Kolokolo Bird had said.
Chapter 04The snake on the rock
The first creature he found was a Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake curled round a rock. Scuse me, said the Elephant's Child most politely, but have you seen a Crocodile in these parts? And could you tell me what he has for dinner?
Have I seen a Crocodile! hissed the Snake in dreadful scorn. What will you ask me next? And he gave the Child such a scolding with his scalesome tail that the Child's ears rang.
That is odd, said the Elephant's Child, because everyone scolds me for my curtiosity — and I suppose this is the same thing. He helped coil the Snake neatly back onto his rock, said goodbye very politely, and went on.
Chapter 05The log that winked
Till he trod on what he thought was a log of wood at the very edge of the river. But it was really the Crocodile — and the Crocodile winked one eye. Like this!
Scuse me, said the Elephant's Child most politely, but do you happen to have seen a Crocodile in these parts? The Crocodile winked the other eye and lifted half his tail out of the mud.
Come hither, Little One, said the Crocodile. Why do you ask such things? Because nobody will tell me, said the Child, and I don't want to be scolded any more. Come hither, Little One, said the Crocodile, for I AM the Crocodile — and he wept crocodile tears to show it was quite true.
Chapter 06Pull!
You are the very person I have waited for all these long days! cried the Child. Will you please tell me what you have for dinner? Come hither, Little One, said the Crocodile, and I'll whisper. The Child leaned his little nose close to the musky, tusky mouth — SNAP! The Crocodile caught him by the nose.
I think, said the Crocodile between his teeth, that today I will begin with Elephant's Child! Led go! You are hurtig be! cried the Child through his nose.
Then down scuffled the Python-Rock-Snake. Pull as hard as ever you can, young friend, or you go into the river before you can say Jack Robinson! So the Child sat back and pulled, and the Snake knotted round his hind legs and pulled, and the Crocodile threshed his tail like an oar and pulled — and the Child's nose stretched longer and longer, and it hurt him hijjus!
Chapter 07Vantages one, two, three
At last the Crocodile let go with a PLOP heard all up and down the Limpopo. The Child sat down hard — but first said Thank you to the Snake — then wrapped his poor pulled nose in cool banana leaves and hung it in the river to cool, waiting three whole days for it to shrink.
It never shrank. For the Crocodile had pulled it into a really truly trunk, same as all elephants have today. And what a trunk! A fly stung his shoulder — swish, he swatted it dead. Vantage number one, said the Snake.
He plucked grass and stuffed it in his mouth — vantage number two! He schlooped up mud and slapped a cool cap on his head — vantage number three! No more going on his knees for grass. No more waiting for fruit to fall. No more flies.
Chapter 08Home across Africa
Thank you, said the Child. I'll remember all of it — and now I'll go home to all my dear families and try! He frisked and whisked his trunk all the way across Africa, picking fruit from trees and whisking flies with branches.
When he arrived, his family stared at the splendid new nose. And one by one, curious themselves at last, they asked to borrow it — and one by one they walked to the Limpopo and came home with trunks of their own.
So from that day every elephant has a trunk: for picking and plucking, for squirting and trumpeting, for remembering that the child who asked too many questions gave the whole family the finest nose in Africa.
