Сказки / Fairy Tales. Уровень 1 - стр. 4

After another long time, the Giraffe grew blotchy, and the Zebra grew stripy, and the Eland and the Koodoo grew darker, with little wavy grey lines on their backs like bark on a tree trunk. Though you could hear them and smell them, you could very seldom see them: only when you knew precisely where to look. They had a beautiful time in that forest, while the Leopard and the Ethiopian were puzzled. Where are their breakfasts and their dinners? At last the Leopard and the Ethiopian were so hungry that they ate rats and beetles and rock-rabbits. And they both had a terrible stomach-ache.

Then they met a Baboon, who is the wisest animal in all South Africa.

The Leopard asked the Baboon (and it was a very hot day),

‘Where are all the animals?’

And the Baboon winked. He knew.

The Ethiopian asked the Baboon,

‘Can you tell me the present habitat of the animals?’

And the Baboon winked. He knew.

Then the Baboon said,

‘The animals went into other place; and my advice to you, Leopard, is to go there as soon as you can.’

And the Ethiopian said,

‘That is all very fine, but I wish to know where they are.’

Then the Baboon said,

‘The animals changed their place, because it was high time for a change; and my advice to you, Ethiopian, is to change as soon as you can.’

That puzzled the Leopard and the Ethiopian. They went away and after many days they saw a great, high, tall forest full of tree trunks and shadows.

‘What is this,’ said the Leopard, ‘that is so exclusively dark, and yet so full of little pieces of light?’

‘I don’t know,’ said the Ethiopian, ‘but I can smell Giraffe, and I can hear Giraffe, but I can’t see Giraffe.’

‘That’s curious,’ said the Leopard. ‘I can smell Zebra, and I can hear Zebra, but I can’t see Zebra.’

‘Wait a bit,’ said the Ethiopian. ‘We saw them a long time ago. Perhaps we don’t remember anymore what they are like.’

‘Nonsense!’ said the Leopard. ‘I remember them perfectly on the High Veldt, especially their marrow-bones. Giraffe is about seventeen feet high, of a exclusively fulvous golden-yellow from head to heel; and Zebra is about four and a half feet high, of a exclusively grey-fawn colour from head to heel.’

‘Umm,’ said the Ethiopian, and looked into the speckly-spickly shadows of the forest. ‘Then they will soon appear in this dark place like ripe bananas.’

But they didn’t. The Leopard and the Ethiopian hunted all day; and though they could smell the animals and hear the animals, they never saw one of them.

‘Let us wait till dark,’ said the Leopard, ‘This daylight hunting is a perfect scandal.’

So they waited till dark, and then the Leopard heard something. It breathed sniffily in the starlight, and he jumped at the noise, and it smelt like Zebra, and it felt like Zebra, and when he knocked it down it fell like Zebra, but he couldn’t see it. So he said,

‘Be quiet, an animal without any form. I will sit on your head till morning, because there is something about you that I don’t understand.’

Presently he heard a grunt and a crash and a scramble, and the Ethiopian called out,

‘I have an animal that I can’t see. It smells like Giraffe, and it kicks like Giraffe, but it hasn’t any form.’

‘Don’t you trust it,’ said the Leopard. ‘Sit on its head till the morning – same as me. They haven’t any form – any of them.’