Resting its immense weight onto its behind, Elephant sighed heavily.
“What’s up Darling?” enquired Chimpanzee, who had once again snuck out from his enclosure.
“Oh nothing,” replied Elephant as she gobbled down a half eaten apple which some shouty human child had tossed at her earlier in the day.
“Blurgh... Golden Delicious, yuck,” said Elephant spitting out the offending fruit, “You never get any decent apples thrown down here these days. Can’t remember the last time I had a Granny Smith’s, let alone a Braeburn.”
“Is that what’s up?” asked Chimpanzee, “The quality of the thrown in’s?”
“No, it’s not that,” said Elephant.
“What is it then?”
“Well, if I tell you, you must promise not to tell any of the others.”
Chimpanzee thought for a moment. Once the moment passed, he bared his teeth, scratched his bottom, sniffed the fingers he had used to scratch his bottom and then leapt up to the bars at the front of Elephant’s cage.
“To be completely honest Darling, I’m not sure I can keep that promise; y’know how it is, what with me being related to humans and that.”
“Yes, I know, I understand,” said Elephant gently nodding in sympathy, “They are rather gobby aren’t they?”
“Indeed they are!” exclaimed Chimpanzee, “And I’m only a hairs breath different to them; genetically speaking. So it’s highly likely anything you tell me will be round this place faster than a dose of ringworm.”
“Nevermind,” bellowed Elephant, “I’ll tell you anyway.”
Chimpanzee jumped up and down in glee for there was nothing he loved more than a bit of juicy gossip.
“Hippopotamus was passing by earlier,” started Elephant.
“Oh yes…” said Chimpanzee attentively.
“Yes,” continued Elephant, “Anyway, she walks past, I must have been turning around for a bit of a trunk scratch, and I distinctly hear her make a comment.”
“What was the comment?” asked Chimpanzee moving in closer so as not to miss a single word of this remark that has so upset his friend Elephant.
“She said, and this was out loud mark you, she definitely wanted me to hear it...”
“Yes, yes.” said Chimpanzee impatiently.
Elephant took a deep breath through her long thick trunk and pushed on with recounting the hurtful event, “She said ‘Blimey, with a bum that big you would need a whole set of luggage to give it a proper scratch.”
Chimpanzee sat in silent contemplation for a second or three, before replying.
“I don’t get it,” He said frowning as hard as he possibly could, which really was not that hard at all, certainly not by human child standards.
“Luggage, see…?”
“No,” replied Chimpanzee shaking his head from side to side.
Elephant looked around clearly now somewhat embarrassed by the whole thing, just as she was the week before when she told Chimpanzee a joke about an albino polecat and Chimpanzee had suggested that the joke was somewhat offensive.
“Luggage, luggage…” she said repeatedly, hoping the penny would drop for Chimpanzee.
“Err...” said Chimpanzee, confused.
With one long resolved sigh, Elephant decided to spell out her interpretation of what she believed Hippopotamus had meant. It was clear that despite Chimpanzee being considered by the inmates to be the brain-box of the place, he was clearing having a bit of an ‘off day’; which he had from time to time.
“She was saying my bottom was so large I’d need more that one trunk to scratch it; in fact I’d actually need a set of trunks, or indeed a set of luggage.”
Chimpanzee smacked his head with his outstretched palm, as he suddenly understood the comment.
“Oh I see what she’s done there, I get it now. That’s quite clever coming from Hippopotamus.”
“Hmm,” Elephant clearly did not wishing to give her arch-nemesis any ground in this matter. Least of all, give credence to the suggestion that her vicious comment was in anyway ‘clever’.
“Mind you,” said Chimpanzee with a shrug, “That remark’s a bit rich coming from her, especially with the size of her rear-end.”
“That’s true!” howled Elephant and she began to laugh, and with that, she felt slightly better. Good old Chimpanzee she thought, he always says the right thing when I feel down.
“Thanks mate,” said Elephant, “I knew you’d understand.”
“No problem Darling, see you tomorrow evening? Same time?”
“Same time.” confirmed Elephant.
Chimpanzee gave Elephant a wave goodnight before turning to head off to see his second best friend, Penguin. When he got to the ‘Do not feed the animals’ sign, he turned and shook his head in angry frustration.
“There’s nothing I dislike more than a overly critical hypocritical hippo”.
With that, he continued on his journey to see Penguin, who as it turned out was having his own issues with his a Puffin.
However, that is story can wait for another evening.
Elephant (taken with a night-vision camera)
