By Jean Warren
                                       Adapted from Rudyard Kipling’s
                         “The Elephant’s Child”

Once upon a time, elephants had short noses.

One day a curious elephant began wondering just what it was that crocodiles ate for dinner.  None of her friends knew the answer to her question, so she decided to go find a crocodile and ask him.

She went down to the river and soon found a crocodile lying on the river bank.

“What do you eat for dinner,” asked the elephant?

“I’m sorry, I can’t hear you,” said the crocodile.  “Could you come and talk in my ear?”

The curious elephant move closer and bent down close to the ear of the crocodile and said,  “What do you eat for dinner?”

“I eat what I can catch,” said the crocodile, as he bit down on the elephants nose and began to pull the elephant into the water.

The elephant pulled and pulled.

The crocodile pulled and pulled.

With all the pulling, the elephant’s nose pulled out longer and longer.  Finally, the elephant pulled free.  She ran from the crocodile but her nose now hung all the way down to the ground.

And so do all elephants noses remain like this today.

(Do you think the elephant learned to love his new nose?  Why is a long nose better for an elephant than a short nose?)