Chapter One

When Poppet was born, he had absolutely no idea what sort of animal he was.

He looked around, and saw that he was surrounded by a forest of legs. Huge legs they were, thick and tall and greyish in colour, with huge feet on the end of them.

Poppet looked up, and saw, on top of all those legs, huge bodies with huge heads and huge ears and amazingly long, long noses.

He was in fact looking up at his mother, and a number of his aunties who had all come along to inspect this new baby.

“Oh!” said one auntie. “Isn’t he a poppet!”

The baby’s mother looked extremely pleased.

“What are you going to call him?” said another auntie.

The baby’s mother, whose own name was Ooma, said, “I don’t know, I haven’t had time to think,” and then she thought for a bit, and then she said, “But now I do know. I’ll call him Poppet.” And she put the tip of her trunk against one of the baby’s ears and whispered, “Hello, baby. I’m your mum, and your name is Poppet.”

Poppet looked up at Ooma and the other huge animals and said, “Please, what sort of animals are you?”

“Elephants,” said Ooma. “We are African elephants.”

“Oh,” said Poppet. “But you said you were my mum.”

“Yes.”

“So does that make me an African elephant?”

“Yes.”

Poppet looked puzzled. There must be some mistake, he thought. “You’re enormous,” he said, “and I’m very small. We can’t be the same sort of animal.”

“Oh yes we are,” said Ooma. “It’s just that you’re a baby elephant.”

“But you’ll grow,” said one of the aunties.

“And grow,” said another.

“And grow.”

“And grow.”

“And grow,” said all the others.

“Until you’re as big as we are,” said Ooma. “You might even be bigger one day.”

“Tomorrow?” said Poppet.

At this, the aunties all laughed quietly, making snuffly noises in their trunks, before moving slowly and heavily away, leaving mother and baby alone together.