Chapter Three

Poppet thought about this for the rest of the first day of his life.

He imagined this thing called a mouse running along inside his little trunk and he did not like the thought of it at all. Suppose one did! How would he get rid of it? Blow it out, he supposed, and every so often, for the rest of the day, he blew very hard, suddenly, down his trunk, just in case one of the awful creatures had somehow crept in.

I don’t even know what they look like, he thought, only that they’re small.

The next morning, while the elephant herd was browsing upon the leaves of some large trees, Poppet was standing beside his mother when he saw a strange animal moving about on the bark of one of the trees.

What it was he didn’t know, but it was certainly small.

Carefully curling his trunk up out of harm’s way, Poppet bent his head towards it. Close up, he could see that the creature, though small, was long, with a great many joints to its dark brown body and a very great many legs.

Perfect for crawling up elephants’ trunks, he thought. I bet you are one.

He said politely, “Excuse me, but are you a mouse?”

“A mouse?” said the creature.

“Yes. I thought you might be.”

“You’re joking! Pull the other one.”

“Other what?”

“Leg.”

What does it mean? Poppet thought. It’s got hundreds of legs. “Well, if you’re not a mouse,” he said, “what are you?”

“I’m a giant millipede,” said the long wriggly creature.

“A giant!” said Poppet.

“Oh, stop taking the mickey,” said the millipede huffily. “You knew all the time, didn’t you? I could tell – I wasn’t born yesterday.”

“I was,” said Poppet, as the giant millipede rippled away.

“But anyway, I’ve learned something. That animal was not a mouse.”