Philpott the Giraffe

Philpott the Giraffe by Katrina Squire

 

Philpott was a friendly, sleepy giraffe that lived with his friends in the Forest of Fun. He spent most of his days eating or sleeping. Philpott ate and slept with his head high in the tree branches, eating the bright leaves or using them for pillows. In fact, his friends could never tell if Philpott was munching on leaves or dozing with his head in the trees. 

Because he was a giraffe, he was much, much taller than his best friends Sheep, Dog, and Quackers the Duck. This made it difficult to talk to them sometimes, and he often missed out on the best jokes and funniest stories because his ears were much higher than all of theirs. 

 

He tried stooping very low to listen, but then he couldn’t see where he was going and usually tripped, somersaulting down the road with his long neck curved into a wheel.

 

One day Philpott declared he’d had enough of his long neck, and decided to get rid of it. He thought if no one could see his neck, it would make it shrink and disappear, so he tied a lovely blue and white polka-dot scarf around it. 

 

The scarf did look lovely, but it slid right to the bottom of his neck, so Philpott tied on a green scarf too. This scarf also slid right down his neck, so he tied on a third scarf, and a fourth, and a fifth, until finally after six colorful scarves his neck was completely covered.

He walked to the meadow to meet his friends, expecting to be just the same size as them now that his neck had disappeared. Instead, he was disappointed to discover that he still towered over them. Worse still, instead of making his neck invisible, the rainbow of scarves covering it just made his friends and everyone else notice it even more. 

 

Philpott then decided to try and hide his neck behind a long mirror. The reflection of the forest in the mirror would surely make his neck disappear. Again, he walked into the meadow hoping to be as small as his friends, but again he still stood tall above them. This time all of the other animals stood in line to see themselves in the mirror or comb their fur.

 

The next morning Philpott had his best idea yet. He would tie his neck in a knot--that would definitely make it shorter. After several hours of twisting, turning, rolling and pulling, he finally tied his neck into a pretzel shape. 

His friends decided it was time to help. Sheep and Dog carefully loosened the knot while Quackers talked to him. “Philpott,” said Quackers, “We really like you just the way you are. You can tell us what the weather is like far away over the mountains, so we know if we will need umbrellas tomorrow. You can pick the best apples from the trees for us to eat, and we never get lost when you are around because we can see you over everything else. We don’t want you to be any different than who you are.”

 

“Philpott still looked sad, and mumbled “I just want to be small like you and Sheep and Dog.” Just then a flurry of activity caught their attention at the edge of the meadow. Rabbits and squirrels and hedgehogs and mice were gathered around the bottom of Mrs. Raccoon’s tree--it was on fire!

“Help! Help!” shouted Mrs. Raccoon. The fire had trapped her and her five children in the tree. Without thinking, Philpott galloped over to the tree, coughing as he put his head right next to their front door in the treetop. One by one, Mrs. Raccoon and each of her children slid down his neck. When they were all safe on the ground, Mrs. Raccoon dabbed her eyes with the scarf Philpott had given her, and thanked him for being such a hero.

After that day, Philpott never tried to hide or shorten his neck again. He stretched tall towards the sky, happy as the newest member of the Forest of Fun Fireman Rescue Squad.