(Ed. note: Rudyard Kipling submitted these
"Just Not So Stories" to his editor in 1895. They were rejected.
Following his editor's suggestion, he reworked them into a book called
"Just So Stories" which was finally published in 1902. We were
fortunate enough to find these drafts among his papers.)
(Disclaimer: OK, I admit it; These are
from my book, "Fishducky's Fables" and I've run some of these before,
but, hey, I'm 82. You can't expect me to run a new post five times a
week. At least I've reworked them and the cartoons are all new!!)
Many
years ago rhinos had skin that was a lovely shade of pink and as soft as
velvet. They used to get very bad sunburns, because at that time
suntan creams had very low SPF numbers and they believed, probably rightly so,
that carrying a parasol to ward off the sun would make them look like wimps to
the other animals.
One
particular rhinoceros, whose name was Rodney, was desperate. He badly
needed something to cover his extremely sensitive skin. He went online
and although it took him a long time to type in anything correctly on his
computer because of the size of his hooves, he eventually found a listing for
Angelo Anteater, an Italian tailor. Fortunately, he was listed under “a”
because it was too difficult for Rodney to scroll down to anything under “x”,
“y” or “z”. He called an Uber driver with a van (it was a tight fit but, as you know, rhinos
aren’t allowed on buses) and went to see him.
He
introduced himself formally to the tailor. He said, “I am of the kingdom
animalia, the phylum chordate, the class mammalia, the infraclass euthena, the
order perissodactylia, the suborder ceratomorpha, and the superfamily rhinocerotoidea,
but you can call me Rodney.” He explained his problem to Angelo. He
told him how easily he sunburned. He said he realized that was probably
because he spent so much time wallowing in mud holes instead of under
a tree, but that was the only way he could cool down. He told him that he
liked wallowing so much that he would probably keep doing it, even if he was
cool.
He asked
Angelo if he could possibly make some kind of a suit for him. Angelo
thought and thought and then said, “I believe I can, signore. It would
have to be waterproof and soil resistant, because of the mud holes.
The fabric would have to be thick enough to keep the sun out. I don't mean to insult you, but you realize
that since you are a plus size it will require a lot of fabric, so there will
be an extra charge. There will have to be a hole in it so your horn will
stick out, but I think I can do it!” He tied several tape measures
together and took Rodney’s measurements and told him to come back in three
weeks.
When
Rodney returned, Angelo was apologetic. The tailor brought out the pieces
for Rodney’s suit. They were all cut, but not sewn together. Angelo
told him that he had broken several sewing machine needles trying to sew them,
but that he hadn’t been able to find one that was strong enough to go through two layers of the thick material. He didn’t know what to do and even though Rodney was brilliant for a rhino (see his introduction to Angelo), neither did
he. They were both puzzled.
It was
then that Oliver Owl came into the shop to pick up the new feather coat he had
ordered. He looked at the other two and saw that they seemed confused about
something. He said, “Got a problem, guys? Haven’t you heard how
wise owls are? Maybe I can help you.” They explained about the
thickness of the fabric and the broken sewing machine needles. Oliver
said, “Easy, peasy—that’s a hoot!! If you don’t mind leaving it on, Angelo
can put it on you piece by piece with Super Glue. That should work just
fine! The glue's waterproof so you can rinse it off by going into the river. Bye bye, gotta
fly!” He slipped into his new coat, paid Angelo and flew away.
Rodney
said that would be fine with him, since staying clean wasn't high on the list of any rhino that he knew. Angelo glued the new suit on Rodney, who loved it! Because of its weight, he
did move a little slower, but he didn’t mind that. Then there were those
little oxpecker birds (members
of the Sturnidae family,
he found out) that kept hitching rides on his back, but that was OK with him,
too. He couldn’t feel them through the suit and they ate the crumbs that fell inside
the seams. Most importantly, he could wallow all day and never get sunburned!!
He sent
all of his relatives to Angelo, who changed the name of his business to
Rhinos R Us, patented the suits and made a fortune. If you see a rhino
today, he’s probably wearing one of Angelo’s suits!!
Dust is
just mud with all the water wrung out----fishducky
