Books at bedtime by Calming Anxiety, the Elephants Room by Rudyard Kipling.
In the high and far off times, the elephant, O best beloved, had no trunk.
He had only a blackish, boldly nose, as big as a boot, that he could wiggle about from
side to side.
But he couldn't pick up things with it.
There was one elephant, a new elephant, an elephant's child, who was full of satiable curiosity,
and that means he asked ever so many questions.
And he lived in Africa, and he filled all Africa with his satiable curiosities.
He asked his tall aunt, the ostrich, why her tail feathers grew just so.
And his tall aunt, the ostrich, spanked him with her hard claw.
He asked his tall uncle, the giraffe, what made his skin spotty?
And his tall uncle, the giraffe, spanked him with his hard, hard hoof.
And still, he was full of satiable curiosity.
He asked his broad aunt, the hit papotomers, why her eyes were red, and his broad aunt, the
hip papotomers, spanked him with her broad, broad hoof.
And he asked his hairy uncle, the baboon, why melons tasted just so.
And his hairy uncle, the baboon, spanked him with his hairy, hairy paw.
And still, he was full of satiable curiosity.
He asked questions about everything that he saw, or heard, or felt, or smelt, or touched,
and all his uncles and his aunt, spanked him.
And still, he was full of satiable curiosity.
And fine morning, in the middle of the procession of the equinoxes, this satiable elephant's
child asked a new fine question that he had never asked before.
He asked, "What does the crocodile have for dinner?"
Then everybody said, "Push!" in a loud and dreadful tone.
And they spanked him immediately and directly, without stopping for a long time.
I and by, when that was finished.
He came upon co-lo, co-lo, the bird sitting in the middle of a weight-a-bit thorn bush,
and he said, "My father has spanked me, and my mother has spanked me.
All my aunts and uncles have spanked me for my satiable curiosity.
And still I want to know, what does the crocodile have for its dinner?"
Then the co-lo, co-lo, bird said, "With a mournful cry.
Go to the banks of the great grey green, greasy limpo-po river, all set about with the fever
trees and find out."
That very next morning, when there was nothing left of the equinoxes, because the procession
had proceeded according to the precedent.
This satiable elephant's child took a hundred pounds of bananas, a little short red kind,
and a hundred pounds of sugar cane, a long purple kind, and seventeen melons, the greeny,
crackly kind, and said to all his dear friends, "Goodbye.
I am going to the great grey green, greasy limpo-po river, all set about with the fever trees.
To find out what the crocodile has for dinner, and they all spanked him once more for luck,
though he did ask the most politely to stop."
Then he went away, a little warm, but not at all astonished, eating melons and throwing
the rind about, because he could not pick it up.
He went from Graham's town to Kimberley, and from Kimberley to Carmer's country.
And from Carmer's country, he went east by north, eating melons all the time.
Till at last he came to the banks of the great grey green, greasy limpo-po river, all set
about with the fever trees, precisely as the cola-cola bird had said.
Now, you must know and understand, O best beloved, that till that very week, and day, and hour,
and minute, this "sachable elephant's child" had never seen a crocodile, and did not know
what one was like.
It was all his sachable curiosity.
The first thing that he found was a bicolored python-rocksnake, curled around a rock.
"Excuse me," said the elephant's child most politely, "but have you seen such a thing
as a crocodile in these promiscuous parts?"
"Have I seen a crocodile?" said the bicolored python-rocksnake in a voice of dreadful
scorn.
"What will you ask of me next?"
"Excuse me," said the elephant's child, "but could you kindly tell me what he has for
his dinner?"
Then, the bicolored python-rocksnake, and coiled himself very quickly from the rock, and
spanked the elephant's child with his scales and flails and tail.
"That is old," said the elephant's child, "because my father and my mother and my uncle
and my aunt, not to mention my other aunt, the hippopotamus, and my other uncle, the baboon,
all spanked me for the vseishbul curiosity, and I suppose this is the same thing."
So he said goodbye, very politely, to the bicolored python-rocksnake, and helped to coil him
up on the rock again, and went on a little warm, but not at all astonished, eating melons,
and throwing the rind about, because he could not pick it up.
Settily trod on what he thought was a log of wood at the very edge of the great green,
greasy limpo-po river, all set about with fever trees.
"But it was rarely the crocodile, oh best beloved, and the crocodile winked one eye, like this."
"Excuse me," said the elephant's child most politely, "but do you happen to have seen a crocodile
in these promiscuous parts?"
Then, the crocodile winked the other eye, and lifted half his tail out of the mud, and the
elephant's child stepped back most politely, because he did not wish to be spanked again.
"Come, hither, little one," said the crocodile.
"Why, do you ask such things?"
"Excuse me," said the elephant's child most politely, "but my father has spanked me,
my mother has spanked me, not to mention my tall aunt the ostrich, and my tall uncle that
you're off, who can even kick ever so hard, as well as my broad aunt the hippopotamus,
and my hairy uncle, the baboon, and, including the bicolored python-roxnate, with the scales
and flails and tail, just up the bank, who spanks harder than any of them, and so, if it's
quite all the same to you, I don't want to be spanked anymore."
"Come, hither, little one," said the crocodile.
"For I am the crocodile," and he wept crocodile tears to show that it was quite true.
"Then, the elephant's child grew all dressless and panted, and kneel down on the bank and
said, 'You are the very person I've been looking for all these long days.
Will you please tell me what it is you have for dinner?'
"Come, hither, little one," said the crocodile, and I whisper.
"The elephant's child put his head down close to the crocodile's musky, tusky mouth, and
the crocodile caught him by his little nose, which up to that very weak day, hour, and minute,
had been no bigger than a boot, though much more useful."
I think said the crocodile, and he said it between his teeth like this.
I think today I will begin with the elephant's child.
At this, O best beloved, the elephant's child was much annoyed, and he said speaking through
his nose like this, "Let go, you are hurting me."
Then the bi-cullard python rocks name scuffle down the bank and said, "My young friend, if
you do not now know, immediately and instantly, pull as hard as you ever can.
It is my opinion that your acquaintance in the large pattern leather ulster, and by this
he meant the crocodile.
Will jerk you into yonder limpid stream before you can say Jack Robinson?"
This is the way bi-cullard python rocks snakes always talk.
Then the elephant's child sat back on its little haunches, and pulled and pulled and pulled,
and his nose began to stretch, and the crocodile flounded in the water, making it all creamy
with great sweeps of its tail, and he pulled and pulled.
And the elephant's child knows kept on stretching, and the elephant's child spread all his
little four legs, and pulled and pulled, and pulled, and his nose kept on stretching, and
the crocodile threshed his tail like an ore, and he pulled and pulled and pulled, and
as each pull, the elephant's child knows grew longer and longer, and it hurt him.
Then the elephant's child felt his legs slipping, and he said through his nose, which was now
nearly five feet long.
This is too much for me.
Then the bi-cullard python rocks snake came down from the bank, and knotted himself in a
double-cloth hitch around the elephant's child's hind legs, and said, "Rash an inexperienced
traveler, you will now seriously devote ourselves to a little high tension, because if we do
not, it is my impression that Yonder's self-propelling man of war with the armoured plate up a
deck, and by this, I best beloved, he meant the crocodile, will permanently vitiate your future
career."
That is the way all bi-cullard python rocks snakes always talk.
So he pulled, and the elephant's child pulled, and the crocodile pulled, but the elephant's
child, and the bi-cullard python rocks snake pulled hardest, and it last, the crocodile let
go of the elephant's child's nose with a plop that you could hear all up and down the
limpo-poo.
Then, the elephant's child sat down most hard and sudden, but first he was careful to say,
"Thank you" to the bi-cullard python rocks snake, and next he was kind to his poor pulled
nose, and ruptured all up in a cool banana leaf, and hung it in the great, green, green,
greasy limpo-poo to cool.
What are you doing? That form said the bi-cullard python rocks snake.
"Excuse me," said the elephant's child, "but my nose is badly out of shape, and I am waiting
for it to shrink."
"Then you will have to wait a long time," said the bi-cullard python rocks snake.
Some people do not know what is good for them.
The elephant's child sat there for three days, waiting for his nose to shrink, but it
never grew any shorter, and besides, it made him squint.
Four, O best beloved, you will see and understand that the crocodile had pulled it out into
a really, truly, trunk, same as all elephants have today.
At the end of the third day, a fly came and stung him on the shoulder, and before he
knew what he was doing, he lifted up his trunk and hit that fly dead with the end of it.
Vantage number one said the bi-cullard python rocks snake.
You couldn't have done that with a mere smear nose.
Try and eat a little now.
Before he thought what he was doing, the elephant's child put out his trunk and plucked a large
bundle of grass, dusted it clean against his forelegs, and stuffed it into his own mouth.
Vantage number two said the bi-cullard python rocks snake.
You couldn't have done that with a mere smear nose.
Don't you think the very sun is hot today?
"It is," said the elephant's child.
And before he thought what he was doing, he scooped up a scoop of mud from the banks of
the great grey-green greasy limpo poe and slapped it on his head, where it made a cool,
schlupy, sloshy mud cap all trickly behind his ears.
Vantage number three said the bi-cullard python rocks snake.
You couldn't have done that with a mere smear nose.
Now, how do you feel about being spanked again?
"Excuse me," said the elephant's child, but I should not light it at all.
"How would you like to spank somebody?" said the bi-cullard python rocks snake.
"I should like it very much indeed," said the elephant's child.
"Well," said the bi-cullard python rocks snake.
You will find that your new nose of yours very useful to spank people with.
"Thank you."
"Sid the elephant's child."
"I'll remember that, and now I think I'll go home to all my dear family and friends,
and try."
So the elephant's child went home across Africa, frisking and whisking his trunk.
When he wanted fruit to eat, he pulled fruit down from a tree, instead of waiting for it
for as he used to do.
When he wanted grass, he plucked grass up from the ground, instead of going on his knees
as he used to do.
When the flies bit, he broke off a branch of a tree and used it as a flywass, and he made
himself a new, cool, slushy, squishy mudcap whenever the sun was hot.
When he felt lonely walking through Africa, he sang to himself down his trunk, and the noise
was louder than several brass bands.
He went especially out of his way to find a broad hippopotamus.
He was no relation of his, and he spanked her very hard to make sure that the bicolored python
rocks snake had spoken the truth about his new trunk.
The rest of the time, he picked up melon rinds that he had dropped on his way to the
hippopot, but he was a tidy peckiderm.
One dark evening, he came back to his dear family, and he coiled up his trunk and said, "How
do you do?"
They were very glad to see him, and immediately said, "Come here and be spanked for your
sociable curiosity."
"Who?" said the elephant's child.
"I don't think you people know anything about spanking, but I do, and I'll show you."
Then he uncouled his trunk, and knocked two of his dear brother head over heels.
"O bananas," said they, "where did you learn that trick?
And what have you done to your nose?"
I got a new one from the crocodile on the banks of the great grey, green, greasy, limpopo
river, said the elephant's child.
I asked him what he had for dinner, and he gave me this to keep.
"It looks very ugly," said his hairy uncle, baboon.
"It does," said the elephant's child, "but it is very useful."
And he picked up his hairy uncle, the baboon, by one hairy leg, and hoved him into the horn
its nest.
Then, that bad elephant's child spanked all his dear families for a long time, till
they were very warm and greatly astonished.
He pulled out his tall, ostrich aunt's tail feathers, and he caught his tall uncle, the
giraffe, by the hind leg, and tracked him through a thorn bush.
And he shouted at his broad aunt, the hippopotamus, and blue bubbles into her ears when she was
sleeping in the water after meals.
But he never let anyone touch co-lo co-lo the bird.
At last things grew so exciting that his dear families went off one by one in a hurry to
the banks of the great grey, green, greasy, limpopo river, all set about with fever trees.
To borrow new noses from the crocodile.
And they came back, nobody spanked anybody anymore.
And ever since that day, who best beloved all the elephants that you will ever see, besides
all those that you won't, have trunks precisely like the trunk of the sasiable elephant's
child.
I keep six honest serving men.
They taught me all I knew.
My names are what and where and when, and how and why and whom.
I send them over land and sea, I send them east and west.
But after they have worked for me, I give them all the rest.
I let them rest from nine till five, for I am busy then, as well as breakfast, lunch and
tea, for they are hungry men.
All the different folk have different views, I know a person small.
She keeps ten million serving men who get no rest at all.
She sends them abroad on her own affairs, for the second she opens her eyes.
One million house, two million wheres and seven million whys.