Rabbit Tells A Story

Rabbit tells a story about a Monkey reading a story about a story.

One day, Rabbit woke up and wanted to tell someone a story. Strangely though, he couldn’t find anyone that had time to listen.

He went walking, almost deciding to tell himself the story, when Little Skunk met him on the path.

“Little Skunk,” he asked. “Do you have time for a story?”

“Sure I do,” said Little Skunk, and plopped down right in the middle of the path.

“Great, well, once there was a dog,” he said.

“Can it be about a monkey?” interrupted Little Skunk.

“Sure,” said Rabbit.

“Once there was a Monkey who lived in a tree,” said Rabbit. “He had many friends.”

One day, a fox came up to him and asked him if he could borrow his ball. Monkey was about to let him when he decided to ask him for a favor in exchange for the ball. He asked the fox to find him a ladybug. The fox left to get the ladybug and Monkey sat back down in his comfy chair to continue reading his book.

At this point, more forest animals had gathered on the path, listening to Rabbit’s story. Raccoon was there, Squirrel, Otter and his little girl, Bear and Wolf, just about everyone showed up.

Rabbit was pleased, so he continued.

“Monkey’s book,” continued Rabbit. “was about a ladybug who was telling a bedtime story to her little babies. She had twenty babies, and they all loved hearing her stories.”

Tonight’s bedtime story was about a funny Rabbit who was telling a story to a bunch of forest animals in the middle of a path.

“There were so many animals sitting there listening,” said the ladybug mother, “that they had completely blocked the path, and Elephant was on his way to the pond for some water. He obviously could not get by, and no one seemed to have noticed him. They were all listening so intently to the rabbit’s story.”

The elephant tried to get their attention, but it didn’t work. He tried to climb a tree, but the tree branch cracked and he couldn’t get a good grip.

The elephant then took out his map of the forest to see if there was another way around, but there wasn’t, well, not one that wouldn’t take half a day.

He tried to tiptoe around the animals, but his feet were so big, that he couldn’t get by, and the animals were so enthralled with the story, that none of them moved to get out of the way. It was as if they were statues. In fact, when he was tiptoeing around the animals, he accidentally stepped on Beaver’s tail and flattened it a little. But Beaver didn’t flinch.

“He won’t notice,” thought the elephant.

So the elephant decided to listen to the rest of the story, and then when everyone got up to leave, he would go on his way. So he plunked down in the path at the edge of the group with the rest of the animals.”

Fox, who had brought the ladybug he had asked for, suddenly interrupted monkey. Monkey closed the book and lowered a little basket. After fox had placed the ladybug in the basket, Monkey dropped the ball down to Fox.

Monkey loved ladybugs. He liked how it felt when they walked all over his arm and head. He opened up the basket and carefully picked up the ladybug and put it on his arm.

But something was wrong. This ladybug didn’t want to crawl around. In fact, this ladybug was sad, and crying even.

“What’s wrong?” asked Monkey.

“Well,” said the ladybug. I was telling my little babies a bedtime story, when all of a sudden, I was taken away from them and brought to you.”

“Well, that’s horrible,” said Monkey suddenly remembering the book he had been reading.

He hurried over to his comfy chair, opened the book to the page he had been on, and yes, in fact, on the next page, the momma ladybug was inexplicably taken away from her babies by what looked like the paw of a fox. He turned the page and the picture showed all the babies crying for their mother. Some had fallen out of their cribs and some were just standing there crying. There were teddy bears, blankets and binkies all over the floor. It was chaos.

“What is that book?” asked the ladybug.

“Well,” said Monkey slamming the book closed quickly. “It’s a book about, well, a mother ladybug who was telling a story to her babies when she was inexplicably taken away from them.”

He looked away from her because he felt guilty.

“What happens on the next page?” she asked as calmly as she could.

“I don’t know if you should see this,” said Monkey.

“Oh, please show me. I must know what happens,” she pleaded.

“Well, OK,” said Monkey. “Why don’t you sit down and I’ll finish the book for you.”

She sat down on the arm of the comfy chair and listened intently.

“I’ll start here,” said Monkey.

“Inexplicably, the mother ladybug was taken away from her babies.” Then the next page says, “Once the babies realized their mother was gone, they cried and cried. Some of them fell out of their cribs, and they cried until they fell asleep.”

“Oh,” said Ladybug. “Let me see the picture.”

She looked over the picture.

“Well,” she said. “The picture shows little Bobby falling out of the crib, but that happens almost every night, so it’s a little misleading. And they always cry when I leave the room, they’re still so young, but they fall asleep fairly quickly, and all that stuff on the floor is just embarrassing, if I had known, I would have cleaned up a bit. They make it seem so chaotic and devastating. They’ll be OK. So what happens next?”

Monkey turned the page, peeking at it first just to make sure it was OK, it was fine.

“See,” said Ladybug. “They’re fine, they’re sleeping.”

They looked through the rest of the pages and the babies woke up, made themselves some breakfast, let themselves outside to play, shared their toys, didn’t have too many tantrums, and essentially had a pretty good day. They even put themselves down for a nap. Mother Ladybug was actually quite proud of them.

Then the last page, a Monkey brings the mother ladybug back and everyone’s happy.

“Oh, that ends well,” said Ladybug.

“OK, so I guess we better get going,” said Monkey. “I’ve got to get you back to your babies.”

“Yes, let’s,” said Ladybug.

Monkey climbed down the tree holding Ladybug carefully, took her back to her home, said goodbye and went back home to his tree.

“The End,” said Rabbit.

“What?” exclaimed Little Skunk and a couple of others. “That’s the end? What happened in the mother ladybug’s story where the rabbit was telling a story and the elephant couldn’t get by because of all the animals in the path?”

“Yes,” said Squirrel, ”she didn’t finish her story.”

“Well,” said Rabbit. “I don’t really know.”

“I’ll tell you what happens,” said a large trumpeting voice from the edge of the group of animals sitting on the path. “Everyone stood up and got out of the elephant’s way so he could get a drink from the pond.”

Everyone agreed that was a good ending to that story, so they stood up, got out of the way for elephant to get by, and then went home.

They all thanked Rabbit for his story.

Beaver couldn’t figure out what he had done to hurt his tail, but he was fine.

Rabbit went home and went right to sleep. Telling stories made him sleepy.

The End