“When the rain begins to stop, do you want me to use my trunk to move the water?”
Mama and papa giraffe gathered their family of orphan animals. They needed to make sure that everything was in order before the school day. And it appeared that it was.
Terry the Lobster had his backpack and so did his sister Katharina. Erwin the Elephant had his books strapped around him, while Marie and Maxim the sheep held pencils in their mouths.
Just before they went off to school, Erwin saw a gray cloud far in the distance.
“What is that cloud?” he asked. “Will we be safe if it rains?”
“Erwin, it will just be a little water. Don’t worry. Let’s go,” said Terry impatiently.
“Terry, be nice to your brother,” said mama Giraffe. “But it’s nothing to worry about. It will only be a little rain. Now you all go off to school,” she said.
So Terry and Katharina and Erwin and Marie and Maxim went off to school. During the day, Erwin noticed that the cloud seemed to be getting closer and darker. During lunch he went to Katharina. “Do you see the cloud? It’s darker and getting closer. I know everyone says it’s going to be okay, but how do they know?”
“Because it’s rained before and nothing bad happens,” she said. “Now we need to go back to class.”
So Erwin went back to class, but it was hard for him to pay attention to his teacher, because the cloud was getting darker and getting closer.
When all the animal children came home from school, Erwin didn’t want to eat dinner, because the cloud was over them and it was starting to rain.
“It will be okay, Erwin,” said Papa Giraffe. “We have a roof over our heads, so the rain can’t hurt us,” he said.
“But can we climb further up the hill?” Erwin asked.
“We don’t need to do that. We’re safe here,” said mama giraffe.
The animal children ate dinner with papa and mama giraffe, but the rain kept falling and Erwin was getting more and more concerned, not only for himself but for Marie and Maxim who weren’t as tall as he was. They would have a harder time dealing with rising water than he would.
In the middle of the night, a crack sound woke up all of the animals. The rain was falling through the roof. Papa Giraffe came to wake up all of the animal children.
“Get up everyone. We need to climb up higher to get out of the flood.”
Terry jumped on the back of papa giraffe and Katherina climbed on the back of mama giraffe. Maxim and Marie climbed onto Erwin. They began climbing up the mountain as water collected beneath them.
Erwin was angry inside, because he knew that if everyone had listened to him, they could have moved their items further up the hill before it rained. They could have been comfortable and able to sleep now instead of having to move further up in a rush.
But he also thought that it wasn’t a good idea to begin blaming the other animals for not listening to him. The important thing now was to move to a higher ground, where they could all be safe.
When they reached a higher point, Erwin asked Papa Giraffe, “when the rain begins to stop, do you want me to use my trunk to move the water?” Erwin was a young elephant and didn’t have a lot of experience using his trunk, but he knew it was there and thought he could use it to help his family.
“That would be very helpful, Erwin,” said Papa Giraffe.
As the other animals moved higher up, Erwin stayed at the back of the group. The rain soon started to slow down. Erwin stuck his trunk into the water and sucked it up. Then he blew it out away from where they were living.
It took a long time, but after a while Erwin was able to move all of the water from where the animal children lived with papa and mama giraffe.
Soon thereafter, the other animals were able to lift their beds, chairs and other furniture to a higher position. Their items were wet, but they would dry off. What was important was that all of the family was there: Terry the Lobster, Katharina his sister, Erwin the Elephant, Marie and Maxim and their parents, Mama and Papa Giraffe. The family was together. They had all survived and could restart their life again.
Over the course of days, they worked together to build a new home. Terry and Katharina crawled on the ground to bring little branches from the trees. He would give those to Marie and Maxim, who would help Terry lay the foundation. Erwin used his trunk to pass bigger branches to Mama and Papa Giraffe and they were able to reconstruct their animal home. They hoped that if it was higher up the mountain, it would be safer from floods and from rain.
When they built their new home, Papa Giraffe gathered everyone together.
“We are ready to begin a new life here, but before we do that, we need to thank Erwin, who warned us that rain was coming and helped us even though we didn’t listen to him.”
At that point, the other animal children came around Erwin and hugged him. Everyone in the family promised that they would listen to each other and take concerns seriously.
Todd