CHAPTER 34
When Tubthumper showed up at the water hole unexpectedly after her absence (it hadn’t really been long since the brother and sister had seen each other, but it seemed so to them, as they had never been apart since baby brother Chumbawumba’s birth when Tubthumper was four years old), the two had run toward each other, trumpeting, and intertwining their trunks.
By the time we arrived at the water hole, though, not many minutes later, Tubthumper and Chumbawumba were already arguing with each other in their good-natured way.
Our appearance among them caused their arguing to stop, or at least to be postponed.
“Who do you have with you, there, Taterskin?” Rory the Lion asked me.
I proudly introduced Rovette to Rory, Chumbawumba, and Yukyuk, my old friends. There were two others there at the time, and I made acquaintance with them, too, introducing not only myself and Rovette, but also Rinky and Terri.
The first of the strangers, a Rhinoceros who told us his name was Ocero Puddleby, remarked that he had never seen, or heard of, either type of animal before. “A drunken bill platter of what?” he asked, looking at Rinky.
“Duck-billed Platypus,” Rinky corrected him. “Although I’m a mammal, I lay eggs, and I have a bill like a duck, but it’s a rubbery one. I’m called a platypus because I supposedly bear a striking resemblance to some old Greek guy named Platy. That’s what my papa told me, anyway.”
I knew this last statement wasn’t correct, but I let it go. It didn’t really matter where the word platypus came from.
“Besides,” Rinky said to Ocero Puddleby, “I wouldn’t say much, if I were you. Your bill, or nose, or whatever that thing is, isn’t exactly what I would call ‘normal,’ either.”
“Normal schmormal,” Ocero replied. “Who wants to be normal? Normal is overrated. Normal is for . . . well, nobody, really. We’re all abnormal in our own ways.”
“I guess you’re right,” Rinky said.
“I know I’m right. Besides, I can use my horn as a useful and versatile tool. Although exquisitely beautiful and elegantly shaped, it’s not just for decoration, you know.”
“Well, you don’t need to toot your own horn about your horn,” Rinky replied. “What exactly do you use it for, anyway?”
“Breaking stuff, and digging. It’s like a sword to cut through the jungle and a combination pick and shovel for digging up food and such.”
Rinky was about to boast a little about the poison spurs on his hind legs, when the other stranger at the watering hole, growing a little tired of what she considered to be Rinky’s childish chatter, spoke up.
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