The Story of the Three Hippopotamuses

Tell me a story. Tell me the story about the three hippopotamuses.

Ummm... OK.

Once upon a time, there were three hipopotamuses. And they lived in Africa, in a river.

Right, it was a great big long river, that had so much salt in it that they could float!

Well, salt does help things float, but rivers are usually fresh water. Anyway, hippos are pretty fat, so they can float in fresh water.

OK

And one day... What happened then?

One day, a nice giraffe came to the river and said "Please can I drink a little bit of your water."

And the hippos said "OK." Then the giraffe drank a little bit of water, and said "Thank you, that was yummy." Then she went away.

And the next day, there was a rock.

A... rock?

Yeah, because the sea pushed it up into the jungle, and then there was a great big rock in the middle of the jungle in the river. And there was something under the rock!

There was? What was under the rock?

The mommy hippopotamus! She was down under the rock, and the baby hipopotamuses went to see her there.

OK...

Yeah, and then the daddy hippo came and moved the medium-sized rock and then they all went out from under the rock, and then they were in the sea!

And... They said "Yay, we're swimming in the sea!" and they splashed in the waves and stuff. And then an underwater camera floated by and took a picture of them.

Right, and they all smiled, because they were happy to get their picture taken.

Sure.

The End!

Yep, I guess that's the end, all right.

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If you can find a moral in this, well, you're doing better than I am. It made SteelyKid happy, though, and that's what matters.

More like this

Ah ha! Time to introduce SteelyKid to Flanders and Swann's "Hippopotamus Song." It's got a chorus that all three-year-olds should love. (And verses that adults who love word play will become addicted to.)

Alas, this was recorded in 1959, so no actual video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjnOj9O16_I

For once, it was not I who forgot to close an italics tag.