The Honey Elephant

By Rachael Anne Long

The third story in the Lost Forest series sees life in the forest carrying on much the same as ever – or perhaps not...

Honey Elephants are a rare and special thing and the subject of unwritten history...they also have knees... But this is not the beginning of our story. If a story must have a beginning then this one begins in a tree...

Long before tomorrow when today had not quite become yesterday and somewhere in-between lunch and dinner...two monkeys were sat in a tree...

And that would have been that except...except there is an awlful lot more.

The stork, for reasons the tree monkeys explain, went on holiday but he flew South instead of North and bumped into some jazz-loving badgers; while he was away, the tree monkeys set off to discover the Honey Elephant's honey yard. Then there are the Sisters of the Sacred Brethren, a group of flightless condors, headed toward the Lost Forest on a pilgrimage....and, completely separately, the Rajastan Dodo is now extinct... But to be fair, no one probably noticed...

Eventually they all come together in a chaotic tale of...well...you'll need to read the story to discover just what happens...or doesn't or should have... But as the stork says, “it's a metaphor, isn't it...a fossilised snake, a giant inner tube...no...erm...hominy grits?..oh, a pole..?”

“It is the one and the many at the same time...” replied Sister Dor of the Sisters of the Sacred Brethren.

The sun began to tire and slip down to the horizon, trying as best it could to cast butterfly shadows on the sand dunes until...in the cooling evening air, it sneezed, lost its balance and fell below the horizon plunging everything into darkness...

Oh and don't forget, it is probably a bad idea to feed the badgers honey...

And remember, the Honey Elephant is a rare and special thing and the subject of unwritten history...probably just a myth then...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rachael Anne Long
• Release date: Oct 11, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301965076

Rachael Anne Long

Rachael Anne Long is the author of several ebooks, including the anarchic animal adventure series, The Lost Forest and the adult short story collection, First Person Singular. Rachael has previously worked for government departments and a national children’s charity. She lives in Somerset, England with her daughter and their orange rescue cat where she writes, bakes, eats cake and enjoys being herself.

Book preview

The Honey Elephant

a quite unusual tale from

The Lost Forest

by Rachael Long

Smashwords Edition

© 2012 Rachael Long

All rights reserved

What is the Lost Forest?

Once, on the African savannah

a group of trees decided to join together and form a wood.

Over many years the wood grew into a forest and even got itself a name...

However, the forest’s name soon became forgotten

and instead everyone called the forest,

The Lost Forest.

Inside the forest lived many different animals ~

this is the quite unusual tale of just one..

.

The Quite Unusual Tale of

The Honey Elephant

Contents

Part One

Being the Beginning

In which two tree monkeys sit in a tree

until one falls out...

the stork goes on holiday...

then discovers badgers at the pole...

Part Two

Being not quite near the Middle

Involving in order of appearance:

a desert, a group of walking condors,

some unusual sharks, an oasis

and back in the Lost Forest,

a tree crocodile and a brief sighting of

the honey elephant....

Part Three

Being the part

sometime after the middle

but before

The Ending

In which lots of different things happen

in lots of different ways...

sort of...

and we learn a bit

about the honey elephant...

Part Four

Being the bit that

eventually leads to

The Ending

Badgers, singing springbok-goats, honey,

condors, more badgers, chaos

and everything gets tied up

in a loose sort of way...

The Honey Elephant

Long before tomorrow when today had not quite become yesterday and somewhere in-between lunch and dinner or dinner and tea if you prefer, two monkeys were sat in a tree...

Have you ever noticed, said one tree monkey to the other, we are always monkeys, never monkies... The second agreed and added, nor are we ever monkees.

The first nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, The Monkees were actually humans...it's true! Apparently they liked to monkey around..." The second tree monkey yawned, complained that the day, so far, was a bit dull, stretched out both his arms and legs at the same time and...fell out of the tree!

Later, when the second tree monkey had managed to climb back up to where the first tree monkey was sitting he said, I just had a look around while I was picking myself up from the ground; lots of animals seem to be gathering together and standing around waiting for something to happen.

"Something to happen? queried the first tree monkey...He thought for a moment then mumbled, I'd completely forgotten – quick, pass me that piece of bark."

The second tree monkey pulled a piece of bark from a