Gershwin and the balloon lion of Borneo

Once upon a time, there was a boy called Gershwin. Now, Gershwin went on all sorts of adventures. He’d been to space, to Canada and to the North Pole. He’d also been to space. He liked space, I think. But this time, he decided he wanted to go to the jungle.

The jungle was in a place called Borneo, and it was beautiful. It was filled with lush green trees, vegetation and lots of wild animals. As we all know, Gershwin could talk to the animals, so he thought he’d go and find some to talk to.

He jumped on a plane and flew. But the only way to get into Borneo was to fly through the air in a parachute, because planes couldn’t land there with all the trees.

The plane flew over Borneo and started to circle the jungle. Very soon, Gershwin spotted his landing spot, right in the middle of the jungle. He braced himself to jump. The plane circled very, very slowly so he could time it just right. The doors opened, and Gershwin ran and jumped.

Oh, he felt the air rushing through his hair and hitting him in the face. It felt so refreshing because all the rainforest water was coming up from the trees.

He started to fly down, then pulled the ripcord on his parachute. The parachute flung up above him, and suddenly he was flying much slower than before. Some might say floating. He grabbed the handles and started to steer. Very soon he got close to the floor. He pulled down on the handles and came to a perfect landing, right on the spot he’d expected.

Waiting there for him was a jeep. It was specially made, with really tall suspension, so its body was much further off the ground than its wheels. This was perfect for the rough terrain. There were holes all over the floor, and the jeep could drive through them easily, barely moving.

Gershwin grabbed the keys and jumped in. He sped off as fast as possible, bumping occasionally, looking left, right, left, right for animals. He had a lot of animals he wanted to tick off: a giraffe, a toucan and a lion.

Very soon, in the distance, he saw a big, peculiar-looking tree. He’d never seen a tree quite like it, because it only had one leaf on top. And its trunk wasn’t brown. It was yellow. Very strange.

Gershwin decided to investigate. When he got there, he found that the tree had four roots, and the main trunk was above his head, higher than he could see. Then he realised it wasn’t a tree at all. It was a very, very tall, long-necked giraffe.

“Hello, Mr Giraffe. How are you?”

The giraffe just looked at him and didn’t make a sound. This was strange because normally giraffes loved to talk. Gershwin held up a eucalyptus branch, which giraffes usually loved, but the giraffe didn’t try to take it. It just stood there, motionless, not moving a muscle.

Gershwin thought there must be something wrong. He decided to climb up the giraffe to have a closer word. Perhaps the giraffe was deaf and couldn’t hear him.

As he started to climb, he realised the giraffe felt different from normal. It was very squishy, almost as if its skin was falling off. The skin felt more like cotton that someone might make clothes out of.

Gershwin knew enough about animals to know this was strange, and he didn’t like it. He climbed down as fast as possible, stepped back and pulled out his trusty camera to take some photos.

All of a sudden, the giraffe’s skin started to fall away. Out of its head came two big snapping jaws. They were the jaws of a crocodile. The crocodile had made a disguise that looked like a giraffe, so unsuspecting passers-by wouldn’t realise it was a crocodile.

The crocodile snapped at Gershwin, and Gershwin dodged out of the way. It snapped again, and he jumped and rolled under a tree. But it kept coming and coming. This was the biggest crocodile you’d ever seen, reaching right up to the clouds.

Gershwin decided to climb a nearby tree. It was a tall tree, taller than the crocodile, which was good. He climbed and climbed until he was higher than the crocodile and thought he was safe. Then he looked down and realised the crocodile was climbing up after him, snapping its jaws as it came.

Gershwin didn’t know what to do. All of a sudden, two claws grabbed him around the waist, and he was lifted into the air. He flew and flew without knowing what was happening. Before he knew it, he was dropped into a nest with three little birds. A toucan had flown along and saved him from the crocodile’s jaws.

Oh, he was so happy. “Thank you. Thank you so much for rescuing me. Is there anything I can do to help you?”

“Yes, Mr Gershwin, there is,” said the toucan. “As you can see, I have three little chicks, and they’re very, very hungry. But I can’t seem to get any food for them because there is a ferocious lion prowling these areas. Every time I try to get some food, the lion tries to grab me. Perhaps you can talk some sense into him and let him realise that we’re all in this together.”

Gershwin was very good at talking to lions. He’d done it many times before, so he agreed.

The toucan dropped him by a nearby watering hole, where all the animals went to drink. As soon as the toucan got close to the ground, the lion came out of the bushes, and Gershwin understood what was happening.

“Oh, Mr Lion, Mr Lion, come on over here,” said Gershwin. “Let’s have a talk. I see you seem to be bothering Mr Toucan. He’s trying to feed his chicks, and he can’t get any food because of you.”

“That’s right,” said the lion. “I’m very hungry.”

“I understand,” said Gershwin. “It just so happens that in my bag here, I have the biggest piece of vegan meat you’ve ever seen. How would you like that?”

“Sounds delicious. I really want that,” said the lion.

Gershwin threw him the vegan meat, and the lion swallowed it whole. “Delicious. Now all that’s left is to eat you up.”

“No, no! Don’t be silly,” said Gershwin. “That’s a very, very bad idea.”

“Why?”

“Because I am the king of making balloon animals.”

“Hmm, I still think I’d like to eat you.” The lion pounced.

Gershwin stepped out of the way, grabbed the lion by the tail and started to blow. The lion began to inflate, just like a balloon. He got bigger and bigger until he started floating in the air.

Gershwin now had a lion balloon that he could carry anywhere he went. But he thought it best to tie the lion to a tree to float there happily, so everyone could watch. That was what he did.

The toucan came down, grabbed some food from the lake and took the food and Gershwin back to its nest.

“Thank you very much. That was very kind of you. We shouldn’t have any trouble with our floating lion any more.”

“That’s right,” said Gershwin. “Now all I need to do is get back to my plane, because it’s time for me to go home.”

“I can help with that,” said the toucan. He grabbed Gershwin by the shoulders and carried him high, high, high above the clouds, where the plane was gently circling. The toucan flew inside and dropped Gershwin right in his seat.

The toucan gave him a salute with his big wings, gave him a feather as a souvenir and left. The plane headed home from Borneo, and Gershwin wrote up his story in his journal.

He realised he would like to visit a jungle again one day. Perhaps he’d see a snake. Perhaps he’d see other jungle animals. But that’s a story for another time.

The end.