Last Tuesday was a normal day at Animal Adventures Inc. (AAI.).
In fact, “normal” doesn't cut it – it was boring! There was absolutely
nothing going on. I was sitting in my office at Smiley's News working on
an advertisement bulletin, Daniel P. Smithwater was taking some nature
photographs for an upcoming photo competition and everyone else at AAI. was
doing . . . well, practically normal stuff. That is until the head chef of AAI.'s
kitchen, Chef Rack-Coon (who as you might have guessed, is a raccoon)
received his latest shipment of food supplies in. “I get as much organic food
as I can to cook-up dishes for everyone here,” says Rack, “and most of it comes
from Mac Dee Dee's Organic Farm across town. They have almost everything you
can imagine! That's a good thing too, because the sauropods (long-necked
dinosaurs) we have here eat a lot of food!” So as usual, Rack and his
assistant chefs (most of which are meerkats) put the food away and started
fixing lunch for the animals and people at AAI. Mitch Meerkat, Rack's
right hand man . . . er, “cook” is quoted for saying, “As usual, lunchtime was
very buys. Everyone ate their fill and left stuffed. Today was a special day
because the other chefs and I made a special dessert for today: Jellybean pops,
and as we later found out, that turned out to be a dangerous mistake!”
Normally, Rack orders jellybeans that are sweetened with organic sugar, but
since his suppliers didn't have those jellybeans, Rack ordered jellybeans that
had been sweetened with Sweet Common Juniper Berries, one of the sweetest
berries around . . . bad idea! So after lunch, everyone went back to their
normal routine when many citizens of AAI. realized that there was much
noise coming from the elephant's room. Now there are quite a few large
elephants (African and Asian Elephants and Woolly Mammoths) and when a herd of
elephants gets rumbling, not much can't be heard! The music was piping loud and
their neighbors couldn't get much quiet. Now that something bizarre was
happening, my trusty, junior photographer, Daniel P. Smithwater and I, went to
the neighbors of the elephants, the swine's room, to get an exclusive interview
with Wilbur the Warthog. He's quoted for saying, “I was surprised to hear so
much noise coming from the elephant's room. Normally they're relatively quiet
neighbors, but let me tell you, they were going nuts today! I went over to
their room and asked Methuselah, one of the bull African elephants, to have him
tell the rest of the herd to turn down the music, but he told me, 'What do you
mean turn it down? I can hardly hear as it is. Besides, we're having a party in
our room right now.' He asked if I wanted to join, but I swiftly declined. I wasn't
sure what was up.” Another resident, Grizzly Bear, also wasn't too fond of the
noise. “I have to live with someone who doesn't like to stay quiet every single
day,” he explains. “I live in this apartment room with a few other bears, but
no doubt the noisiest is Belle Black Bear, but everyone calls her 'Little Black
Bear'. She's constantly singing annoying songs, and worst of all, she's almost
always off-key! But this particular day, I thought I'd finally get some quiet
time when the elephants a couple apartment rooms down started making a great
kerfuffle. It was terribly loud!” A number of complaints reached the CEO of AAI.,
Nigel Milligan who was, as the time having lunch with his close friend Dr.
Elizabeth Sorkin. Nigel is quoted for saying, “The complaints from other
animals living here at AAI. kept coming and coming and coming! They
wouldn't stop, so eventually, I went down the elephant's apartment room and
tried to get them to quiet down, but they still didn't listen. Dr. Sorkin told
me that elephants can be a bit noisy by nature, but this was over the top.”
“After all,” Dr. Sorkin says, “wild elephants in nature don't through parties
with noisy monitors blaring loudly.” So Dr. Sorkin, being AAI.'s head
veterinarian, did some research. “After retrieving a list of foods from Rack of
what he'd been serving at lunch, I did some research on Wikipedia and
learned something new about a little fruit called Juniperus communis
sweeticus, also known as the Sweet Common Juniper berry.” Dr. Sorkin went
on to explain that juniper berries aren't really berries, but actually
berry-like seed cones. “While doing my research, I learned that elephants
shouldn't be fed this species of juniper berry because it makes them hyper, and
as we found out today, really hyper!” So Dr. Sorkin and Nigel went over
to the elephant's place, removed their stash of jellybeans and half an hour
later they calmed down. Methuselah realizes their mistake and happily
apologizes, saying, “We really had no idea those berries affected elephants in
that way. I mean, how were we supposed to know? But I hope I everyone is
definitely going to be sleeping well tonight!” Rack wasn't too happy about the
incident with the jellybeans either. Hoping to get more details about the
jellybeans they ordered, I went back to Rack-Coon and got this response: “I
don't know why we ordered those jellybeans in the first place. Who's idea was
it to order those things anyway?” Then Mitch came in and promptly answered, “It
was your idea, Rack-Coon.” Then Rack said to me, “Well, I know one thing: next
time my supplier runs out of jellybeans, I can assure you I'm not getting any
with juniper berry substitutes!” And I for one definitely agree that that's a
marvelous idea!
Written by: Mr. Smiley
Photographer: Daniel P. Smithwater
Edited by: Christian
Ryan, Joy Hammond
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We here at Smiley’s News, I have been working night and day
to get articles ready. I could really use
some help! So we are looking for people interested in writing (especially kids
and teens).
If you are interested, PLEASE(!) send an email to animaladventures@aol.com
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