Children's Short Story - The Elephant Who Could Not Hear

In the Jungle there lived a little elephant who had small ears. Her name was Bongi and she was very shy because all the other little elephants looked different. They were bigger than her and they had big ears too. To make matters worse she could not hear them!

When the other animals tried to play with her she would run away because she did not know what they were saying.

One day Bongi ran into the jungle crying, and because her eyes were filled with tears she did not see Mrs Hedgehog and accidently bumped into her. Mrs Hedgehog was quite upset and started moaning at her. Bongi was also upset trying to pull Mrs Hedgehog's spines out her leg. Bongi also did not answer Mrs Hedgehog because she could not hear what she was saying. So the frustrated Mrs Hedgehog lifted up one of Bongi's ears to shout into it, but then she noticed that Bongi's one ear was filled with wax! She moved to the other ear and it was also filled with wax!

Mrs Hedgehog then lifted up her hands to tell Bongi to wait. She then got her four children to help clean Bongi's ears. One hedgehog was to carry a bucket of water, another to bring some soap, another to bring a sponge and her last child to bring a dry towel.
Mrs Hedgehog then got to work, wetting the sponge, putting soap onto it and scrubbing Bongi's one ear. She then dried it and did the same to the other ear.

When Mrs Hedgehog had finished, she and her children shouted "can you hear us?". Bongi got such a fright and quickly told them not to shout! But now Bongi was so happy, she thanked the hedgehogs and ran to her friends telling them good news that even though she had small ears, it did not mean that she could not hear. Her ears just needed a good clean.

(Artwork done by my five year old daughter.)