Once upon a time, in the vast plains of Africa, there lived two giraffe families. Each had a mother and a father. One family had a daughter and the other had a son. The daughter and the son liked each other very much and they thought that someday they would get married.
But while they were waiting and growing up they would play together and enjoy each other’s friendship. They would even hunt for food together. They liked to find a thick, green patch of grass to chew on, or a juicy green bush. They often wished they could eat the leaves from the tall trees because the leaves were green and looked tasty. But in those long ago days giraffes had short necks so they could not reach the leaves in the trees.
One cold and windy morning the two giraffe families were worried about their safety because they sensed a storm coming. They also sensed that it was a bigger storm than they had ever seen before. The dads and moms decided that they should go into the jungle to seek shelter from the storm’s cold wind and the chilly rain.
They decided to go to the jungle even though they feared the dangers that were inside, especially the gorillas. The giraffe families thought the dangers from the storm were greater than the dangers from the gorillas. So they went quickly to the edge of the jungle and then, while making sure that they stayed close to each other for protection, they walked in leaving the cold wind and the chilly rain behind them.
They had only walked into the jungle a little way when they noticed a beautiful patch of ground with the most delicious-looking, long grass growing on it. there was a small opening through the thick trees and they entered through it.
While the giraffes were eating the grass hunting gorillas closed the small opening with a tall fence and leaned longs against the fence so that it was tightly closed.
The giraffes heard the gorillas building the fence, but it was too late. They walked to the fence; all of them afraid of the gorillas. They saw that they were trapped.
The gorillas were laughing and it scared the two giraffe families. The gorillas blocked the opening and now there was no way for the giraffes to get out. They were so hungry when they entered the small opening that they didn’t notice that the small opening was in a wall. It was a large, circular wall, about six feet high. The wall was covered with vines, moss, bushes and many tree branches so that they could not see it from the outside.
The gorillas had built the wall when they first moved to that area so they could trap other animals in it, but the gorillas didn’t really want to eat the animals that they trapped inside the wall. They wanted to tease them, make fun of them, scare them and see if they could escape. It was a cruel game that the gorillas like to play. No trapped animals had ever escaped from that wall. The trapped animals would starve to death when the little food that was inside the wall ran out.
The gorillas were especially enjoying themselves while watching the frightened giraffes because they knew that they would be moving to another area of the jungle soon. It would take some time to build another wall in that new area, so they were hoping that these fun memories would last until they could build their new wall. The gorillas went back to their camp and bragged about what they had done.
So now the giraffes were all alone. By the end of the day the gorillas had moved away as they laughed and joked with each other, leaving the giraffes in their jungle jail. The giraffes were angry at themselves for being so stupid. They wished that they had been more careful, and they thought that standing in the storm’s wind and cold rain would have been better than being trapped inside this tall, circular wall.
But they all knew that they could not get free unless they all worked together. They must save their food supply for as long as possible, but most important, they must think of a way to get over that tall wall.
There was enough grass and water to last for about a month, but there was still no ideas about how to get over the wall until one day when the boy and girl giraffes were hungry for something other than grass. They were looking up at
the unreachable green vines and juicy leaves that were hanging from the trees, close to the top of the wall. They thought it was impossible, but they talked about stretching their necks to get the vines and leaves.
The mother and father giraffes heard them talking and thought they might have a good idea. It might work because the muscles of young giraffes are much more flexible than adult giraffes. But the bigger problem was that they didn’t know how they could tell if their necks were really stretching. They thought about it and solved the problem by listening to each other’s ideas.
Since the boy giraffe, who was almost a man, was two inches taller than the girl giraffe, who was almost a woman, it was decided to let the girl giraffe keep stretching her neck up toward the vines. Then, if her neck really did stretch they could tell by comparing her height with the boy’s height.
Sure enough, after one whole day of stretching her neck, the girl giraffe had stretched her neck two inches and was now just as tall as the boy giraffe.
Now that they saw that the girl giraffe could stretch her neck, all the giraffes tried stretching their necks. They all stretched their necks upward toward the leaves on the vines and tree branches. They soon discovered that they were all stretching their necks about an inch a day.
But all this hard work increased their hunger so they had to eat more of their grass food. The food was now disappearing faster than they had expected, so they each ate less than they usually had.
After three weeks of stretching their necks, the food was gone. But all of their necks were only about two inches away from the food on the vines and trees. They decided that they would have to go hungry for a couple of days until they had their necks stretched out far enough.
They all believed they could do it if they really wanted to. They all had faith in each other and they all worked together like a team, especially when they discovered that not eating made their muscles weak and weak muscles stretched a lot easier than healthy muscles. So by the end of that day their necks had stretched more than enough so they could easily eat the food off the vines and the tree branches.
Now they had an added advantage because not only did they have a plentiful
food supply, but now they could see over the wall. After they ate as they looked over the wall, hoping to find a way of escaping their prison.
They looked, but saw nothing helpful. The discussed their thoughts, but no good ideas came to anyone. They could not think of a good plan that would help free them. They did not want to give up and they would not give up, but they knew that their new supply of food would not last too long either. If that happened before they could find a way to escape, then they knew that they would starve to death. The thought of this made them all sad and mad.
Then one day the mothers and fathers were talking about building a ramp to the top of the wall. But they had no wood to build such a ramp. They talked about the long, straight pieces of sturdy trees that they needed, but there were no trees in the small clearing. Even if there were trees, there was no way of chopping them down or even bending them.
Then, as their children looked up at them, the giraffes realized that they didn’t need trees to build a ramp. They said these words out loud, “long,” “straight,” and “sturdy.” They all knew that these words can also describe their own new necks. They could use their bodies and necks to make a ramp.
The four mothers and fathers, who were the sturdiest, would stand side by side and form a ramp with their necks up to the top of the wall. The boy giraffe, and the girl giraffe would climb up the giraffe ramp and on to the top of the wall. Then they would slide down the wall and jump the rest of the way to the ground.
They worried about jumping and hurting their skinny legs, but then they noticed that the ground was covered with grass and moss and fallen leaves, plus it was wet ground so it was as soft as a pillow and this helped prevent the giraffes from getting hurt when they had to fall the last few feet to the ground. Once they were on the ground, the girl and boy giraffe could bite through the vines that locked the gate and free their mom and dad.
And this is exactly what they did. They all stood outside the wall and hugged each other because they were free at last. They left the jungle and went back home where they are now happy and free.
The boy and girls giraffes, who were now all grown up, got married. A little while later they had a baby and, guess what?, it had a very long neck. Now all the babies that they had, were born with long necks and when they grew up to get married and have their own babies, all those babies had long necks. This went on for many, many years until all giraffes were born with long necks that could reach up into the trees to get those nice juicy leaves.
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