It all started with a hiccup.
Ppopo, an unusually pristine hippopotamus, was wallowing peacefully in the Upper Mud Bogs when an unexpected bubble of swallowed air lodged in his chest. The resulting hiccup was so violently muffled that it sent a shockwave through the lily pads, startling a tiny poison dart frog named Ffronie.
The croaker bounced three feet into the air, landed squarely on the nose of a resting jaguar and reflexively kicked the feline right in the nostril.
The jaguar, whose nickname was Jjaggy, startled from a dream about tapir Swedish buffets, leaped backwards into a thicket of stinging nettles. His howl of agony rattled a canopy branch, dislodging an oversized jackfruit. The fruit plummeted like a meteor through three foliage layers before striking a sleeping troupe of capuchin monkeys.
Pandemonium ensued. The monkeys, convinced they were under aerial bombardment by a rival tribe, began hurling coconut shells in every direction. One shell sailed cleanly over the clearing and struck a termite mound, knocking off its decorative top spire.
Out poured half a million furious termites. They immediately marched towards the nearest wooden structure, which happened to be the support beam of the jungle’s premier hammock spot. Lying in that hammock was Lord Ttouxan, an arrogant toucan who had spent the morning preening his grand, yellow bill.
The termites chewed through the wood in under three seconds. The beam snapped with a crack that sounded like a rifle shot. The birdie pitched sideways, dropped like a stone and landed face-first in a pile of fermented mangoes.
Covered in sticky, alcoholic fruit pulp, Lord Ttouxan sneezed with immense force. The blast propelled a stray mango pip across the glade at blistering speed. It zoomed past a bush, clipped the ear of an ostrich, known as Oostreich and lodged itself directly up Eellie’s trunk. The elephant panicked, trumpeted at a pitch only bats could hear and bolted straight into the mud bogs, sending a three-ton wave of brown sludge soaring into the sky.
Two seconds later, the sludge rained down directly onto Ppopo, coating the hippo from ear to tail. He blinked through the mud, sighed through his snout and swallowed another mouthful of air.
Another hiccup was already on its way.
