The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me

Till we're blue in the face,

The Giraffe and the Pelly and me!'

'You asked us to come and see you,' the Giraffe said.

The truth was at last beginning to dawn on the Duke. He put a cherry into his mouth and chewed it slowly. Then he spat out the stone. 'I like the way you picked these cherries for me,' he said. 'Could you also pick my apples in the autumn?'

'We could! We could! Of course we could!' we all shouted.

'And who are you?' the Duke said, pointing his stick at me.

'He is our Business Manager,' the Giraffe said. 'His name is Billy. We go nowhere without him.'

'Very well, very well,' the Duke muttered. 'Come along with me and let's see if you're any good at cleaning windows.'

I climbed out of the Pelican's beak and the kindly old Duke took me by the hand as we all walked towards the house. When we got there, the Duke said, 'What happens next?'

'It is all very simple, Your Grace,' the Giraffe replied. 'I am the ladder, the Pelly is the bucket and the Monkey is the cleaner. Watch us go!'

With that, the famous window-cleaning gang sprang into action. The Monkey jumped down from the Giraffe's back and turned on the garden tap. The Pelican held his great beak under the tap until it was full of water. Then, with a wonderful springy leap the Monkey leaped up once again on to the Giraffe's back. From there he scrambled, as easily as if he were climbing a tree, up the long long neck of the Giraffe until he stood balancing on the very top of her head. The Pelican remained standing on the ground beside us, looking up at the Giraffe.

'We'll do the top floor first!' the Giraffe shouted down. 'Bring the water up, please.'

The Duke called out, 'Don't worry about the two top floors. You can't reach them anyway.'

'Who says we can't reach them?' the Giraffe called back.

'I do,' the Duke said firmly, 'and I'm not having any of you risking your silly necks around here.'

If you wish to be friends with a Giraffe, never say anything bad about its neck. Its neck is its proudest possession.

'What's wrong with my neck?' snapped the Giraffe.

'Don't argue with me, you foolish creature!' cried the Duke. 'If you can't reach it, you can't reach it and that's the end of it! Now get on with your work!'

'Your Grace,' the Giraffe said, giving the Duke a small superior smile, 'there are no windows in the world I cannot reach with this magical neck of mine.'

The Monkey, who was dancing about most dangerously on top of the Giraffe's head, cried out, 'Show him, Giraffey! Go on and show him what you can do with your magical neck!'

The next moment, the Giraffe's neck, which heaven knows was long enough already, began to grow longer and LONGER ...

and LONGER ...

and LONGER ...

and HIGHER ...

and HIGHER ...

and HIGHER ...

until at last the Giraffe's head with the Monkey on top of it was level with the windows of the top floor.

The Giraffe looked down from her great height and said to the Duke, 'How's that?'

The Duke was speechless. So was I. It was the most magical thing I had ever seen, more magical even than the Pelican's Patented Beak.

Up above us, the Giraffe was beginning to sing a little song, but she sang so softly I could hardly catch the words. I think it went something like this: