Pepper the Friendly Crocodile

Once upon a time there was a crocodile named Pepper. She was a nice girl, and she was very lonely. Every time she tried to make friends with people ... they ran away.

Pepper would wait in the water or the bushes until people got close. She knew that elocution was important, so she would do her best to enunciate when she ran toward them.

Unfortunately, an enunciating crocodile looks the same as a hungry, rampaging crocodile to most people. Snap-snap-snap go the jaws of the crocodile, enunciate-enunciate-enunciate go the jaws of Pepper. Most people cannot see a difference. Can you?

Then one day, Pepper was so sad she stopped eating. Now, for a crocodile not to eat is very rare. Crocodiles are eating machines. But Pepper only wanted friends and now she didn't care about dinner or lunch or snacktime at her crocodile school where she learned about crocodile decorating and crocodile home economics (if you need seventeen baby zebras to survive, and you can only afford to eat ten, what else can you eat in order to make it to next month? Flamingos! Good, Zanzibar. Pepper? Why are you so gloomy? Eat your flamingo ...)

After school, Pepper decided she was going to run away. Or crocodile crawl away very quickly. She left home and didn't leave a note. And she never wanted to come back. She snuck onto a train, she snuck onto a plane, she snuck into automobiles and she snuck into elevators. She piloted a dirigible and she slid down the cement slide at Cordornices Park, a park she was pleased to note had been there since 1915. Crocodiles are not known for their appreciation of historical information, but Pepper was different in many many ways.

Pepper tied a rope to the moon and swung through the Zodiac. She charmed an elephant out of a tree. She learned the Druidic Tree Alphabet and became a shapechanger with Taliesin. She found Merlin sleeping under a well in a forest in Normandy, and he taught her a spell.

This is the Spell Merlin Taught Pepper:

I want to be different and so I am;
By the light of this Full Moon I choose
Change
By the light of this Full Moon I
Transform
By the light of this Full Moon I am
What I want to be, which is:
A vegetarian Crocodile named Pepper,
With Lots of Friends and Happy Times Together!
For the Good of All Concerned, According to the Free Will of All Concerned,

So Mote It Be!

And Merlin and Pepper clapped their hands nine times.

And those nine times echoed in the Akashic Record for all time, helping all others who wanted to change, to positively transform themselves.

And Pepper was instantly hungry for a delicious spinach and tofu salad with raspberry vinaigrette, which is not vinegarette or vineregret, because Pepper was so happy that she might someday have friends.

It was time for Merlin to go back to sleep. But before he snuggled up for a Wizard Snooze, he waved his wand one last time, and a magic map appeared.

"This magickal map," intoned the ancient wizard, "Will lead you to anywhere that friendly animals need your help. Find them! Help them! Tell the truth in a nice way, and soon you will find friends!" With that, Merlin snuggled up in his cozy hidden place, to snooze and snooze as only the best wizards snooze.

And this is how Pepper met Lamby and the Happy Bear.

But that is a story for another time, and now you must go to sleep like the wizards do: snoozing and dreaming by the light of the full-of-sleep moon.

Good night.

Love,

Pepper. The Friendly Vegetarian Crocodile

© 2010, Edward Hightower. All Rights Reserved.