“It is getting too dangerous around here for the little ones,” said Mrs. Hippo one day, when the little-girl hippo who lived next door had been carried off by one of the biting animals.
So Chunky and his family moved away. It was very easy for them to move. All they had to do was to walk on the ground or swim in the river. They did not have to pack up or take anything with them. That is one of the nice parts of being a jungle animal. It’s so easy to move.
“I hope I’ll see Tum Tum again where we are going,” thought Chunky, remembering how the jolly elephant had helped him. “I like him very much.”
But though the hippo boy looked all over the jungle, near his new home, he did not meet Tum Tum. Sometimes he could hear the wild elephants trumpeting in the forest, or crashing their way among the big trees. But Chunky could not see any of them, and he wondered if the hunters, led by Tum Tum, were after the big animals to catch them for a circus.
And then, one day, after Chunky had been playing in the river with his brother and sister, and had gone on shore to rest, he thought it would be nice to take a walk by himself.
“Maybe I’ll have an adventure, just as Tum Tum did, and somebody will put it in a book,” said Chunky to himself.
He did not know what was going to happen to him, or he would not have wished for the kind of adventure that came to him.
So, saying nothing to any of the other hippos about what he was going to do, Chunky set off by himself. He walked along and along, now and then stopping to chew a bit of grass in his big mouth, when all at once he happened to see a path leading off through the jungle.
“Maybe if I go along that path,” thought Chunky to himself, “I’ll meet Tum Tum again. I wish I could. I’ll try it!”
So he started off along that path. But he had not gone very far when, all at once, he felt the ground sinking away from under him, just as it feels to you when you go down in an elevator. Down and down went Chunky, and a lot of sticks and leaves went with him.