The Hungry Armadillo

Deep in the rainforest of Brazil lived three neighbors.
A parakeet named Pete, an anteater named Emily, and an armadillo named Arthur. Of course there were many other animals but these three were close friends.
Pete was a shy bird that only spoke when spoken to. He always sang beautifully. Emily was a Pygmy anteater with a voice much greater than her size. Arthur was very friendly with a high squeaky voice. They loved to get together at dusk and sing for a long long time.
One morning Arthur woke up and noticed that his stomach was growling loudly. He crawled out of his burrow and began to search for termites. They were his favorite breakfast. While he was searching he ran into Emily. She had been looking for him to tell him of a tremendous termite mound by the brook.
She and Pete had been there for half an hour and wondered if he would like to join them. He was so hungry that he couldn't answer. With a blink of an eye he dashed to the brook and spied the tremendous termite mound. Pete was perched on a log by the mound. Arthur's long tongue shot down the dark hole in the mound and returned with hundreds of twisting termites stuck to it which he quickly swallowed. After several more mouthfuls he was satisfied.
Pete flew off to visit his tree frog friend, Francis. Francis was extremely shy. She barely ever came out of her bromeliad. Her only friend was Pete because she loved his singing and couldn't resist meeting him. They had been friends ever since.
In the mean time, Arthur and Emily had been resting by the brook. Arthur decided he had room for a few more mouthfuls. He stuck his long tongue in the mound. But when he tried to pull it out, it wouldn't budge.

With his tongue still stuck in the hole he cried out for help in his high squeaky voice. Emily carefully moved her tongue around in the hole to see what the trouble was. "It's tied in a knot!", she declared. "How are we going to get it out?" "Go get Pete.", said Arthur. "He'll know what to do."
Emily dashed over to the bromeliad and found Pete sitting with Francis. Francis hopped back into her hiding place. Emily explained the trouble. Pete was smart and quickly came up with a solution. "We need to get that tongue untied!" he proclaimed. " But we are too big to fit down that hole.", said Emily. "I'm not, I can help.", croaked Francis, from the flower. She hopped on Pete's back and he took her to the mound. She bravely hopped down the hole and carefully untied the knotted tongue. Arthur was so thankful he invited Francis to be apart of their evening chorus. She agreed, and the four became close friends.
And now, deep in the rainforest of Brazil, if you listen carefully, you can hear the quartet singing their beautiful friendship chorus.
The End
By Lily Scharpf