Long,long ago, at the very beginning of time, when everything was just getting sorted out, there lived a leopard. He was sandy-yellow and greyish-brown all over. He lived in a place called High Veldt, which was all sand-coloured rock sandy-yellow grass.

The giraffe and the zebra also lived on the High Veldt. They were sandy-yellow and greyish-brown all over too, but the leopard was the sandy-yellowest, greyish-brownest of them all.

The leopard matched the colour of the High Veldt exactly. So he can lie down behind a rock or clump of grass, and surprise the giraffe and the zebra out of their jumpsome lives!

A man also lived on High Veldt. He and the leopard were friends and they often hunted together. The man with his bows and arrows, and the leopard with his teeth and claws.

The griaffe and the zebra sneaked away from the leopard and the man. They went to a great forest, full of trees and bushes and stripy , speckly , patchy-blatchy shadows , and there they hid

After a long time standing under the slippery-slidy shadows of the trees, the giraffe grew blotchy, and the zebra grew stripy. They had a wonderful time in the speckly-spickly forest.

Meanwhile the leopard and the man ran all over the yellow, greyish-brown High Veldt, wondering where all thier breakfasts and dinners and teas had gone. They were so hungry they had to eat rats and beetles and rock-rabbits, which gave them terrible tummy-aches

One day they met Baviaan the Baboon the wisest animal in all Africa. ''Where have all the animals from the High Veldt gone?" the leopard asked Baviaan. Baviaan winked. He knew. "They're in other spots. My advice is to go in the other spots too."

The leopard was puzzeld, but he and the man set off looking for other spots. After many days, they came to the great forest all speckled and sprottled and spottled , dotted and splashed and slashed and hatched and cross-hatched with shadows

"This must be the place", said the man. "I can smell giraffe, and i can hear giraffe."

"Thats curious", said the leopard, "because i can smell zebra, and i can hear zebra, but i can't see zebra". "perhaps we've forgotten what they look like?" said the man.