In a small corner of the savannah lived a young zebra named Zoe. While other zebras played jokes and teased each other, Zoe remained quiet, always seeming to ponder something important. You see, Zoe had a tiny secret—every night when sleep kissed her eyelids, her dreams turned into the most colorful places ever to be imagined.
They all looked like paintings from a master artist. However, waking up was like having the sun explode into her face. She opened her eyes, sighed deeply, and gazed down at her black and white striped body and the grey earth beneath her. And so it went on day by day, after she opened the door into her heart, wondering if all her dreams would help her stay brave till the next night.
“What a strange thing it is to be grey,” she often thought. “With so many colors in the world, one can’t help feeling terribly dull and lifeless.”
Of course, her mother said, “No, not grey, my pet, only black and white like the picture of the moon. And you know she is not nearly so dull as when she has no stars to play with.” This did not help her a bit.
In each angry storm and after each snow, Zoe always turned her head towards the high hills of the east—the big white clouds lived up there, not far away, she thought. She never called them clouds, always moons.
So one bright day, not long after New Year’s, Zoe set off towards the big white moons built of marriage-tide candy, as she once called them, though she never had seen one.
After she had walked a long way, and was feeling terribly tired, she sat down and had her nose in gloom. Just then she saw a huge, merry-looking creature bounding swiftly down from the series of little hills which she was approaching; his color was that of the blue skies, and his paws were each one a soft pink.
“You’re charming, you know,” cried Zoe, when this strange creature came up to her. “What are you called, and where do you come from?”
“I’m called a kangaroo, always short for it. I’ve come from the other moon,” was the reply. “What’s the matter? You don’t look happy.”
“Oh, it’s me, of course. I’m grey. All my friends at home have white on their black, and so look pretty.”
“But you are not grey,” said the kangaroo. “Look at your nose—that’s black; and don’t you see that there are black touches in your stripes? Besides, if you fall into a dark ditch, should you say it were grey because you couldn’t see the real color?”
“And I suppose,” said Zoe, “you think I should go on blushing if I fell into whitewash?”
“I think you would,” replied the kangaroo. “What’s the meaning of humanity—if not to sweeten and improve everything under the moon?”
“And who made the moons?” Zoe thought; but she wasn’t going to be rude, so she only said once more:
“I wish I were clever.”
“There’s no ‘wish’ in cleverness,” said the kangaroo. “I was reading about Queen Zazieb out of Hamlet, who wanted a subject whipped for her ‘wish.’ But of course, you can stand on your head if you’re going to the jongleurs.”
Then Zoe smiled through her tears. She would always keep the kangaroo’s answer in her mind, for she was quite sure it always seemed sensible; and that night, when she went to bed, she once more set off to the moon, which was thickly strewed with stars who winked and wiggled at her as she passed.
Next morning, when she opened her eyes, she found herself lying by the big white moons not far from home; but she at once threw her long legs “round her neck,” plumped into them, without falling over, and rushed back; the long races made her quite clever.
She found she had been away three weeks, and now of course all her friends laughed at her; she laughed too, but still they were not grey.
A little later, Zoe had a walk with her young friend, the woodpecker—a bird who boasted an infinite number of stories.
“Why, I’ve been so nice and grey lately,” said Zoe, “that I should think you might do something funny with me, like getting into a puzzle, or falling into holes and going round corners.”
“Oh, I have a very good story,” answered the woodpecker, “I’ll tell you at once. You must know, about eight days ago, I went far away into the Wakkawula bushes, by the farthest edge of the even farthest swamp. All on a sudden, coming near the river, I heard a voice call my name—Whooooomp; Whooooomp-calling, not like a bird, but like a well-trained monkey. And strange to say, as soon as I answered, there came a dreadful puff of black smoke—huge clouds all round, and a small house after it that could hold scoring-ones of large rooms. A little round man called for me.”
“That’s funny,” said Zoe.
“Funny! I should like to know what you mean by funny!”
“Around and round, that’s the meaning of other people, as I was told yesterday,” said the woodpecker.
“You are telling me, I hope?” said Zoe.
“Was I ever known to lie?” was the answer. “Before long, all my wives found they had never heard so beautiful a calling in their lives, no not as long as they lived. No one knows how delightfully your voice sounds by Italy water; and the little round man, who was a king, said, we should have presents and so; but he was black, and hated all who were white. So there was no wire and that sort of thing, it was my grayness he wanted. It so happens, though, his blackness had an awful reason—the other blackness tried to tempt him, but he kept too brave.”
Zoe listened, and wept low but she thought all she wanted to. Then splashing a red and white paint handy—it happened not to be leaden, fortunately—she altered her whole body, and when she looked in the moon, she fell in love with herself, saying gently, “That’s sweet lips, that’s the prettiest mouth I’ve ever seen, my dear good gracious self.”
But you see, if you know a thing beforehand, it’s only fun.
And the reason, gentle reader, why the stories I tell you seem to contain so much that’s serious is, they were written for children with much much more powerful “lying powers” than their parents.