Palimpsest_Features
4th Jun 2004, 12:58
Chapter Four
The Botanical Garden
Madeleine woke up the next morning, jumped out of bed, washed her face and brushed her teeth, then put on her favorite dress, a pale green one with pink flowers on it. She couldn't wait to visit the Hoppopotamus at the Botanical Garden to see how much he liked his new home.
Unfortunately, however, she had to wait for her mother to finish working on something inside the house, so she went out into the back yard for a little while. She was far too excited to play with anything properly, so she just sat on the bench in her father's gardens, enjoying the beautiful weather, with her legs dangling over the edge of the seat and kicking the air happily. She noticed that her father's poor, trampled azalea now was just a small clump of twigs poking out of the ground; apparently he already had pruned off all of the damaged bits, so it could grow back nice and healthy again.
Finally, her mother called her, and they set off for the Botanical Garden. They followed the same route the Hoppopotamus had used the night before, walking through their neighborhood for a few blocks until they reached the stone wall marking the outer boundary of the Garden. Fortunately for them, since they weren't capable of hopping over the wall like the Hoppopotamus had, they knew where the entrance was—through a building just half a block farther along—so they used it.
Inside the entrance building, Madeleine's mother decided she wanted to look around the Garden's gift shop for a few minutes. Madeleine, though, was anxious to find the Hoppopotamus, and she asked if she could go outside to look for him.
"Well," her mother said, "I don't want you wandering all over the Garden by yourself. You're a little too young still, and also it would be very difficult for me to find you out there."
"But…"
Her mother raised her hand gently to cut off Madeleine's protests. "But I do think I can let you go sit by the fountain right outside the door and wait for me. Maybe you'll see Mister Hoppo there."
Madeleine thought this sounded quite fair, even though she really wanted to go looking for the Hoppopotamus immediately. "Ok, Mommy, I'll sit by the fountain, and I promise…I won't go anywhere else."
Her mother smiled fondly. "Of course you won't, Madeleine," she replied. She knew Madeleine was a good little girl. "I'll be just a few minutes—say hello to Mister Hoppo for me if you see him." She smiled again and went into the gift shop.
Madeleine turned away and went up a set of stairs, then headed for the double set of sliding doors leading to the gardens outside. As she stepped through the doors into the small courtyard at the entrance to the gardens, she smiled happily at the fountain directly in front of her, a 20-foot-tall gush of water spraying a fine mist over people sitting on a low concrete wall around part of the courtyard. Madeleine loved fountains. She loved water in general, actually, and her father said that she had loved water since she was a little baby. It just made her feel happy, for some reason.
She sat down on the concrete wall near the fountain and looked around, hoping that the Hoppopotamus might be waiting for her nearby. Across from her, down a set of stairs, there was a long, low brick greenhouse or conservatory—she was never sure what the correct term for it was, mostly because she wasn't at all sure what either term meant, and adults seemed to call it both. Whatever it was, she liked it, because her father always took her there in late Winter, when the many camellia trees inside of it were in bloom, and fragrant olive trees filled the whole building with such a lovely, perfumed scent. That was when she would know it was almost time for Spring, with its promise of more flowers in bloom and more lovely scents.
To her right there was a large grove of trees just beyond the wall, and the trees continued behind her, although there was a line of bushes that her father called a "hedge" between her and the trees on that particular side of the courtyard. Now, while I am describing this hedge to you, and while Madeleine knew it was behind her, she couldn't see directly behind herself at that exact moment, of course. If she could have, she wouldn't have been so surprised a few seconds later.
A few seconds later, you see, a branch snapped in the hedge behind Madeleine, and then there was a horrible, loud hissing noise, like someone had punctured a giant rubber ball right behind her head and was forcing all of the air violently out of it. In reality, it was only the Hoppopotamus whispering "Psst!" from the grove of trees behind her while sticking his head through the hedge. Unfortunately, Hoppopotamuses aren't very good at whispering quietly—and, as I have said, Madeleine couldn't see him there behind her—so she was left quite terrified momentarily.
"Mommy!" she yelped, springing into the air and spinning round, demonstrating a remarkable agility of which even the rabbit side of a Hoppopotamus would have been proud. Then, she recognized the Hoppopotamus's big square hippo head and fluffy bunny ears poking through the hedge.
"Oh, Mister Hoppo!" she gasped, still recovering from her fright. She caught her breath then, and she smiled at him. "Mister Hoppo! You scared me! What are you doing in there?"
The Hoppopotamus looked somewhat uncomfortable, or even guilty. "Oh, nothing," he said.
Madeleine stepped up on to the concrete wall she had been sitting on and hugged him. "I'm so happy to see you! Do you like your new home? Have you met any friends yet?"
The Hoppopotamus continued to look quite uncomfortable. "Oh, sure, I think it's very nice here, but…"
"…but what? Oh no, don't you like it here?"
"Oh, no Miss Madeleine, I think it's absolutely lovely here," the Hoppopotamus said earnestly, all traces of discomfort momentarily gone from his face. "I don't know if I've ever seen anywhere more beautiful. It's just that…well…I'm very shy…"
Madeleine laughed and hugged him again. "Oh, is that all that's wrong? Is that why you're hiding in the trees?"
"Yes…I wasn't sure how to introduce myself to all the other animals last night, and then, when all the people showed up this morning, I panicked and hid in here. The Hoppopotamus bashfully shuffled his big, front hippo feet and accidentally snapped a branch off of one of the bushes in the hedge. "Oops."
"Oh, Mister Hoppo," Madeleine laughed, "you are so silly. You don't have to be so shy—I'm sure everyone will love you, just like I do. But you should be more careful about stepping on things in gardens!"
"I know…I'm sorry, little hedge," he said, looking sadly down at the broken branch.
"Ok, Mister Hoppo, why don't you come out here and wait with me for my mother? She's in the gift shop and will be out in a minute."
"Oh…" Mister Hoppo said, looking around nervously, "I don't know. There are so many people around right now. Can't you come in here with me?"
"But I have to wait for my mother, I promised her I would." Madeleine could tell, though, that the Hoppopotamus was extremely nervous about coming out of the grove and dealing with all of those people at once. She didn't want to force him to do something he really didn't want to do.
"All right, Mister Hoppo, I have an idea. I'll go find my mother, and I'll ask her if she minds if I play with you inside of the trees here. We can talk, and we can watch all of the people and animals walking past us. Maybe you'll be more comfortable with them after a little while, and then we can go out to meet some of them."
The Hoppopotamus didn't look so sure about all of this, but he nodded his big hippo head. "Ok, thank you, Madeleine."
Madeleine hugged the Hoppopotamus one more time and smiled at him. "You're going to be just fine, Mister Hoppomopomus!" she said. "Now wait here, and I'll be right back."
The Hoppopotamus ducked back behind the hedge and under the trees, and Madeleine went inside to find her mother. She found her just inside the doors, carrying a book she apparently had bought at the gift shop.
"I found him, Mommy…and he wants me to sit with him in the grove of trees by the fountain."
"Oh, you found the Hoppopotamus, did you?" her mother said, smiling. "Doesn't he want to walk around and see the gardens with us?"
"No, he says he's still very shy about meeting people. We're going to sit under the trees and watch people until he feels brave enough to come out and say hello to them."
"All right, Mads. It's such a lovely day…I think I'll get a cup of coffee from the Café and sit outside and read my new book. I won't be able to see you inside of all those trees, but at least I'll be able to see the grove where you'll be playing." The Café had an outdoor seating area right by the courtyard at the entrance to the gardens, near the fountain. Madeleine clapped happily, kissed her mother, and then hurried back outside to the Hoppopotamus. Instead of trying to push her way through the hedge, she went around to the side of the grove and found a place where it was easier to go inside.
It took a few seconds for Madeleine's eyes to adjust to the soft shade underneath the trees, but eventually she spotted the Hoppopotamus behind a tree in the middle of the grove. His back was turned to her, and he seemed to be talking to something on the ground.
"Hi, Mister Hoppo, it's me!" Madeleine said, waving at him. He turned around, and Madeleine saw two funny little birds skipping away on the ground. "Oooh, quails!" she said excitedly.
"Oh dear, you've frightened them," the Hoppopotamus said. "But that's all right…they are my first friends here at the Botanical Garden, and they said they would visit me all the time!"
"That's wonderful!"
"Yes, they just walked into the grove, pecking at the ground. I wasn't afraid of them—after all, they're only about four inches tall—so I said hello to them. I think I startled them, because they hopped in the air at first, but then they were very friendly."
"See, Mister Hoppo, it's easy to make friends. You only have to say hello, and you're such a lovely person that everyone will like you."
The Hoppopotamus peered timidly out between the trees at the people strolling past in the sunshine. "I don't know, Miss Madeleine…people always seem to laugh at me, or to run away." Then, his face brightened, and he continued. "The quails like me, though, and, of course, you like me. Maybe you're right—maybe things are getting better."
Madeleine smiled. "Of course! Don't worry, Mister Hoppo. I'll help you, and you'll have lots of friends in no time."
So, Madeleine and the Hoppopotamus talked and played in the cool shade under the trees. At first, they sat near the edge of the grove and quietly watched the people walking along the garden paths outside. Madeleine quickly decided not to pressure the Hoppopotamus further about meeting any more people that day, though. She understood that people hadn't always been very nice to him in the past, and he was afraid that some of the people might be cruel to him again. Instead, they mostly sat and talked to each other.
The Hoppopotamus, despite the fact that all of the people made him nervous, truly did seem to like the Botanical Gardens, Madeleine thought. He described how he had hopped over the wall—Madeleine giggled and told him he could have walked through the doors instead, although she didn't know, as I do, that the doors would have been closed at that time, so he really couldn't have used them anyway—and had spent hours walking around the gardens. He had lost his bearings, and he figured he had seen many of the same places several times, and he probably had missed a lot of other places. He had found the big plastic dome with the rainforest inside of it, although he hadn't gone inside. He hadn't seen many other animals, he said, other than some birds flying around in the treetops and a few smaller animals scurrying about on the ground in the distance.
"Did you see the sea monsters?" Madeleine asked him.
"Sea Monsters!" the Hoppopotamus exclaimed, rocking back on to his long, rear bunny legs and looking around uneasily. We'll try to overlook the fact that even the most timid of us probably would understand that Sea Monsters don't spend much time in groves of trees.
"Oh, don't be afraid, they're not scary," Madeleine replied. "My Daddy says that even when I was a baby, I wasn't afraid of them—I used to growl at them for fun. They're not very big sea monsters, and they're very friendly. They live in the lake in the Japanese Garden, and they're always hungry…"
"Hungry!" the Hoppopotamus exclaimed again, rocking even further back on his hind legs and looking even more apprehensive.
"Oh, no…they don't eat babies…or people…or Hoppopotamuses…they only eat crackers and bread, and some other food you can buy at the lake if you have a quarter. You must believe me, they're quite friendly. Did you see the lake in the Japanese Garden last night?"
The Hoppopotamus didn't like this talk of sea monsters at all, and he didn't think they would make him feel any more comfortable about his surroundings or his new neighbors. "I think I saw a lake last night," he said skeptically, "but I didn't really go to see it. And I certainly didn't see any sea monsters."
"Really, Mister Hoppo, you'll like them. I promise they won't try to eat you, and you're too big for them to eat, anyway! Do you think you could find the lake again?"
The Hoppopotamus nodded. "Good," Madeleine continued. "I think you should go out of your grove tonight, when it gets dark and all the people leave. Try to find the lake, and follow one of the paths that go around it. The paths go in both directions and eventually end up in the same place, so you can't go the wrong way. Near the back of the lake, the path goes over it on an arched, wooden bridge, and if you stand on the bridge and look into the lake, you'll see the sea monsters."
The Hoppopotamus shuddered at the thought of standing over a bunch of sea monsters with nothing but a little wood to protect him, but he decided that he would trust Madeleine. "All right, Miss Madeleine. I'll visit the sea monsters tonight, and maybe I'll even see if I can make any other friends."
"Very good, Mister Hoppo!" Madeleine said, hugging him. "I'm so proud of you. You're going to have piles and piles of friends!"
Just then, Madeleine's mother called her from outside the grove. "Oh," Madeleine said, "I have to go with my mother now. Are you sure you don't want to walk around the rest of the gardens with us?"
"No…but I absolutely promise I'll walk around the gardens and try to meet some of my neighbors later tonight."
"Ok, Mister Hoppo. I don't know what we're doing tomorrow, but I'll try to convince my mother to bring me back to see you again. You won't be too lonely while I'm gone, will you?"
"No," the Hoppopotamus said, and Madeleine noticed that he was beginning to look much more content and much less nervous. "I'll miss you, of course, because you're my best friend in the world, but I really love my new home, and I know that you're going to help me make lots of new friends. Those little quails already like me, and I'm sure I'll meet some new people tonight, even though I'm a little afraid of the sea monsters."
Madeleine hugged him one last time. "I told you, you don't need to be afraid of the sea monsters! Bye-bye, Mister Hoppo. I hope that I'll see you soon."
"Good-bye," the Hoppopotamus said, and he watched as Madeleine stepped out of the grove and walked off with her mother to enjoy the gardens.
.
The Botanical Garden
Madeleine woke up the next morning, jumped out of bed, washed her face and brushed her teeth, then put on her favorite dress, a pale green one with pink flowers on it. She couldn't wait to visit the Hoppopotamus at the Botanical Garden to see how much he liked his new home.
Unfortunately, however, she had to wait for her mother to finish working on something inside the house, so she went out into the back yard for a little while. She was far too excited to play with anything properly, so she just sat on the bench in her father's gardens, enjoying the beautiful weather, with her legs dangling over the edge of the seat and kicking the air happily. She noticed that her father's poor, trampled azalea now was just a small clump of twigs poking out of the ground; apparently he already had pruned off all of the damaged bits, so it could grow back nice and healthy again.
Finally, her mother called her, and they set off for the Botanical Garden. They followed the same route the Hoppopotamus had used the night before, walking through their neighborhood for a few blocks until they reached the stone wall marking the outer boundary of the Garden. Fortunately for them, since they weren't capable of hopping over the wall like the Hoppopotamus had, they knew where the entrance was—through a building just half a block farther along—so they used it.
Inside the entrance building, Madeleine's mother decided she wanted to look around the Garden's gift shop for a few minutes. Madeleine, though, was anxious to find the Hoppopotamus, and she asked if she could go outside to look for him.
"Well," her mother said, "I don't want you wandering all over the Garden by yourself. You're a little too young still, and also it would be very difficult for me to find you out there."
"But…"
Her mother raised her hand gently to cut off Madeleine's protests. "But I do think I can let you go sit by the fountain right outside the door and wait for me. Maybe you'll see Mister Hoppo there."
Madeleine thought this sounded quite fair, even though she really wanted to go looking for the Hoppopotamus immediately. "Ok, Mommy, I'll sit by the fountain, and I promise…I won't go anywhere else."
Her mother smiled fondly. "Of course you won't, Madeleine," she replied. She knew Madeleine was a good little girl. "I'll be just a few minutes—say hello to Mister Hoppo for me if you see him." She smiled again and went into the gift shop.
Madeleine turned away and went up a set of stairs, then headed for the double set of sliding doors leading to the gardens outside. As she stepped through the doors into the small courtyard at the entrance to the gardens, she smiled happily at the fountain directly in front of her, a 20-foot-tall gush of water spraying a fine mist over people sitting on a low concrete wall around part of the courtyard. Madeleine loved fountains. She loved water in general, actually, and her father said that she had loved water since she was a little baby. It just made her feel happy, for some reason.
She sat down on the concrete wall near the fountain and looked around, hoping that the Hoppopotamus might be waiting for her nearby. Across from her, down a set of stairs, there was a long, low brick greenhouse or conservatory—she was never sure what the correct term for it was, mostly because she wasn't at all sure what either term meant, and adults seemed to call it both. Whatever it was, she liked it, because her father always took her there in late Winter, when the many camellia trees inside of it were in bloom, and fragrant olive trees filled the whole building with such a lovely, perfumed scent. That was when she would know it was almost time for Spring, with its promise of more flowers in bloom and more lovely scents.
To her right there was a large grove of trees just beyond the wall, and the trees continued behind her, although there was a line of bushes that her father called a "hedge" between her and the trees on that particular side of the courtyard. Now, while I am describing this hedge to you, and while Madeleine knew it was behind her, she couldn't see directly behind herself at that exact moment, of course. If she could have, she wouldn't have been so surprised a few seconds later.
A few seconds later, you see, a branch snapped in the hedge behind Madeleine, and then there was a horrible, loud hissing noise, like someone had punctured a giant rubber ball right behind her head and was forcing all of the air violently out of it. In reality, it was only the Hoppopotamus whispering "Psst!" from the grove of trees behind her while sticking his head through the hedge. Unfortunately, Hoppopotamuses aren't very good at whispering quietly—and, as I have said, Madeleine couldn't see him there behind her—so she was left quite terrified momentarily.
"Mommy!" she yelped, springing into the air and spinning round, demonstrating a remarkable agility of which even the rabbit side of a Hoppopotamus would have been proud. Then, she recognized the Hoppopotamus's big square hippo head and fluffy bunny ears poking through the hedge.
"Oh, Mister Hoppo!" she gasped, still recovering from her fright. She caught her breath then, and she smiled at him. "Mister Hoppo! You scared me! What are you doing in there?"
The Hoppopotamus looked somewhat uncomfortable, or even guilty. "Oh, nothing," he said.
Madeleine stepped up on to the concrete wall she had been sitting on and hugged him. "I'm so happy to see you! Do you like your new home? Have you met any friends yet?"
The Hoppopotamus continued to look quite uncomfortable. "Oh, sure, I think it's very nice here, but…"
"…but what? Oh no, don't you like it here?"
"Oh, no Miss Madeleine, I think it's absolutely lovely here," the Hoppopotamus said earnestly, all traces of discomfort momentarily gone from his face. "I don't know if I've ever seen anywhere more beautiful. It's just that…well…I'm very shy…"
Madeleine laughed and hugged him again. "Oh, is that all that's wrong? Is that why you're hiding in the trees?"
"Yes…I wasn't sure how to introduce myself to all the other animals last night, and then, when all the people showed up this morning, I panicked and hid in here. The Hoppopotamus bashfully shuffled his big, front hippo feet and accidentally snapped a branch off of one of the bushes in the hedge. "Oops."
"Oh, Mister Hoppo," Madeleine laughed, "you are so silly. You don't have to be so shy—I'm sure everyone will love you, just like I do. But you should be more careful about stepping on things in gardens!"
"I know…I'm sorry, little hedge," he said, looking sadly down at the broken branch.
"Ok, Mister Hoppo, why don't you come out here and wait with me for my mother? She's in the gift shop and will be out in a minute."
"Oh…" Mister Hoppo said, looking around nervously, "I don't know. There are so many people around right now. Can't you come in here with me?"
"But I have to wait for my mother, I promised her I would." Madeleine could tell, though, that the Hoppopotamus was extremely nervous about coming out of the grove and dealing with all of those people at once. She didn't want to force him to do something he really didn't want to do.
"All right, Mister Hoppo, I have an idea. I'll go find my mother, and I'll ask her if she minds if I play with you inside of the trees here. We can talk, and we can watch all of the people and animals walking past us. Maybe you'll be more comfortable with them after a little while, and then we can go out to meet some of them."
The Hoppopotamus didn't look so sure about all of this, but he nodded his big hippo head. "Ok, thank you, Madeleine."
Madeleine hugged the Hoppopotamus one more time and smiled at him. "You're going to be just fine, Mister Hoppomopomus!" she said. "Now wait here, and I'll be right back."
The Hoppopotamus ducked back behind the hedge and under the trees, and Madeleine went inside to find her mother. She found her just inside the doors, carrying a book she apparently had bought at the gift shop.
"I found him, Mommy…and he wants me to sit with him in the grove of trees by the fountain."
"Oh, you found the Hoppopotamus, did you?" her mother said, smiling. "Doesn't he want to walk around and see the gardens with us?"
"No, he says he's still very shy about meeting people. We're going to sit under the trees and watch people until he feels brave enough to come out and say hello to them."
"All right, Mads. It's such a lovely day…I think I'll get a cup of coffee from the Café and sit outside and read my new book. I won't be able to see you inside of all those trees, but at least I'll be able to see the grove where you'll be playing." The Café had an outdoor seating area right by the courtyard at the entrance to the gardens, near the fountain. Madeleine clapped happily, kissed her mother, and then hurried back outside to the Hoppopotamus. Instead of trying to push her way through the hedge, she went around to the side of the grove and found a place where it was easier to go inside.
It took a few seconds for Madeleine's eyes to adjust to the soft shade underneath the trees, but eventually she spotted the Hoppopotamus behind a tree in the middle of the grove. His back was turned to her, and he seemed to be talking to something on the ground.
"Hi, Mister Hoppo, it's me!" Madeleine said, waving at him. He turned around, and Madeleine saw two funny little birds skipping away on the ground. "Oooh, quails!" she said excitedly.
"Oh dear, you've frightened them," the Hoppopotamus said. "But that's all right…they are my first friends here at the Botanical Garden, and they said they would visit me all the time!"
"That's wonderful!"
"Yes, they just walked into the grove, pecking at the ground. I wasn't afraid of them—after all, they're only about four inches tall—so I said hello to them. I think I startled them, because they hopped in the air at first, but then they were very friendly."
"See, Mister Hoppo, it's easy to make friends. You only have to say hello, and you're such a lovely person that everyone will like you."
The Hoppopotamus peered timidly out between the trees at the people strolling past in the sunshine. "I don't know, Miss Madeleine…people always seem to laugh at me, or to run away." Then, his face brightened, and he continued. "The quails like me, though, and, of course, you like me. Maybe you're right—maybe things are getting better."
Madeleine smiled. "Of course! Don't worry, Mister Hoppo. I'll help you, and you'll have lots of friends in no time."
So, Madeleine and the Hoppopotamus talked and played in the cool shade under the trees. At first, they sat near the edge of the grove and quietly watched the people walking along the garden paths outside. Madeleine quickly decided not to pressure the Hoppopotamus further about meeting any more people that day, though. She understood that people hadn't always been very nice to him in the past, and he was afraid that some of the people might be cruel to him again. Instead, they mostly sat and talked to each other.
The Hoppopotamus, despite the fact that all of the people made him nervous, truly did seem to like the Botanical Gardens, Madeleine thought. He described how he had hopped over the wall—Madeleine giggled and told him he could have walked through the doors instead, although she didn't know, as I do, that the doors would have been closed at that time, so he really couldn't have used them anyway—and had spent hours walking around the gardens. He had lost his bearings, and he figured he had seen many of the same places several times, and he probably had missed a lot of other places. He had found the big plastic dome with the rainforest inside of it, although he hadn't gone inside. He hadn't seen many other animals, he said, other than some birds flying around in the treetops and a few smaller animals scurrying about on the ground in the distance.
"Did you see the sea monsters?" Madeleine asked him.
"Sea Monsters!" the Hoppopotamus exclaimed, rocking back on to his long, rear bunny legs and looking around uneasily. We'll try to overlook the fact that even the most timid of us probably would understand that Sea Monsters don't spend much time in groves of trees.
"Oh, don't be afraid, they're not scary," Madeleine replied. "My Daddy says that even when I was a baby, I wasn't afraid of them—I used to growl at them for fun. They're not very big sea monsters, and they're very friendly. They live in the lake in the Japanese Garden, and they're always hungry…"
"Hungry!" the Hoppopotamus exclaimed again, rocking even further back on his hind legs and looking even more apprehensive.
"Oh, no…they don't eat babies…or people…or Hoppopotamuses…they only eat crackers and bread, and some other food you can buy at the lake if you have a quarter. You must believe me, they're quite friendly. Did you see the lake in the Japanese Garden last night?"
The Hoppopotamus didn't like this talk of sea monsters at all, and he didn't think they would make him feel any more comfortable about his surroundings or his new neighbors. "I think I saw a lake last night," he said skeptically, "but I didn't really go to see it. And I certainly didn't see any sea monsters."
"Really, Mister Hoppo, you'll like them. I promise they won't try to eat you, and you're too big for them to eat, anyway! Do you think you could find the lake again?"
The Hoppopotamus nodded. "Good," Madeleine continued. "I think you should go out of your grove tonight, when it gets dark and all the people leave. Try to find the lake, and follow one of the paths that go around it. The paths go in both directions and eventually end up in the same place, so you can't go the wrong way. Near the back of the lake, the path goes over it on an arched, wooden bridge, and if you stand on the bridge and look into the lake, you'll see the sea monsters."
The Hoppopotamus shuddered at the thought of standing over a bunch of sea monsters with nothing but a little wood to protect him, but he decided that he would trust Madeleine. "All right, Miss Madeleine. I'll visit the sea monsters tonight, and maybe I'll even see if I can make any other friends."
"Very good, Mister Hoppo!" Madeleine said, hugging him. "I'm so proud of you. You're going to have piles and piles of friends!"
Just then, Madeleine's mother called her from outside the grove. "Oh," Madeleine said, "I have to go with my mother now. Are you sure you don't want to walk around the rest of the gardens with us?"
"No…but I absolutely promise I'll walk around the gardens and try to meet some of my neighbors later tonight."
"Ok, Mister Hoppo. I don't know what we're doing tomorrow, but I'll try to convince my mother to bring me back to see you again. You won't be too lonely while I'm gone, will you?"
"No," the Hoppopotamus said, and Madeleine noticed that he was beginning to look much more content and much less nervous. "I'll miss you, of course, because you're my best friend in the world, but I really love my new home, and I know that you're going to help me make lots of new friends. Those little quails already like me, and I'm sure I'll meet some new people tonight, even though I'm a little afraid of the sea monsters."
Madeleine hugged him one last time. "I told you, you don't need to be afraid of the sea monsters! Bye-bye, Mister Hoppo. I hope that I'll see you soon."
"Good-bye," the Hoppopotamus said, and he watched as Madeleine stepped out of the grove and walked off with her mother to enjoy the gardens.
.