CROCO DILE, A. VOCET AND THE DANCING FISH
Fable for children

When he was a child, Croco Dile got off very well. His mummy always fed him with a large spoon full of delicious fish of all kinds: in the morning a spoonful for breakfast; at midday a spoonful for lunch; in the evening a spoonful for dinner. At Easter, Christmas and New Year's Day, six spoonful in total, instead of three. His mummy often told him:
-“ My darling Croco, how will you do when I am no more?
But Croco Dile did not understand. One day his mother was no more. As usual Croco Dile went to a solitary small beach, and stayed still with his mouth open: no spoonfuls. The day went by, nut no spoonfuls any more. Croco Dile started to be worried. He opened up his mouth as large as he could and cried in a despairing tone:
- Mum, mum, mum, where are you , mum?
Then he heard a little voice close to him which told him:
- Dear Croco, don't you know that there's just one mother? Your mum is no more.
Croco Dile turned round and saw a certain A. Vocet who skipped near him, and was fussy about pecking among the papyri. She had spoken. And, then she added after a moment:
- Hurry up in finding a solution ‘cause I live with the leftovers which remain in your teeth. If you don't eat, I don't eat either.
Croco Dile asked:
- What shall I do?
A. Vocet answered:
- Think.
- What should I think of?
- Think.
Croco Dile followed A.Littlevoice's advice: he started thinking. And thinking it over and over, he thought of a thing he had never thought of before.

You have to know that Crocodile had a very huge mouth, we can also say that he was almost all mouth . In his mouth he had many teeth and a very long, smooth and soft tongue, similar to a floor covered with a soft carpet.
Then Croco Dile told A. Vocet.
- Listen, my dear, go and inform all the fish of the area that I've decided to open a dancing club, that is, a open-air dance-hall. The place is: my mouth. Chairs and tables: my teeth. Dancing platform: my tongue. We will place the orchestra on the tip of the tongue. Fly, hurry up, go and tell the fish that this very night there will be the opening with a gala evening and presents of great value for the ladies.
A. Vocet didn't wait to be told twice. Flew over the river, the Nile, and publicized, repeating: at breakneck speed:
- Tonight great dancing evening in Croco Dile's mouth. Free entrance. You can dance till midnight.
- The fish, fancy that, get bored at the bottom of the river. Nothing else to do but wandering about all day long among the algae and making faces at each other. So, they decided to go all together to Croco Dile's new open-air dance-hall, with the sign “Golden Fish”. The night arrived. The orchestra made of five frogs with guitar, drums and saxophone played breathlessly, being in equilibrium on the tip of Croco Dile's tongue. The fish in procession went out of the water, climbed a small ladder and went into Croco Dile's mouth. A very long hall, gaily coloured with red paper lanterns became visible to their eyes. At the end of the hall there was a cloth strip where they could read: ”Have a good time!” The fish took their seat on Croco Dile's teeth, ordered some refreshments, started to dance. Have you ever seen a dancing fish? Well, than fancy what could be seeing a hundred of them dancing all together.

In the meanwhile Croco Dile stood still, with his mouth wide open, his eyes half-closed. He waited. Dances followed dances and Croco Dile waited. He had decided to announce at midnight sharp: “Gentlemen, we close. - At the same moment, he would have really closed his immense mouth and would have stuffed himself with fresh, alive and excellent fish.
Now, among the fish there was a certain Stur Geon who was very, very clever. Between a dance and the other, wandering about in the open-air dance-hall, Stur Geon saw that from the upper part of Croco Dile's mouth, bent as once, it was raining some big water drops. These drops formed by themselves and fell down as soon as they had formed. As a matter of fact, Croco Dile had the mouth water because he was looking forward to the moment when he would have eaten all those very good fish. Stur Geon, worried went to A. Vocet and informed her about his discovery: what could those drops be?
Now, A.Littlevoice was one of those people unable to keep a secret to themselves, even if they could damage themselves. She tried to explain:
- You see, we are on a river, there's a lot of humidity.
But Stur Geon soon said:
- A. Vocet you've already got long legs. Be careful they won't become some stilts telling all these lies.
Then A. Vocet, who was about to be bursting with the desire of blabbing everything, told the truth. Stur Geon saw that there was no time to waste. He dived into the river, he took a large round stone and went to put it at the bottom of Croco Dile's mouth, between an upper tooth and a lower tooth, as a nut you would like to crack.. Then, pleased with it, he went to invite, for a samba, a certain C. Arp that he had been courting for long time and danced with her. At midnight, Croco Dile opened his eyes wide, and shouted with his deep voice:
- Gentlemen, we're closing.
And at the same time he is about to close his mouth and so eat those twenty or thirty kilos of fish who were still having fun on his tongue. But: crack! The two teeth clenched Stur Geon's stone but could not crush it. The mouth remained open: and Croco Dile felt a terrible, piercing, intense pain.
In the meanwhile, after that deep voice telling the closing time, were slipping away. Some of them complained:
- How rude! We were enjoying ourselves!
The day after, of course, Stur Geon told everything to the fish, who, from then on, were very careful not to go back to Croco Dile's open-air dance-hall.

Since then, Croco Dile, with great effort, sometimes wallows in the Nile and looks for something to eat. Few things, though, because the fish keep clear of him. Only the eels, who are very lazy as he is, do not move in time and Croco Dile swallows them up as they were spaghetti. The rest of time, Croco Dile is lying on the sand and, thinking of his vanished dinner, he cries bitter tears. Crocodile tears, exactly.
A. Vocet keeps him company and sometimes asks him:
- What's up, why are you crying?
Croco Dile answers:
- I'm crying because I did really count on those fish. But could we know who sneaked?
And A. Nocet, replies innocently:
- Nobody sneaked. You had taken that stone in your mouth to suck it up waiting for your hearty meal. And then, you forgot about it.