Big Hippo, Little Hippo

A pygmy hippo and a common hippo each start jobs as head chefs, but nothing goes to plan.
Written especially for this podcast by Alice. 

If you enjoyed this story, please do leave us a review. 

And, if you'd like to suggest an animal for a future Animal Tales story, you can do so by emailing [e-mail]. We would love to hear from you. 


Animal Tales Books!
Collections of Animal Tales children’s stories are available to buy exclusively at Amazon. Simply search for Animal Tales Short Stories or follow this link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CLJQZ9C9?binding=paperback&ref=dbs_dp_sirpi


Become a PREMIUM Subscriber
You can now enjoy Animal Tales by becoming a Premium Subscriber. This gets you:

• All episodes in our catalogue advert free

• Bonus Premium-only episodes (one per week) which will never be used on the main podcast

• We guarantee to use one of your animal suggestions in a story

You can sign up through Apple Podcasts or through Supercast and there are both monthly and yearly plans available.  

Discover a brand new story every Monday, Wednesday and Friday – just for you! 

You can find more Animal Tales at https://www.spreaker.com/show/animal-tales-the-kids-story-podcast


A Note About The Adverts
In order to allow us to make these stories we offer a premium subscription and run adverts. The adverts are not chosen by us, but played automatically depending on the platform you listen through (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc) and the country you live in. The adverts may even be different if you listen to the story twice. 

We have had a handful of instances where an advert has played that is not suitable for a family audience, despite the podcast clearly being labelled for children. If you’re concerned about an advert you hear, please contact the platform you are listening to directly. Spotify, in particular, has proven problematic in the past, for both inappropriate adverts and the volume at which the adverts play. If you find this happening, please let Spotify know via their Facebook customer care page. 

As creators, we want your child’s experience to be a pleasurable one. Running adverts is necessary to allow us to operate, but please do consider the premium subscription service as an alternative – it’s advert free.

A Note About The Adverts
In order to allow us to make these stories we offer a premium subscription and run adverts. The adverts are not chosen by us, but played automatically depending on the platform you listen through (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc) and the country you live in. The adverts may even be different if you listen to the story twice.

We have had a handful of instances where an advert has played that is not suitable for a family audience, despite the podcast clearly being labelled for children. If you’re concerned about an advert you hear, please contact the platform you are listening to directly. Spotify, in particular, has proven problematic in the past, for both inappropriate adverts and the volume at which the adverts play. If you find this happening, please let Spotify know via their Facebook customer care page. 

As creators, we want your child’s experience to be a pleasurable one. Running adverts is necessary to allow us to operate, but please do consider the premium subscription service as an alternative – it’s advert free.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
He yes. Hello everyone, and welcome to the Animal Tales podcast,
where you suggest the animal for us to write a

(00:20):
story about. My name's Josephine, and I've got a brand
new animal story here just for you. There are new
stories every Monday and Wednesday, with a new Premium story
every Friday. Details on how to become a Premium member
are in the text that accompanies this episode. Remember for
a tiny fee, it's advert free. Cassie is from San

(00:44):
Francisco in the U s A. And she'd like a
story featuring a hippo and a pygmy hippo. You can
learn more about these creatures in the animal facts after
the story. Now settle back, relax, and I'll begin. Big Hippo,
Little Hippo. There was a new restaurant opening in Rainforest

(01:08):
City and it was creating quite a buzz amongst the animals.
The owner was a horse named Hugh, and he guaranteed
it would be the perfect place to grab some delicious
food while spending time with friends. The really exciting part
was that it was to be in not one, but
two locations off of Capoc Square. Hugh's reasons for this

(01:33):
were simple. Rainforest City contained animals. Of all sizes, so
he designed each of the restaurants to serve very different customers.
On the north side of Capoc Square, the restaurant would
be called the Herbivore Palace. It would be a place
for large animals to visit, such as buffalo, moose, and elephants,

(01:56):
and would provide huge, delicious meals. On the square's southern side,
the restaurant would be smaller and named the herb of
raw Hut. It would cater to smaller animals like rabbits, tortoises,
and lemurs, serving smaller plates for smaller bellies. It was

(02:18):
all coming together nicely, and Hugh was pleased to see
that the restaurants were fully booked for a month and
they hadn't even opened yet. There was just one last
thing Hugh had to do, decide which of his new
head chefs would be in each restaurant. He'd already found

(02:39):
two ideal candidates for the rolls. He just needed to
let them know who was going to be in which restaurant.
He'd spent far too long thinking about it, but needed
to make up his mind. Restaurants were due to open Monday. Firstly,
there was Cassie, A pygmy hippo with lots of experience,

(03:01):
she'd jumped at the chance to work for Hugh. Then
there was Nina, a common hippopotamus who had been working
at a fancy burger joint when Hugh found her. He'd
promised Cassie and Nina a final decision by Sunday evening,
so after much thought, he decided to make Cassie the

(03:21):
head chef of the smaller herbivore hut and Nina the
head chef at the bigger herbivore Palace. He sent each
of them a message on their phones telling them of
his decision and sharing the relevant address. He added a
final note saying, our new signs will be being fitted

(03:42):
out the front of the restaurants when you arrive for work,
so please use the rear entrances. Finally, it was all done.
Everything was falling into place. The following morning, Cassie the
pygmy Hippo woke up for the ling giddy with excitement.
She couldn't wait to start cooking for all the little

(04:05):
herbivores of the city. Grabbing her bag, she set out,
checking the address one last time. She didn't want to
arrive at the wrong restaurant. As she entered Capoc Square,
she could see the special work crews in front of
both restaurants preparing the signs for fitting. There was no

(04:27):
way she could get near to her restaurant, so she
ducked down aside alley to arrive at the rear door.
Making her way inside, Cassie was surprised by what she found.
It was all a lot grander than she'd imagined it
would be. The ceilings were gloriously high, while the doors
were very grand and heavy. She felt quite tiny by comparison.

(04:52):
Pushing through the double doors into the kitchen, she stopped
dead in her tracks. The kitchen was huge. The fridges
loomed over her, The pans were twice the size she
was used to, and the counters were higher than her head.
Some of the cooks were already here, chopping, frying, and

(05:14):
bustling about, but everyone was at least three times her size.
Oh Man, said the little pigmy hippo, realizing what must
have happened. Hugh had mixed up the addresses. This wasn't
the Herbifore Hut, it was the Herbivore Palace. She'd have

(05:35):
to call Hugh, but before she could reach for her phone.
One of the cooks, a large orangutan called out. Hi, Boss,
said the orangutan, who'd been asked to look out for
a hippo. Glad you're here. There's lots of preparation to
do ready for opening time, but I need to give
you a quick tour. Hold on. Cassie began, wanting to

(06:00):
protest that she was in the wrong place, but the
orangutan wasn't listening. Here's your hat, boss, she said, and
I'll get you a stool. The hat was far too big,
slipping down over her eyes. Cassie pushed it up and
looked around weirdly. It seemed that the orangutan was expecting her,

(06:23):
which would mean she was in the right place after all.
I guess you'd better give me that tour, then, she said.
Cassie knew she was a good chef. She was just
going to have to make this work. Meanwhile, over in
the herbiv or a hut, Nina the common hippopotamus, was

(06:45):
having problems of her own. She too had checked the
address and gone around to the back, but what she'd
found inside had left her quite baffled and for that matter, squashed.
Everything was so much smaller and lower than she'd been expecting.

(07:06):
Entering the kitchen, she bumped her head on the door frame.
The size of the kitchen left her equally stunned. Nina
felt like a giant watching all the smaller animal cooks
rushing about. The counters were barely taller than her knees.
The ceiling brushed her ears, and she had to suck

(07:27):
in her tummy to fit between everything. Hello, chef, called
out a young red pander, who had been told that
the new chef was a hippo. We've been expecting you.
Ah good, said Nina. If it hadn't been for the
fact that the red panda seemed to recognize her, then

(07:48):
she'd have said she was in the wrong place. Here's
your hat, chef, said the red panda, handing it up.
It was far too small for her. She had to
perch it between her ears, squashing it down so it
didn't get knocked off by the ceiling. Nina sighed as
she gazed around the tight working space. Well, no time

(08:11):
to worry about that now, she thought she had a
job to do across Capoc Square in the bigger restaurant.
Cassie was exhausted. She now had a stool to stand on,
but that involved lots of dragging about in order to
reach different counters. Frustratingly, the knives were all far too

(08:34):
big and heavy for her little pigmy hippo hands, so
she was having to do her best chopping everything with
a small cheese knife she'd found. She decided to concentrate
on the soup instead. This she could do, throwing in
a dash of salt or a pinch of pepper and
stirring it all together, although the large wooden stirring spoon

(08:58):
hadn't worked out either. A teaspoon was more her size,
and the pot was so big that the pygmy hippo
could have had a bath in it. Everything seemed to
require so much more effort so far. It hadn't been
the first day she'd been expecting at the herb. Before

(09:19):
hut Nina was feeling overwhelmed. She liked to think of
herself as a good chef. She knew lots of recipes
and always had good reviews, but she'd never struggled quite
like this before. The kinds of dishes she was preparing
were more or less the same as she was used
to pastas and salads, soups, and pies. However, they were

(09:44):
all much much smaller in size. Chopping up baby carrots,
minnie sweet corn, and cherry tomatoes with enormous hippo hands
was proving very difficult. Indeed, all the soup seemed to
fit barely two spoonfuls, and each salad just a small

(10:05):
handful of leaves. Every dish she made felt like a tiny,
bite sized version rather than the beautiful, piled high plates
she normally made. Despite the frustration, Nina did eventually find
something she was good at. It turns out that when
plates are tiny and you're huge, it's really easy to

(10:29):
carry a dozen all at once, something she was happy
to do once the customers had taken their seats. That said,
it was a tight fit between the tables, and she
was constantly trying not to step on smaller animals. But
she could carry four times as many plates as everyone else,

(10:49):
so that was something. But she realized a chef carrying
plates wasn't really what she thought she'd be doing. On
her first day back across the square, Cassie's day was
going from bad to worse. The plates were too big
for her to carry, the bowls were too heavy. The

(11:11):
kitchen staff kept burrowing her stool so she couldn't see
on to half of the counters when she needed to,
and she'd almost been bumped into several times by cooks
that hadn't seen her. So she made the decision to
set herself up at the dessert area. She would just
focus on making the puddings look as delicious as possible,

(11:33):
amongst the fruit cream and icing sugar. Oh my goodness,
they look darling, the orangutan said when she wandered past.
Little desserts always looked so cute. Cassie looked down at
the desserts she'd made. They weren't little, they were average sized,

(11:54):
like all the desserts that she made. Oh this will
never do, said Cassie. I can't go on like this.
She reached for her phone, sending Hugh a message that
she wanted to quit. On the southern side of the square,
the clock had struck ten and the last of the

(12:15):
customers were leaving. Nina had spent almost the entire shift
carrying plates back and forth rather than doing any actual cooking.
She didn't change jobs for this. She pulled out her
phone and sent Hugh a message telling him that she
didn't want to do it anymore. Almost immediately, her phone

(12:38):
pinged with a reply. It was from Hugh, meet me
at the Blue Diner. We have to talk. Nina supposed
that she owed Hugh a proper explanation, so she grabbed
her bag, said goodbye to the chefs, and scuttled out
of the kitchen. The Blue Diner was an old restaurant

(13:01):
on the eastern side of Capoc Square. It had seen
better days, finally closing its doors for good a few
weeks before. It seemed like an odd place for Hugh
to want to meet her. There was, though, a light
on inside. Nina paused before going in, just long enough

(13:22):
to realize another figure stood a few paces away. It
was a pigmy hippo. The two hippoes looked at each other,
each with an oddly sized hat on their head. Are
you here for Hugh, Cassie asked. Nina nodded, and they
both went inside. Hugh was sat at a bare table,

(13:46):
an apologetic look on his face. Hello, chefs, he said, guiltily.
I've messed up. You sent us to the wrong restaurants,
didn't you, said Cassie. We're both hippos, added Nina as
she too realized what had happened. I'm so sorry, Hugh said,

(14:10):
shaking his head. I can't imagine how difficult to day's
been for both of you. Oh thank goodness, said Cassie.
We don't need to quit, we just need to swap.
Well about that, Hugh continued, I have another option for you.

(14:32):
You see, I'm opening a third restaurant right here, the
herbivore House. Why, Cassie asked, You've already got one place
for small animals and another for big I know, Hugh said,
but what if a mouse wants to have dinner with

(14:53):
a giraffe. We need a restaurant for every one, and
I want you two to run it. Really, Nina said, surprised.
Why us. Despite the difficulties you faced to day, you
carried on and didn't let me down, Hugh said, and

(15:13):
I think that deserves a reward. Cassie and Nina accepted,
delighted at the news. Now we've got much to discuss,
said Hugh, gesturing around the empty restaurant. So before we start,
can I get either of you a pineapple juice? Just

(15:36):
a small one for me, said the common hippo, and
I'll have a large one grinned. The pigmy hippo animal fact,
the common hippopotamus, also called the Nile hippo and the
river hippo is found throughout Africa below the line of

(15:58):
the Sahara Desert. Their skin is as much as six
centimeters thick that's two point four inches. Pygmy hippos are
found in West Africa. They're nocturnal animals, spending much of
their lives in the water. They can reach a hundred
and seventy five centimeters in length that's around five and

(16:20):
a half feet. Thank you for your suggestions, Cassie. We
hope that you all enjoyed the story. Wherever you're listening
in the world. There are over four hundred animal tails
now and all are available on our premium service alongside
over fifty premium only stories for a tiny fee. They're

(16:40):
all advert free. Make sure you join us next time
for another great animal tail. Good Bye,