Life Magazine June 3rd | Page 9

9

The Heroic Giraffe Who Saved the Day

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It isn’t always easy being an animal who has a long neck that ranges anywhere from fifteen to seventeen feet and whose weight ranges from anywhere between a half of a ton to up to two tons. Just ask me, Melvin, I am eighteen years old, and my neck is literally two feet long. How am I supposed to reach up high to get objects if my neck is only two feet long? I have all the brown spots and sandy colored fur that all of my other friends of the same species do but I was born this way. One unusual aspect that not many people are aware of is that these animals require more of an education than other animals or even humans do. From starting at about five years of age, we are required to get some type of degree whether it is for science, the arts, or for math. It is a proven and scientific fact in deed, I wouldn’t be going for a Bachelor’s degree in Applied Knowledge if I weren’t right about this matter. I am a full-grown adult, eighteen years of age and I have to decide what exactly I want to do with my life. One of my very close friends, who is a human, is helping me with my decision and is inspiring me to try new things. He taught me to go with life the way it is and not be afraid to try new things, even with a disability.

My very close friend, Dr. Hazel, has a Physics major. There is this place in South Africa where only animals of my species could go to learn and get their degrees. It is a very grand and extravagant place indeed, with many buildings that have an open like infrastructure, with huge glass windows and gold lined marble staircases. Since I don’t have arms, I have to carry my backpack with all of my heavy textbooks, either around my neck or carry it with my teeth. The view at this place is amazing. It is in town and has a beautiful overview where you can see the entire building all in one glance. Something unusual happened though one day, while I was sitting in Physics class. There was this huge hurricane that was brewing off the coast of South Africa, ready to strike at any minute, coming from the Atlantic Ocean. In Physics, we were working on an experiment where we were seeing what reaction would occur between baking soda and vinegar. As I gazed outside I noticed that the storm was approaching, it was only a few hundred yards away. I wasn’t paying attention to what the educator was saying and in a split second there was this deafening sound, it sounded like a car hitting a cement wall at one hundred and twenty miles per hour. I couldn’t hear anything after that, which was really strange. I tried yelling at my other classmates, who were humans and other animals of my kind, to ask if they were all right but they didn’t hear me either. I screamed frantically at the educator, “Do you have any clue what had just happened?”

The educator looked at me with a puzzling look on his face, clearly confused. I repeated myself saying, “Do you know what on earth had happened?” I came to the conclusion that this storm had something to do with the hearing loss of