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I stood there enthralled. Then I heard the Giraffe saying to the Pelican in the next window, 'Pelly, my dear, be so good as to fly down and bring that small person up here to talk to us.'
At once the Pelican spread his huge white wings and flew down on to the road beside me. 'Hop in,' he said, opening his enormous beak.
I stared at the great orange beak and backed away.
'Go ON!' the Monkey shouted from up in his window. 'The Pelly isn't going to swallow you! Climb IN!'
I said to the Pelican, 'I'll only get in if you promise not to shut your beak once I'm inside.'
'You have nothing to fear!' cried the Pelican,
'And let me tell you why.
I have a very special beak!
A special beak have I!
You'll never see a beak so fine,
I don't care where you go.
There's magic in this beak of mine!
Hop in and don't say NO!'
'I will not hop in,' I said, 'unless you swear on your honour you won't shut it once I'm inside. I don't like small dark places.'
'When I have done what I am just about to do,' said the Pelican, 'I won't be able to shut it. You don't seem to understand how my beak works.'
'Show me,' I said.
'Watch this!' cried the Pelican.
I watched in amazement as the top half of the Pelican's beak began to slide smoothly backwards into his head until the whole thing was almost out of sight.
'It bends and goes down inside the back of my neck!' cried the Pelican. 'Is that not sensible? Is it not magical?'
'It's unbelievable,' I said. 'It's exactly like one of those metal tape-measures my father's got at home. When it's out, it's straight. When you slide it back in, it bends and disappears.'
'Precisely,' said the Pelican. 'You see, the top half is of no use to me unless I am chewing fish. The bottom half is what counts, my lad! The bottom half of this glorious beak of mine is the bucket in which we carry our window-cleaning water! So if I didn't slide the top half away I'd be standing around all day long holding it open!
'So I slide it away
For the rest of the day!
Even so, I'm still able to speak!
And wherever I've flown
It has always been known
As the Pelican's Patented Beak!
If I want to eat fish
(That's my favourite dish)
All I do is I give it a tweak!
