Sally looked down to see a grasshopper looking up at her. 'You're very tall' the grasshopper said and Sally replied 'I'm not tall, my brother's tall, he grew six feet before he was fifteen'. 'I know someone who's got six feet, but he's not tall, he's an ant, is your brother an ant?'

'No, of course he's not an ant, he's a person like me, only he's a boy and he's older than I am'.

'Will you have six feet when you get older?' asked the grasshopper, and Sally said 'no, you don't understand, he hasn't got six feet, he's six feet tall'. The grasshopper was very confused by this so he changed the subject and said 'I'll bet he can't jump as high as I can' and Sally said 'you do jump very high, you should be in the high jump contest'.

'I was' the grasshopper said proudly, 'but the judge said that I didn't win because a flea jumped higher than I did, but he didn't really, I jumped higher than the flea. No-one knows where the flea landed though, he was too small to see, so how could the judge know how high he jumped? It was a fix, I was robbed'.

'That's a shame' Sally said sympathetically 'but never mind, you will probably win next time. What's your name?' 'I'm Skip' the grasshopper said 'and you're Sally aren't you, Duncan told me about you, he said you were a very strange girl'.

'Well I think he is rather strange, he certainly has a very strange philosophy of life, I couldn't understand it at all'. Sally was interrupted then by a number of animals running past the two of them and she wondered where they were going. Then one of them shouted as he went past 'You had better get outta here, Bernie's coming this way and he has a cold'.

'Oh dear' Skip said 'this is not good news, we'd better go'. Sally was very confused once again and asked Skip who Bernie was and why they had to run away from him.

'Bernie's a dragon, he's very nice really, but when he gets a cold he sneezes a lot and it sets fire to everything near him, so it is best to stay out of his way until he is feeling better' and with that Skip made another giant leap and disappeared. Sally didn't know quite what to do, she was a little nervous so she wandered off in the direction that the others had gone. She knew there weren't really any dragons, but if there were, they'd be very fearsome.

She hadn't gone far before Bernie caught up with her, she heard him before she saw him, he was calling 'wait for me' and his voice seemed very mild and friendly, even a little scared, so Sally didn't panic and run away and she was glad she hadn't when he came trotting into view. He was breathing steam, but he certainly didn't look dangerous or anything like that. 'Hello' she said, 'you must be Bernie, how are you feeling?' and Bernie stopped and put his paw up to his nose anticipating a sneeze. Sally dived for cover behind a tree and Bernie gave an enormous sneeze setting fire to the grass around himself. But he quickly stamped it out with his paws and muttered 'I hate this cold, I get so lonely when I have a cold. Where are your friends when you need them most?'.