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RUBEM ALVeS (1933- 2014) was a theologian, seminarian, educator and writer, with a Master’s Degree and Doctorate in Philosophy. He is the author of education and theology books, as well as of chronicles and children’s stories. In 2009, he was awarded the Jabuti prize in the Short Stories and Chronicles category.
LILI and GREGÓRIO were very different.
Lili was a girl. Gregorio, a boy. Lili had a trunk, ears and a tail. Gregorio had nothing like that, only those big, wide eyes…
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Lili was a little elephant. Gregorio was a toad. But they were friends, because both loved to play on the pond. When it was hot, Lily would get into the water, stick her trunk inside, fill her mouth, puff the cheeks and squirt the water. Gregorio liked to dive, go to the bottom, and dig into the soft mud…
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Then, one day they realized they could play together a game of hide-andseek. Gregorio would bury himself into the mud and Lily pretended she was a vacuum cleaner: she would suck the bottom of the pond with her trunk until she found Gregorio, who would then escape, swimming and laughing, because Lili’s trunk tickled him...
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One day, while they were playing, there was an accident: Lili sucked too hard and Gregorio went up her trunk. He stayed there, jammed, not being able to go neither up nor down… It was a big mess. All toads and frogs came, screaming, thinking that Gregorio had died. Gregorio himself had to shout, from inside the trunk, a little breathless: “I’m alive! Get me out of here!” Lili’s parents started to weep, thinking how terrible it would be, if she had to spend the rest of her life with a frog stuck in her trunk...
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The animals called Mr. Owl the apothecary, who, with his glasses over his beak, was serious and wise. He came up to Lili and touched her trunk. “I’ve never seen a case like this,” Mr. Owl said. “Maybe the toad will get out with a dash of black pepper…” “Black pepper?,” the others asked, stunned. “Exactly. That little black berry, very well ground. We give a little to Lili. When she inhales it, she will sneeze violently. The toad will probably be expelled...
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