by Landon Knepp
Babosa whooshed past on his customized rollerblades. “Yo patinar!” he shouted, a pugnacious smirk underneath his trunk.
“It’s patino, you little jerk!” Elbert replied from his perch. The highly-educated toucan could not abide self-satisfaction derived from half-assed research.
Babosa turned and came back for another pass. “Muy patinar!”
Elbert fought the urge to pull out his feathers. “Let it go, Elbert,” urged his friend, Cleopa. “You know how they are.”
But Elbert couldn’t let it go. Taking a lax attitude toward learning was noxious. It was infectious. “I will not abide!” he shrieked.
“You’re only going to make things worse,” Cleopa warned, though there was a note of futility in her voice.
The aggrieved Elbert gave her an ornery glare and took to flight. He caught up with Babosa and kept pace to his right. “If you want to impress people with your knowledge of Spanish, you have to use it correctly. You cannot simply learn a word and give no thought to the form, the tense, what-have-you.” The cocksure elephant glided along, paying no attention to the lecture. Elbert saw red. “I will not be ignored!” he screeched. “You will look at me when I’m talking to you!”
Babosa slowly turned to face the fastidious toucan. His giant sunglasses did little to hide his arrogant demeanor. “Mucho, mucho patinar.”
In his wrath, Elbert did not see the branch in front of him. The world ignited as he crashed and ricocheted to the ground. His eyes saw nothing but sparks. When he finally regained his bearings, Cleopa came and landed on the bough above him.
“I tried to warn you,” she said. “Elephants never conjugate.”
Landon Knepp’s writing has been featured, or is forthcoming, on Tall Tale TV, Ink and Sword Magazine, Pixel Heart Magazine, and more. You can find him on Twitter at @PartymanRandy.