The+Wombat+Girls+Leave+Home



Once upon a time, in South Eastern Australia, there lived a dear family of wombats: a mother and her 3 children - Rue, the eldest, Paige, and middle child, and May, the youngest child. Everyone knows that wombats are marsupials, which means the mother carries the baby in her pouch for a number of months before it even puts its feet on the ground. This mother bore these three then they all lived together for a long time - so long that finally this mother decided that these girls needed to find a home of their own. They needed to start their grown-up lives.

The girls were scared - they didn’t know how they would fend for themselves, especially in the face of the fearsome Giraffe, who roamed their plains, looking for weak and vulnerable wombats. Giraffes are not native to Australia. What’s more, they don’t like wombat meat - they only eat leaves.

Unfortunately, this giraffe escaped from the zoo several years ago, and he has learned how to survive on anything he can get his teeth into, especially because acacia leaves don’t grow in Australia.

This announcement by their mother caused great fear to well up in the girls’ hearts. They all, especially Paige and May, stamped their little furry feet and cried loudly about the meanness of their mom and the impossibility of her demands on them.

Rue decided that she was not scared of anything - she knew it was time for her to grow up and get a real life. Willie, a family friend and elder of the wombat clan, would help her on her way - she was sure of that. She decided that she would let the sun set on all this anger and visit him on the morrow.

She headed over to his burrow, which was covered with camouflaging dirt, leaves, and rock - all the color of Willie. He greeted her at his door and asked after her mother. He always seemed to care so much about her family. He was an old but very handsome wombat - still strong and muscular. He had survived many attacks from Giraffe by using his wiles.

Rue explained her plight, and Willie puzzled over it for a moment. Finally, he agreed that he would help her plan her new home. First, he said that it must be made of mud bricks - she could gather these bricks by trading something to Turtle because he was an expert brick maker. His bricks were always evenly made, good for building sound houses. He told her to find a place, which would protect the bricks from view. He asked Rue if May and Paige would be building their houses together or separate from hers and if they needed any help. Rue told him that she didn’t think they would listen to anyone.

May did trade some books with Antelope - she loved books. In return, Antelope gave May some uneven, unstable rocks, which wouldn’t balance on one another or form any kind of structure. Rue made these observations to May, but May didn’t listen. She refused to believe that Giraffe could hurt her.

Now to Paige - she still refused to leave her mother, but she did go out looking for something she might use to build her house. As she was walking down a dirt path, she met a weird looking toad. He was dragging a bunch of huge, wet dark green leaves behind him. Paige traded some of her grass, for her family had great stacks of grass, for these leaves. They were big and wobbly and difficult to carry. She selected a site very close to the dirt path because she couldn’t drag the leaves any longer.

Rue came upon Paige building this house and made the suggestion that the house couldn’t withstand an attack from Giraffe. Paige didn’t pay any more attention to Rue than May had. Both of them were still so angry at Rue and their mother. They didn’t want to hear anything from either of them.

Paige felt very comfortable in her leaf-made house until she heard a knock on her door. Giraffe yelled in to her, “Let me in - I just want to play.”

Paige opened her door, thinking it was a friendly new neighbor. When she saw Giraffe, she swiftly shut the door. Giraffe angrily shouted, “Okay - so I’ll thwump, and I’ll romp, and I’ll stomp your house down.

Paige ducked out the back leaf and ran to May’s house made of wobbly rocks. She felt that the Giraffe would never find them there. Surely the rocks would protect them better than the Leaf House.

Paige explained her fears to May, and May let her in with assurances that she would be safe in her house.

Suddenly, they heard what sounded like a stampede of hooves clomping closer to May’s house. Giraffe said, “I know you girls are in there. I really want a piece of juicy wombat for dinner tonight. I won’t play around. If you don’t come out, I will thwomp, and I’ll romp, and I’ll stomp your house down.” May was sure he couldn’t break down the rock walls, but they heard the rocks start to shift, crumble, and roll off their footings. The girls knew they were lost.

They ran as fast as they possibly could to Rue’s hidden, secret mud-brick house. They only knew where it was because Rue had shown them her site. They would never have seen it without that knowledge.

Rue took her sisters into her home. She advised them that all of them should prepare for Giraffe’s attack. Finally, the younger sisters were ready to listen to their sister. She explained that she only knew all of this because she trusted her mentor, Willie. He explained all the important skills of survival on the plain, especially for female wombats. What seemed true to Rue was that girls could survive on their own, but they needed to learn how. There was no weakness in asking for help.

Surely enough, Giraffe came upon Rue’s house - he knew it was Rue’s because it was freshly made. He called out, “Little wombat girls, let me come in.” They refused him.

He cried out, “Then I’ll thwomp, and I’ll romp, and I’ll stomp your house down.” He tried, but he couldn’t budge the bricks at all. He cleverly thought he could his long body down the chimney, but girl wombats always had a pot of boiling water on the fire for cooking, so he just burned himself terribly. Giraffe finally gave up and went away, so puzzled and sore at being bested by Girl Wombats.

The girls set out the next day to rebuild two more new houses made from bricks. They decided that they really liked living on their own. They knew that they needed sturdy homes - in fact, they told all the other small and vulnerable creatures of their plain that they needed to build sturdy homes for themselves and be wary of dangerous creatures.

Their mother and Willie were proud of the girls for their new found courage and strength.