Let’s begin.
Gigi the giraffe and her best friend, Starlight, were going on a treasure hunt. Today, Gigi's father was taking them to Echo Caves, in the rocky hills beyond the Savannah woods.
Pip was coming too. He had been talking about treasure since breakfast.
“Gold?” he asked his father.
“Something I found by the stream,” Papa said.
“Wet gold?”
“You'll have to wait and see.”
The cave had a wide entrance, a dry floor, and a patch of sunshine just inside. Papa had chosen the bright front chamber for their game. They would stay where they could see the entrance. The dark tunnels farther back were for another day with a proper guide.
Gigi ducked beneath a low branch outside.
Starlight grinned. “The mountain has a smaller front door than your house.”
“I noticed.”
Inside, Papa showed them a flat rock with three little pebbles on it.
“Find a rock like a sleeping rabbit,” he said. “Your next clue is underneath a fallen leaf beside it.”
“I see one!” Gigi called.
“I see one!” a voice called back.
Starlight spun around.
Pip pressed close to Gigi's leg.
“Who said that?” he whispered.
“Who said that?” the cave whispered back.
Papa chuckled. “That's your echo. Sound bounces off the rocks and comes back to you. Listen.”
“Hello!” he called.
“Hello!”
Pip's ears lifted.
“Pancakes!” he shouted.
“Pancakes!”
Pip laughed so loudly that the cave laughed too.
Soon all three friends were calling different things. Gigi called her name. Starlight called a tune. Pip called, “More pancakes!”
The words bounced around until nobody could understand any of them.
“What was the clue?” Starlight asked.
“Something about a rabbit!” Gigi said.
“A rabbit with pancakes!” Pip called.
Papa shook his head, smiling. “I don't think that was it.”
Gigi looked at a rock with two tall points. “Rabbit ears!”
Starlight walked around it. From the other side, the two points looked more like a pair of teeth.
“Very big rabbit,” she said.
Pip peered underneath. No leaf. No clue.
“Perhaps rabbits look different in caves,” Gigi said.
Papa smiled but gave nothing away.
They tried another rock. This one looked like a rabbit only when Starlight shut one eye and tilted her head.
“That can't be right,” she said. “My neck is getting tired.”
Then Pip pointed toward the light.
A long pale rock lay near the sunny wall. A little stone stuck up at one end like an ear.
“There!” Gigi said.
Starlight hurried over. Pip followed. Beside the rock was a broad brown leaf.
Under it, Papa had placed a smooth pebble with a wavy blue line.
“Our treasure!” Pip said.
“That's the next clue,” Papa told him. “What does that line remind you of?”
“A river!” Starlight said.
“A snake!” Gigi said at the same time.
“A pancake with a river on it!” Pip said.
The cave repeated pieces of all three answers.
Starlight was already looking for water. Gigi was searching for a snake-shaped rock. Pip was looking everywhere, because he wasn't sure what he was looking for.
Then a small, bubbling giggle came from behind a pile of stones.
Starlight stopped.
“That wasn't me.”
Gigi turned toward Pip.
“Wasn't me either,” he said.
The giggle came again.
“Perhaps somebody else is doing the treasure hunt,” Gigi said.
“Perhaps the treasure is giggling,” Pip whispered.
Starlight took one step forward. A loose pebble clicked beneath her hoof.
The giggle stopped.
They waited. A drop of water fell somewhere nearby.
Plip.
“I heard that!” Starlight said.
“I heard that!” the cave answered.
Pip looked up at her. “Now I can't hear the little sound.”
Starlight shut her mouth.
For a moment, they were all quiet.
Plip.
Then came the bubbling giggle again.
“There,” Pip whispered. “Low down.”
Papa came to stand beside them. “You can look around this pile. Keep to the dry ground.”
Starlight went first. Gigi followed, lowering her head. Pip peered between their legs.
A tiny pool sat in a hollow of rock. Above it, one drop of water clung to a stone. It grew rounder, trembled, and fell.
Plip.
On the pool's edge sat a little brown frog.
It opened its mouth.
The bubbling giggle rang through the chamber.
“A frog!” Pip said.
“A frog!” said the cave.
The frog hopped behind a small rock.
“Sorry,” Pip whispered. “I got excited.”
They backed away to give it room.
“Your voice sounds very big in here,” Starlight told the frog.
“So does mine,” Gigi said.
Pip looked at the pebble with the blue line. Then he looked at the water.
“Could I say my idea now?”
“Yes,” Gigi said. “We're listening.”
“Maybe the line means water. Like this pool. Is the treasure here?”
They looked at Papa.
“It is,” he said. “But it's on the dry side. No reaching into the frog's home.”
Gigi spotted a little dip in the rock beside the path. A wide leaf covered it.
“I found another leaf!”
“I'll move it,” Starlight said.
She gently nudged it aside with her nose.
Underneath were three smooth stones: one gold, one pink, and one deep green. Sunlight from the entrance made them shine.
Pip leaned close to the gold one.
“Not wet gold,” he said. “Dry gold.”
“Yellow stone,” Papa said. “I found them beside the stream and thought you might like them.”
Starlight looked at Gigi. Gigi looked at Pip.
“You found the last clue,” Gigi told him. “You choose first.”
Pip chose green.
“Not gold?” Starlight asked.
“This one looks like our frog.”
Gigi chose the gold stone. Starlight chose pink. They carried them back to the sunny entrance, one at a time, while Papa gathered his clue leaves.
Outside, Starlight put her pebble down in the grass.
“I wanted to find everything first,” she said. “I kept talking over your ideas.”
“Me too,” Gigi said to Pip.
Pip gave them a hopeful look. “Then can I choose our last echo?”
Papa nodded toward the bright entrance. “One last call.”
Pip planted his little hooves, lifted his head, and called as clearly as he could.
“Thank you, frog!”
“Thank you, frog!” the cave called back.
From the little pool came one last bubbling giggle.
The three friends laughed all the way down the hill. Pip's green stone rode in the small leaf basket Papa carried. It wasn't gold. It wasn't magic.
But it was a very good treasure.