Well, this has been added to but it was two other stories tacked in and around. Somehow they all fitted without much trouble and they were never written with that particular exercise in mind. I just write like that. A butterfly, flitting from one thing to another and then creating something positive - or something like that. Huh, how do you think the first book was put together. In seven different stories and some piggling about on each one. A fluke of the lucky sort.
As for this, well, it is in progress but nobody said it was particularly good!
The now enlightened Henrietta had spoken to the great hippo guru who was a kind and gentle creature. He had given her so much information and advised her that she had not lapsed from her creed by having a beauty treatment. Henrietta should have known this as a matter of course. Everyday she had been devout although he had explained that it was not strictly necessary. It was only for those choosing to walk a path of total enlightenment that were required to be more devout in their daily enchantments. After all Karmatosis was a learned state that required much concentration. One slight deviation could be rather long winded in respect of returning to the original tangent or pathway. Remembering this, Henrietta had qualms about how she felt when she realised how far off her Pathway she had deviated.
The wise Hippo guru and mentor had, in a short time, told her exactly how to retread her steps without going backwards which made her feel much better.
A few months later, Henrietta was sitting under a shady tree whilst reading the Gecko Echo being deeply entranced by her thoughts Henrietta paid scant attention to the huge and dry pods waving frantically in the sudden breeze. As she turned the page the tree shed a pod and 'Thwack' it hit Henrietta straight between the eyes.
It was indeed a wake-up call and in an instant Henrietta was back to Earth, fully alert again and focussed. Normally Henrietta was observant during these sitting sessions but somehow today she felt the urge to read the paper properly for once rather than skip through it.
The startled hippo did not read anything into it and held no grudge about the pod shed but she let out a huge sigh which blew the Echo over backwards so it could only be seen and not read.
What came into view was something Henrietta had never come across before, mainly because she never finished the Echo to the end of its daily spread. There in front of her eyes was not only the bean pod but also the cross word puzzle. The visions were enough for much crossing including her eyes and she dropped the paper then shook the bean pod off her face. The newspaper fluttered everywhere as it fell open again and blew as if it was free to *(spread the word). Henrietta took scant notice of this and decided that she had a bean to pick with the tree
