The Spotless Leopard

By Rachael Long

Once long ago, or short ago if you haven't got much time, somewhere on the African savannah a group of trees decided to form a wood. Nothing unusual in that, you say. The wood soon grew to become a forest and then...it became a Lost Forest...
Within and around the forest lived many animals. None of them thought the forest was lost, they all knew where it was - exactly where they lived! But odd things often went on in the forest and frequently the animals had quite unusual adventures.This is the tale of one such animal, a leopard named Opa.

One day Opa lost her spots. All of them. They just fell off.
Opa knows who was responsible but she also knows she may be better off in the shade and sets off on a journey around the lost forest. On her journey, Opa meets a stork with a clipboard, a lost explorer, a polar bear...oh and a sloth but we won’t mention the sloth...or what it says.
Can a leopard without spots ever be the same?
And why does Opa get mistaken for a bat?
This is the first, gentle easing into the quite unusual and unbelievable tales from The Lost Forest!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rachael Long
• Release date: Jan 26, 2012
• ISBN: 9781465763730

Rachael Long

Rachael Anne Long is the author of several ebooks, including the anarchic animal adventure series, The Lost Forest and the adult short story collection, First Person Singular. Rachael has previously worked for government departments and a national children’s charity. She lives in Somerset, England with her daughter and their orange rescue cat where she writes, bakes, eats cake and enjoys being herself.

Book preview

The Quite Unusual Tale of

The Spotless Leopard

By Rachael Long

Text copyright ©2012 Rachael Long

Revised 2014

Smashwords Edition

All Rights Reserved

The Quite Unusual Tale of

The Spotless Leopard

Contents

Part One

Being the Beginning

In which a group of trees become a wood

and then a forest

and a leopard becomes…

spotless.

Part Two

Being the Middle

Involving in order of appearance:

a hyena, a lost explorer,

a passing polar bear

and a baboon...

Part Three

Being the part

before

The Ending

In which everyone lives happily ever after

until the next morning...

and then…

things continue

for a little while longer…

The Spotless Leopard

Once upon a long ago or twice upon a short ago and perhaps even thrice upon a time for the mice, there stood a group of trees on the African savannah. The trees all knew each other but never spoke because they were very spread out: one here, one there, another further over there…and oh yes, that one too, over there...far in the distance.

Instead of talking the trees passed messages written on leaves using unemployed vultures. This was fine for the trees but the leaves were not entirely happy, especially when the vultures turned vegetarian and started eating them! The leaves would often rustle away to each other, mostly complaining that leaves never got a good deal in stories, as in most stories involving trees, the leaves