Riting 3 - A story for the kids

Every night Dad reads the boys a story. The boys love listening to the stories and imagining that they are doing the things the people in the stories are doing.
One night, after the story, the boys and Dad are talking about the zoo and the animals there. Dad asks "If you could be an animal, any animal for just one day, what animal would you be?"
C wants to be a big cat, maybe a tiger, or a leopard.
Q wants to be an elephant, a really big one!
Dad tucks the boys in and kisses them goodnight.
They go to sleep thinking about themselves as their favourite animals.

C wakes up and stretches his long stripey back, flicks his long stripey tail and prowls through the hot, steamy jungle towards the river. He sees a flicker in the undergrowth from the corner of his emerald green eye. He freezes, watches, listens, sniffs. He sees a small movement, hears a furtive scurry, and smells something tasty. He keeps low, he moves slow. He is silent, he is a shadow, he is invisible. He is closer now, he can hear his dinner breathing, he can hear its heart beating, he can hear ... a noise behind him. There is a stamping, a trampling in the forest behind him. His dinner runs away. He turns and snarls at...

Q is hot and thirsty. He shoves the branches out of the way as he wanders down to the river for a drink and a swim. Small animals rush out of his way, no one wants to be under his feet when they hit the ground. He sniffs the air with his huge trunk, he smells trouble, just as he sees the tiger turn towards him, baring his teeth. He lifts his head, waving his trunk and showing his long sharp tusks, he trumpets a warning to the tiger. The tiger pauses, the elephant can see him thinking. The tiger decides. He slinks quickly off into the shadows. The elephant trumpets one more time, then carries on down to the cool water of the river.