Zebra's Hiccups CBeebies Bedtime Stories

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I've got you some water.

What you need to do is sip the water backwards... Oh, hello. I'm Sanjeev.

Elephant has the hiccups.

Tiger and I are trying to help with ideas of how to stop them.

Sorry, what's that Zebra? Oh, you've got some ideas too.

Because you've had the hiccups before. Yep, I remember that.

In fact, why don't I tell everyone that story?

It's by David McKee and it's called Zebra's Hiccups.

The animals loved to play.

"Come and play, Zebra," they called, "this is fun!"

"No, thank you. I'm busy," Zebra answered.

He was a very serious and dignified zebra.

One day, Zebra got hiccups.

"Oh my, how extremely inconvenient, hic!" he said to himself.

"I shall simply, hic, ignore them and go out for a walk.

"Perhaps they'll disappear."

"Hi there, Zebra," said Tiger.

"Good, hic, good morning, hic," said Zebra. "Hiccups?" said Tiger.

"Don't worry - I know a cure.

"Hold your breath, close your eyes, and say the alphabet backwards."

"That sounds much too, hic, silly," said Zebra.

"Yoo-hoo, Zebra!" called Miss Pig. "Come skating with me."

"Good morning, Miss P... hic," said Zebra.

"Hiccups?" asked Miss Pig. "I know a great cure.

"Put your head between your knees

"and drink a glass of water upside down."

"No, hic, thank you," said Zebra.

"That's far too, hic, undignified, for me."

"Zebra's got hiccups," said Little Elephant.

"When I get hiccups, I stand on one leg and go

"'toodle-oodle-oodle-oodle-ooo' as long as I can."

"Me too," grinned Big Elephant.

"But definitely not me, hic," said Zebra. Next, Zebra met Crocodile.

"Shoot baskets with me," said Crocodile.

"No, thank you Croco... hic," said Zebra.

"Oh, oh, who has hiccups?" said Crocodile.

"Here's a sure-fire hiccety cure.

"Stand on your head, hold the ball between your legs

"and sing 'clickety-click' - works every time."

"I'm sure," said Zebra, "hic."

Then something strange began to happen.

The hiccuping began to move Zebra's stripes.

The more he hiccuped, the more his stripes bumped together.

Zebra never noticed. It was Mrs Duck who told him.

"Is that you, Zebra?" she said. "You do look strange."

"You mean, hic, sound strange," said Zebra. "It's hiccups."

"I mean you look strange. Look at yourself," said Mrs Duck.

"Oh, no!" groaned Zebra. "Just look what has happened.

"I look hic...diculous. My wonderful stripes!

"I should have tried the cures," said Zebra.

"Though, what was it that Tiger said? I can't remember, hic."

He hurried back to find Tiger.

At Tiger's, Zebra took a deep breath, closed his eyes and said,

"Z-Y-X-V-W...oh, oh dear, hic,

"I mean Z-Y-X-W-V-U-T, hic, R-S, no, no, S-R, hic."

Tiger chuckled, and Zebra opened his eyes.

"This will never work," he sighed.

"I'm off to try Miss Pig's, hic. It's not funny, hic, you know."

"I think it's very funny," said Tiger. "Wait for me."

Miss Pig gave Zebra a glass of water and said,

"Head between your knees and drink this upside down."

Zebra sat and drank and coughed and spluttered and choked

and finally...hiccuped. Hic!

"Absolutely, hic, hopeless and very, hic, messy,"

said Zebra with a little smile.

"Let's try Elephant's cure."

"I'll help you, Zebra," said Little Elephant.

"Stand on one leg,

"and 'toodle-oodle-oodle-oodle-ooo' for as long as you can."

Zebra went, "Toodle-oodle, hic, toodle-oodle, hic, loodle-ooo,"

until the others laughed. Zebra grinned.

"Totally useless. Come on, hic, maybe, hic,

"Crocodile's clickety cure can stop these hickety hiccups."

"First, a headstand," said Crocodile.

"Ball between your legs. Now sing."

Zebra just laughed, and so did all the others.

"It doesn't work if you laugh," giggled Crocodile.

"I can't, hic, help, hic, it!" said Zebra

and he fell over, still laughing.

Mrs Duck came along to see what all the noise was about.

"He can't 'hic' forever," she said.

And keeping her voice low, so that Zebra wouldn't hear,

she told the others what to do.

Zebra was recovering from the laughing,

when he was drenched by cold water.

"Now, that's not funny," he said. "Not funny at all."

There was not one hic.

"The shock has worked. He is cured," said Mrs Duck.

"Hooray!" shouted all the animals.

"But I do feel strange without my stripes," said Zebra.

The cold water made him shiver. And then, he sneezed a huge sneeze.

"Aaa-choo!"

The sneeze did the trick. It shook the stripes back into place.

"Two cures in one," said Zebra. "Thank you, all!"

"You've caught a chill," said Tiger, "and I know a great cure."

"So do I, so do I!" the others all shouted together.

"And so do I," laughed Zebra, as he waved goodbye to his friends.

"I wonder what we'll play tomorrow," he thought,

as he hurried home to a hot bath, a hot drink and a nice, warm bed.

And that story was called Zebra's Hiccups.

And it's time for you to hurry off to your nice, warm bed too,

while Zebra, Tiger and me try to cure Elephant's hiccups.

See you soon for another story. Night-night.

You have to go backwards. Are you going to...? I'll help you.

Right back. No, no, not with your trunk!