Hic! Pigúiça perked up her ears. Hic! Fofuxo looked around. Hic! Who was making that noise?
It was Rex. He had the hiccups. And what hiccups! Every hic made his whole body jump, his tail thump the ground, and a leaf fall from the tree.
“Hic! I was... hic... just drinking water,” Rex explained. “Hic! And they came... hic... out of nowhere.”
“We'll fix that in no time,” said Fofuxo. “I have an idea!” He stood up on his back legs, pointed at the sky, and made a huge funny face, with his tongue to one side and his eyes to the other.
Pigúiça laughed so hard she almost fell over. Rex looked and started laughing too. But in the middle of the laugh, out came a hic! And the laughter filled up with little hiccups: ha-ha-hic-ha-hic.
“It didn't work,” said Fofuxo, and went back to walking on four legs. “Try drinking water upside down!” suggested Tico, who had come running. Rex tried. The water went up his nose, and he sneezed. Achoo! Hic!
“Hold your breath and count to ten!” said Bolota. Rex held it. His face turned red, then purple, then almost blue. He made it to eight and let it all out at once. Hiiic!
Trici came walking by and tried too: she hopped on one foot. Then the other. Then she did a little dance. Everyone ended up dancing around Rex, who hiccuped in the middle, hic, hic, hic, in time with a song nobody was playing.
In the end, everyone got tired and sat on the ground, tongues hanging out. Rex still had hiccups, but they were softer now. Hic. Hic.
Pigúiça remembered something. “When I get too wound up, Fofuxo tells me to breathe slowly. Maybe it works for hiccups too.”
“Let's try it together,” said Fofuxo. “Breathe in through your nose, very slowly, as if you're smelling a flower. Now blow out through your mouth, as if you're blowing out a tiny little candle.”
Rex breathed in. Out. In. Out. With each breath, his body grew softer and calmer. The others breathed with him, flower, candle, flower, candle.
Hic... he went, very softly. He breathed again. Flower. Candle. And waited. Nothing. He waited a bit more. Nothing. The hiccups had left without making a sound.
“They're gone!” whispered Trici. “They went to sleep,” said Pigúiça, yawning. With all that calm breathing, sleep had come for everybody.
One by one, they lay down on the grass, their tummies full of good air. The last thing Rex heard before he fell asleep was his friends breathing, flower, candle, flower, candle, until everything went quiet.
