“Listen, all you giants! You cannot leave this jungle of Mathsss after all the mess that you have made here. We will make use of your great powers to rebuild our jungle! You have to work hard now to make this a place where children can come and play once more. You have to release all the Numbers whom you have hidden in caves and prisons. You must follow whatever Ari-the-Metic tells you to do, because she will be your leader from now on! You must build nice houses for Numbers to stay in! And above all, you have to change your eating habits! You cannot eat Numbers any more! I, Infinity, have spoken!”
The giants were very relieved to hear this sentence. They grovelled at the feet of the Infinite One, trying to thank him.
But The Infinite One had already disappeared! In his place stood the Little One once again, tossing a golden ball in his hand. The giants rubbed their eyes and rolled on the ground again in fear.
Ari-the-Metic soon put them in order. She handed different types of tools to them to start cleaning up her beloved jungle. The giants also had some tools of their own to help in this task.
What a lot of crashing and tumbling could be heard from that day in the forest! Fallen trees were being lifted up and piled neatly in a place for making brackets for the new houses for Numbers. New beds were being dug for streams which had been blocked for years. Bushes and shrubs were tidied up and the marshes were drained. Sunlight rushed happily in and the green fog started lifting up. Flowers opened up in hundreds and thousands, and the jungle looked beautiful.
Lots and lots of Numbers started tumbling out of their hiding places when they realised that the jungle was safe once more. They rushed around meeting each other and going off for walks and picnics in all combinations.
After a few weeks, the jungle of Mathsss once again became the lovely old place where children used to come and play. Without the green fog around it, the jungle looked very inviting and nice. Soon little children started coming nearer and nearer to have a look at what was going on. They were so happy to see the little Numbers that they also went in to play with them. Everyone had a great time.
The older people, the mothers and fathers, were a bit afraid of the jungle even now. They tried to stop the children from going in. But Ari-the-Metic, the little blue fairy, helped a lot in explaining to them that the giants were now absolutely tame!
In fact the giants were so safe to be with that children and Numbers could climb all over their great bodies and get into their hair! They worked hard all the day long and it was difficult to imagine that they could ever have been Number-crunching dangers.
Slowly the older folk felt less scared and allowed the children to go in and out of the jungle as they wished.
So this is how The Jungle of Maths became a wonderful place again for everyone to play in - and remains so to this day.
Get your own Free Home Page