This is another of Darren’s jokes.

A nice little harmless lizard, the type that loses his tail if you catch him by it, was walking under a gum tree in an area of bush north of Cairns when someone whistled to him from above. The lizard looked up and saw a big male koala sprawled on a branch overhead; the koala’s legs hung down languidly and in one hand was a joint or spliff (the lizard wasn’t quite sure of the difference but he knew it wasn’t a normal cigarette because the koala looked “spaced out” and his eyes were like two black saucers – not flying saucers).

“Say man, want to join me up here for a few puffs?” asked the koala, adjusting his sweatband that bore a poppy motif.

“But I’ve never tried it before,” called out the surprised rather straight-laced lizard.

“Just try a little puff – for the experience man,” the koala urged.

The lizard guessed that it was no fun to get stoned on your own so he joined the koala for a puff or two. The lizard felt a little high, but put the unusual feeling down to being up a gum tree; in fact he was convinced that he was immune to the effects of the puffs.

“I feel a bit thirsty,” the lizard laughed (he wasn’t sure why it struck him as so funny), “Got any water up here?”

“No man,” replied the koala, “but if you go down to the right of those two bottle-brush trees and past the big bush oak, man, there is a creek full of water.”

So the lizard followed the koala’s directions and found the creek; he was just about to dip his little head into the water when a pair of reptilian eyes surfaced and nearly made the smaller reptile shed his skin. Funnily, his giggling stopped.

“Please don’t eat me,” he cried.

“Why shouldn’t I?” sneered the crocodile.

“Because… because we’re related, and besides, I’m too small to be of interest to you. Do you happen to like fat, spaced out koalas?”

“Well, there is that, you have a point young fella. Spaced out eh? Now where did you say that fat koala is?” the crocodile wiped a tear with his tongue (at least the lizard thought it was a tear but it could have been saliva.)

The tiny stripey lizard stayed by the creek and quenched his thirst while the crocodile sought out the koala sitting in the gum tree past the bottle-brush trees.

“Hello there!” snapped the crocodile.

“Hey man,” the koala’s eyes widened, “you sure did drink a lot of water!”