Cleo is a camel. She’s a humpy-wumpy camel. Cleo has one hump but some camels have as many as two!

Cleo is extremely calm. She’s always tranquil and quiet. She’s happy she’s this way because she lives in a very hot desert. Getting nervous or angry would use up energy that she can’t afford to waste!

Cleo is also very sociable. She loves spending lots of time with her camel friends and family.

One scorching summer’s day, Cleo and her family and friends are walking through the desert in a long procession. In the distance, they see a city coming into view. They decide to stop close to the outskirts of the city for a change of scenery and to rest overnight. (Because in the desert there’s mostly just sand for miles and miles around!)

As the camels get near to the edge of the city, roads start to appear. There are lots of people walking along the side of the roads.  Sometimes there are vehicles driving along them too. It feels much busier than in the sand dunes of the desert.

As they look for a place to sleep, Cleo spies another group of camels up ahead.

“Hey, let’s stop to say hello!” she suggest to the others. because camels are very social creatures. Cleo notices that this group of camels is much smaller than her own. There are only three or four of them. And they are all sitting down. They look really tired and rather unhappy. Their long necks and heads are laid down on the ground in front of their bodies.

“Hi!” says Cleo, as they draw nearer. “I’m Cleo. Are you guys OK?”

“Hi. My name’s Cheops. My friends and I are just waiting for our next rides to come along,” one of the camels explains, wearily. He can barely lift his head up as he is talking.

“What’s a ride?” asks Cleo, not really understanding.

“It’s where people come and sit on our backs. We carry them around to see the big monuments they’ve come to visit.”

“That sounds like fun!” says Cleo.

“It might be,” agrees Cheops. “But the people who own us rarely give us any food or drink. We give rides all day long and it’s really hot in the sun. So it’s mostly just difficult and exhausting.”

“That doesn’t sound good at all!” Cleo feels sorry for Cheops and his friends. She thinks about how challenging it is walking in the burning sun without anything on her back. It would be so much harder carrying something.

“Can you take a break? Or rest in the shade?” she asks.

Cheops eyes’ look dreamily off into the distance. “We’d love to. But we can’t get away. Our owners won’t let us.”

To show Cleo what he means, he lifts his head up off the ground and she realises that he has a rope around his face. It is tied very firmly to a post in the ground.

Cleo gasps. She can’t believe the camels aren’t free. She stands for a few seconds, calmly considering the situation. And then she turns around to speak to her group of family and friends. “This is exploitation!” she announces. “We have to help them escape!”

Cleo gathers the other camels around her. “We need to distract the people who have tied up Cheops and his friends. Then we can undo their ropes and take them away with us.”

The other camels all bow their long necks down to the ground, to show their agreement. As they do, one of the camels spots a scorpion on the ground and spits at it to chase it away. Cleo gasps once again.

“I’ve got an idea!” she says. Turning to Cheops, she adds “We just need to wait until it gets dark. We’ll be back.” And she leads the other camels away to rest behind some shacks close by. There, she explains her plan to them.

Within an hour or so, dusk begins to fall. Within another hour, it is completely dark. Cleo indicates to the group to follow her. They head slowly back in the direction of Cheops and the other camels. When they come into sight, they are no longer alone. There is a man sat right beside each camel, asleep. A couple of the men are snoring loudly.

Cleo gives the sign and her group gets started. Slowly, they fill their cheeks up with the contents of their stomach and mix it with their saliva. As they do, their cheeks bulge.

Then, all at once, they spit over in the direction of the men. Startled, the men jump up from their slumber, as they feel the shower of wet droplets hit their skin. They look panicked.

“Rainstorm!” one shouts. “Flash flood!” shouts another.

The men turn and run all the way down the street towards their homes.

As soon as they’ve gone, Cleo and her family and friends help untie Cheops and the other camels.

“There you go, you’re free now,” says Cleo, smiling.

“Thank you so much,” says Cheops.

“Come on, let’s go, before they realise that wasn’t rain,” Cleo whispers to them.

Cheops and his friends tag on to the end of Cleo’s camel group and they all strut quickly off into the night. Cleo is so pleased she’s been able help Cheops and his friends. But she doesn’t think they should be around when the men return. She suspects they’ll definitely have the hump!

Questions for discussion

What do you do to keep calm so you don’t waste energy being nervous or angry?

Can you find out what other animals are sometimes exploited?

What could you do to help stop animal exploitation?