The elephant in the room was just a baby. A cute baby but a baby all the same, doing the things babies do: leaving a puddle in the middle of the ambassador's priceless Aubusson carpet; heading for the table laden with caviar canapés, foie gras focaccia, cucumber sandwiches, devilled kidneys on fingers of toast and platefuls of other delicacies designed to delight the ambassador's guests.

 

The elephant in the room looked a little lost. As he turned his head from side to side, his swinging trunk demolished a pyramid of Ferraro Rocher which tumbled over the crisply starched table cloth and bounced on to the floor.

 

The elephant in the room looked at one small ball wrapped in gold foil and tentatively picked it up with the sensitive tip of his trunk. The foil tickled and the elephant in the room sneezed, sending the Ferraro Rocher sailing above the crowd. The French ambassador leapt in the air and caught it. "How  eez zat?" he shouted. And there was a round of applause. 

 

The elephant in the room looked intrigued. He siphoned up another sweet and blew it into the air. This time it was the German chargé d'affaires who was the catcher.

 

But the elephant in the room had noticed something bigger and better - a cake stand of cream puffs. Seconds later the Dutch envoy wiped cream from his eye and threw the bun back to the elephant in the room who was not yet good at catching so that the bun added to the pattern on the priceless Aubusson carpet.

 

Soon the ambassador's reception had turned into a riot of flying food as guests formed into an impromptu tournament of the nations.

 

Suddenly there was an ear-splitting trumpet and everyone froze in their place. Through the open french window peered the face of an elephant mother. Reproving her errant infant with a sharp harumpph, she ushered him firmly from the room.

 

There was no longer an elephant in the room, but there were a lot of sheepish looks as the assembled  diplomats surveyed the aftermath of his visit.

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By Janet Bone