NARRATOR:
In his dashing green socks, feeling fearless and fine,
Cosmo walked to the bus stop and waited in line.
(We see a bull leaving the china shop with a blue teacup.)
Before long, rumbling hard past the old china shop,
The Big City Bus lumbered up to the stop.
(On the side of the bus is an ad for a circus, featuring an elephant wearing a fez. Cosmo boards the bus. The other bus passengers are a mixture of people and animals. There are a couple of opossums who look like they’re on their way to see a baseball game. A leprechaun, dressed all in green, is driving the bus and eating a corn dog.)
LEPRECHAUN:
Nice socks, kid!
NARRATOR:
the leprechaun bus driver said.
COSMO:
Nice hat!
NARRATOR:
Cosmo answered, and moved on ahead.
COSMO (to himself):
It’s nice...but not perfect.
NARRATOR:
he pondered.
COSMO:
So be it.
I know that I’ll know the right hat when I see it.
(The bus leaves Cosmo’s village, time elapses, and it arrives in the Big City.)
NARRATOR:
That Big City Bus seemed to grow itty-bitty
Compared to the skyscrapers of the Big City!
Cosmo stepped off the bus and was instantly wowed
By the size of the bustling and boisterous crowd.
Then he noticed the costumes and signs they had made.
It was time for the annual Egg Day Parade!
(In the streets we see a parade about to begin, with huge Macy’s-style balloons.)
A parade is a party, and Cosmo knew that’s
Not the best time for hunting down shops that have hats.
Through the mob scene he spotted a building nearby,
So tall that it scraped the top bit of the sky.
Cosmo dashed through the lobby, flew past the gift shop,
Found the big elevator, and pressed “T” for “Top”.
(We see the elevator doors close and then open; Cosmo is now on the roof.)
He ran to the railing and started to stare
Down below, through the rooftop binoculars there.
COSMO:
The crowd is so thick that I can’t see the ground,
But there must be a second-hand hat shop around...
NARRATOR:
Then Cosmo saw something that made him go slack:
A pair of gargantuan eyes staring back!
A chicken balloon from the Egg Day Parade
Had escaped, leaving cables (and handlers’ nerves) frayed!
As it rose, Cosmo realized a puppeteer’s habit:
When there’s a string dangling, you can’t help but grab it.
The chicken continued its rubbery rise
And lifted our hero up into the skies!
Cosmo’s brain was bewildered. His pulse seemed to quicken.
(Whose wouldn’t, when hung from a big rubber chicken?)
Away from the city they flew on the breeze,
Till the landscape below was a blanket of trees.
This made Cosmo calmer. The view was quite grand!
But perhaps it was time he worked out how to land...
And just at that moment he heard a voice say:
BIRD:
You’re the first flying chicken boy I’ve seen today!
NARRATOR:
A curious bird had come fluttering by
To see Cosmo’s predicament up in the sky.
COSMO:
I’d like to come down. Can you do anything?
BIRD:
Why, I ought to be able to lend you a wing.
Your balloon is so big that it wouldn’t be good
To try for a landing down there in the wood.
NARRATOR:
With her talons she grabbed onto young Cosmo’s shirt.
BIRD:
I see only two places to land that won’t hurt:
That mountain ahead that’s amazingly large,
Or the river below, on that wide floating barge.
NARRATOR:
So:
With only two landings where Cosmo won’t bruise —
The barge or the mountaintop — which do you choose?
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