The owl, a very smart bird, was teaching a group of animals about dinosaurs. “Dinosaurs,” said the owl, “were the biggest, strongest, and meanest animals that ever lived. They had no enemies that would fight them, because all the other animals on the earth were afraid of them. So the dinosaurs walked on earth longer than any other animal; that is, until all of them began to die.”
“Why did they die?” asked a small brown bear in the group.
“No one knows the whole story,” said the owl, “but I can tell you this — the smallest and most dangerous creatures on earth killed all the dinosaurs.”
“And what are they called?” asked an elephant.
“Germs,” answered the owl.
“Germs?” questioned a tiger. “I’ve never heard of germs.”
“That’s because you can’t see them,” said the owl. “They are the smallest living creatures in the world, a thousand times smaller than ants.”
“I beg your pardon,” said a burly lion, “but I find this hard to believe. How could the smallest living creatures in the world kill the biggest creatures in the world?”
“I’ll tell you,” exclaimed the owl. “You see, there are good germs and there are bad germs, and they all are everywhere, even in the air we breathe and in the food we eat. The bad germs can make you sick. However, the good germs are our friends. They fight the bad germs and help us to stay healthy. But the dinosaurs didn’t know about germs, and one day something terrible and earthshaking happened. A big, black cloud in the sky covered the whole earth and blocked out the sunshine. The earth remained dark for a long, long time. Without sunlight, the good germs became weaker and began to die. But the bad germs became stronger, because they like the darkness.
“Soon all the trees and plants on earth began to die. Then the dinosaurs had nothing left to eat and became weak. And that’s when all the bad germs attacked the dinosaurs and made them sick. There were no good germs left to help them.
“One day the wind finally blew the dark clouds away, and the sun came shining through again. But by that time all the dinosaurs had died and were gone forever.”
“Gosh,” said the elephant, “that was quite a story. But what about the bad germs? Are they still here?”
“Yes,” answered the owl, “but we now know how to keep them from making us sick.”
“And how do we do that?” shouted a monkey.
The owl replied, “I’ll teach you the words to a funny little song that all the bad germs sing. It goes like this:
Clean everything you eat.