The other animals called him “Coloso” for short, but they whispered it with a mix of awe and a little bit of giggling. You see, Coloso Champi Coloso was a giant mushroom. Not a mushroom in the way that a toadstool is a mushroom—small and easily kicked over. No, Coloso was a magnificent, ten-foot-tall, creamy-golden fungus with a cap as wide as a cartwheel and a stem thick as an ancient oak.

Coloso plunged his root-legs deep into the mud at the narrowest part of the gorge. He braced his thick stem against the current. Then he tilted his enormous cap forward, forming a perfect, glowing shield.

Every morning, he would unfurl his cap to catch the first rays of sun and watch the valley wake up. The foxes would dash, the squirrels would chatter, the bees would zoom with purpose. But whenever Coloso tried to join in, disaster struck.