Collum Ollum

Collum embodies mischief. He’s a really naughty guy, and good friends with Dash. In fact, he’s good friends with everyone.

Collum carries a toothy grin around with him wherever he goes – even to the dentist.

His personal motto is: “There is always mischief to be made”. While he certainly indulges in this as a daily practice, Collum’s mischief is always “good” mischief, i.e. he never harms anyone or anything. It’s more like trickery. Sometimes his tricks do go wrong though.

His favourite trick is hiding people’s food. He’s perfected it to a fine art, and he’s not scared to do it to adults. For example, if Collum gets invited to dinner at a friend’s house for the first time, once siting at the table, with adults he’s just met, he’ll dramatically point to something across the room, and then when the dad turns to look, Collum will grab the dad’s plate of food, and hide it on his lap beneath the table. The dad will then turn around and his food will be gone. It’s risky, but always funny. Once Collum did it to a newly-encountered but very grumpy dad. Collum thought it would cheer the grumpy dad up. Boy was he wrong. During the rapid hiding process, Collum dropped the plate onto the floor. The dad was not impressed, and Collum was banned from their house. But that’s the risk he’s willing to take. “Mischief-making is for the brave.” That’s his backup personal motto (for when things go wrong).

Collum once found an injured baby swed on the outskirts of the Moremi Forest. He brought her home, named her Humpetta, and raised her as a pet. She lived happily with the Ollums for several years. But one night she simply chewed through the fence and left. Collum followed her footprints to the entrance of Moremi Forest and that was it. He knew he’d never find her again. She’d rejoined her herd deep within the forest.

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