There once lived Kenny the Koala, who was a really decent chap. He always walked around with a smile on his face and was at all times kind and considerate to everyone around him: the old kangaroos and the young kangaroos, the adult kookaburras and the young fledglings, too. He never failed to take off his hat and say “G’day” to every animal he met, to inquire of their health and ask them if they needed assistance with anything.

After a while, the other animals grew really suspicious of Kenny the Koala. “What could possibly be the reason for him being so nice and respectful to everyone? Surely there must be an ulterior motive there!” they would whisper to one another as Kenny strolled merrily past them on his morning walk.

And so they asked Mona the Monitor Lizard to furtively observe Kenny’s behaviour in his private life. Surely Kenny must drop his niceness and reveal his true nature when he is home, the kangaroos, echidnas and wombats thought.

After a few weeks of around-the-clock surveillance, Mona the Monitor Lizard came back with the results: Kenny the Koala was just as kind and considerate in his private life as he was in his public life. He never raised his voice, never threw tantrums, and never said or did anything mean at home.

Still the creatures of the bush were not convinced of Kenny’s goodness, so they next came up with the brilliant plan of surreptitiously attaching a tiny mind-reading device to the top of Kenny’s furry round head. This way they would finally have indisputable proof of the nasty thoughts he kept hidden inside him. The kangaroos, echidnas and wombats rubbed their paws together in glee as they impatiently awaited the results. At last they would find out what he really thought of them and what bad thoughts were going through his head even as he pretended to do good deeds. “Surely”, they said to one another, “it can not be that Kenny does not have any impure thoughts of envy, greed, vanity and hatred. Undoubtedly, he must expose his real genuine self in what he considers to be the absolute privacy of his mind!”

Alas, the thoughts the mind-reading machine recorded were just as pure and virtuous as Kenny’s actions.

No hateful thought ever crossed his mind; he only had affectionate views of each and every creature in the bush. The animals were flabbergasted and dismayed. They had searched every nook and cranny of Kenny’s mind for just one unkind thought about someone, for just some inkling of malice or jealousy, but none were found.

And so the forest creatures grew angry and frustrated with Kenny the Koala for always being so nice, happy and kind. “We can’t have such a dangerous weirdo in our midst!” they proclaimed. “Something drastic has to be done, and done immediately!”

They decided to confront Kenny and to ask for an explanation for his odd conduct. “Kenny the Koala, why are you always so nice and pure in thought and heart?” they demanded to know. “Why are you always so happy and kind to everyone?“

This out-of-the-blue outburst from the kangaroos, echidnas and wombats really distressed Kenny the Koala. He began to worry about why he did not think badly of anyone and to feel guilty about stirring up trouble and disrupting the smooth running of the animal society with his objectionable oddball behaviour. He forgot about doing his good deeds and would instead spend his days obsessively searching his mind for just one mean thought about someone. And that’s how it came to be that he had a complete nervous breakdown, was declared to be raving mad and carted off to the Maximum Security Institution for the Criminally Insane Native Fauna.

And that is where Kenny the Koala remains languishing and alone to this very day, with no visitors and no hope of ever being released.

And the moral of this story is that no good deed ever goes unpunished.

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