A Crazy Day with Cobras

by Mary Pope Osborne

  Jack whirled around to Annie. “This is awful!” he whispered. “We have to get out of here!”

  “Calm down,” said Annie. “We don’t have a choice.” She rubbed her hand over her purple silk coat. “I love these clothes.”

  “Oh, brother,” said Jack, sighing. But he took off his hot jacket and pulled on his orange coat and tied the sash. He definitely felt cooler in the soft silk coat, but the puffy pants made the coat balloon out around his waist. “I really hate this,” he groaned.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll leave right after the parade,” said Annie. She tucked her braids under her orange turban. “Do I still look like a boy?”

  “You look ridiculous,” said Jack. “We both look ridiculous. We have to make some excuse so we can leave.”

  “Don’t you want to see the parade?” asked Annie.

  “Not with a person who kills you if you speak to him or bow the wrong way,” said Jack.

  “Maybe we won’t have to bow again,” said Annie.

  “You’re missing my point,” said Jack. He put on his blue turban. Then he took off his buckled shoes and pulled on the pointy slippers.

  Annie looked at him and laughed.

  “Not funny,” said Jack.

  “Well, don’t forget, if we run into trouble, we can always drink the potion and make ourselves small,” said Annie.

  “And get squashed by the Mogul’s guards? No thank you,” said Jack.

  Annie laughed again.

  “Not funny,” said Jack.

  The imperial guard pushed open the curtain to the dressing room. “Come with me now,” he said.

  Jack and Annie followed the guard out of the chamber and down a hallway of the palace. “Remember, don’t talk to the other ambassadors,” whispered Jack. “And never, ever say anything to the Great Mogul. Promise?”

  “Don’t worry, I know what to do,” whispered Annie.

  Jack and Annie followed the guard through another chamber and out to a wide, shaded balcony. The balcony overlooked a river and a sandy shore.

  The Great Mogul stood near the railing of the balcony, with imperial guards surrounding him. The ambassadors stood in a row behind them. Jack was relieved to see that they, too, were wearing pointy shoes and silk coats that stuck out.

  Jack gestured to Annie to stand behind the ambassadors. He hoped none of them would try to talk to him. He was relieved to hear trumpets suddenly blaring and drums booming. All the men stepped forward to watch the parade.

  Musicians came first. Hundreds of them marched in formation down the flat sandy shore between the palace and the river. Some blew long golden trumpets. Others beat drums tied around their bodies.

  Dozens of flag bearers followed the musicians, their red and yellow banners waving in the hot, dry wind. After them came row after row of tall, elegant horses with golden bridles. Some were dark gray. Others were copper colored, milk white, or midnight black.

  “One hundred Arabian horses!” an imperial guard announced to the ambassadors. “The most beautiful animals in the world!”

  Jack glanced at the Great Mogul. The ruler was coldly watching the parade.

  Next came carts pulled by white oxen. Riding on the carts were cheetahs with tan fur and black spots. They wore gold collars that glittered in the sunlight.

  “One hundred cheetahs!” announced the guard. “The fastest land animals in the world!”

  Then came rows and rows of elephants kicking up a sea of dust. They looked like a fleet of gray ships.

  “One hundred elephants caught in the wild!” said the guard. “The largest land animals in the world!”

  The elephants wore gold chains and silver bells around their necks. The tops of their heads were covered with fancy fringed cloth. On their backs were straw carriages with riders inside.

  “Oh, wow, elephants,” said Annie, her eyes shining.

  “Shhh! We can’t talk,” whispered Jack.

  Elephants, oxen, and horses all stepped in time to the beat of the drums and the blare of the trumpets.

  Suddenly the music was interrupted by wild shrieks and bellows.

  The Great Mogul, his guards, and the ambassadors all moved to get a better view. Jack and Annie stood on their tiptoes to see what was happening.

  Jack could see that an elephant had broken out of line and left the parade. Guards were struggling to capture it. The elephant had reared up on its hind legs, and its rider had tumbled from the carriage on its back. The elephant was making a terrible noise, like a screaming trumpet.

  “What’s happening? What’s making that noise?” said Annie.

  “An elephant,” whispered Jack.

  “Oh, no!” said Annie.

  Jack grabbed her by the arm. “Don’t say anything. Don’t do anything,” he whispered. “Think of Penny.”

  “I am! I hate it when animals are hurt!” said Annie. She pulled away from Jack and slipped through the row of ambassadors.

  Jack moved after her. “Annie! Come back!” he whispered.

  One of the guards saw Annie heading toward the railing where the Great Mogul stood. He quickly stepped in front of her.

  “Excuse me, sir, I’m worried about that elephant,” Annie said in a low voice. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “She tried to escape,” the guard said. “They are capturing her now.”

  “What’s going to happen to her?” asked Annie, trying to look around the guard.

  “She will be punished,” said the guard.

  “What?” said Annie. “Why?”

  “She has failed to show respect for the Great Mogul,” said the guard.

  “What?” Annie said.

  “Annie!” Jack warned.

  But Annie didn’t seem to hear him. “That’s crazy! She’s just an animal!” she said to the guard. Her voice was fierce.

  “Annie, quiet! Please!” said Jack.

  The imperial guards and the other ambassadors were looking at Annie with alarm. Worst of all, the Great Mogul was staring at her, too.

  “Your Majesty, sir!” Annie called to the Great Mogul. “She’s just an animal! Please don’t let anyone hurt her!”

  “Shhh! You can’t talk to him!” Jack whispered furiously.

  “Please help her!” Annie said to the Great Mogul. “She doesn’t know how great you are. She doesn’t know she should respect you.”

  The Great Mogul kept staring at Annie but said nothing.

  “Don’t you love animals?” Annie asked.

  The Great Mogul didn’t answer.

  “Don’t you love anything?” asked Annie.

  The ambassadors gasped. Two of the guards grabbed Annie by her arms.

  “No, please, she—he can’t help it!” Jack explained to the guards. “That’s just the way my brother is. He can’t stop himself from talking. Please, tell your ruler that!”

  The Great Mogul murmured something to a bodyguard. Then he turned and left the balcony.

  The guard looked startled. He said something in a low voice to the men holding Annie. Jack held his breath. Were they going to drag her away? To his surprise, the guards let Annie go.

  “Is the Great Mogul going to punish the elephant?” Annie asked.

  “No, he is not,” a guard said. “He has given her to you as a gift.”

  “What?” said Jack.

  “Really?” said Annie.

  “Given her to us as a gift? What does that mean, exactly?” Jack asked.

  “It means you must take her home,” said the guard. “Back to your own country.”

  “Take the elephant home?” said Jack.

  “Come with me,” the guard said.

  “Come on, Jack!” Annie called as she hurried after the guard, leaving the balcony.

  “Take the elephant home?” Jack repeated.

  The ambassadors were still gaping at him. “Who are you?” one of them asked. “Where are you from?”

  “Jack, ambassador from Frog Creek,” said Jack. “Excuse me.” In a daze, he hurried after Annie
and the guard. When he caught up to them, he whispered to Annie, “Have you lost your mind? We can’t take an elephant home!”

  “We can’t let her stay here, either,” said Annie.

  “They’ll punish her!”

  “Okay. Then you can be the one who carries her up the rope ladder,” said Jack.

  “Ha-ha,” said Annie.

  “It’s not ha-ha,” said Jack, “it’s insane.”

  “Look, let’s just get her out of the Red Fort first,” said Annie. “Then we’ll figure out what to do.”

  Jack and Annie followed the guard until they emerged at the edge of the square in front of the Hall of Public Audience. Several guards were scuffling with the elephant. They had a rope around her neck. Her ears were flapping. She was snorting and stamping her feet.

  The guards pulled on the rope, forcing the elephant down on her knees. Her eyes looked desperate and furious.

  “Hey, don’t hurt her!” Jack blurted out.

  A guard pointed his saber at Jack. “Climb on. Now. Both of you,” he said. “You have caused enough trouble this day. It is a miracle you are still alive!”

  Jack clutched his bag and scrambled awkwardly into the straw carriage on the elephant’s back. Annie climbed in behind him. Crammed together, they gripped the sides of the carriage.

  “Her name is Morning Breeze!” the guard shouted. “Take her back to your own land! Go now! Before the Great Mogul changes his mind!”

  As if obeying the guard, Morning Breeze rose to her full height. She moved quickly across the square and headed down the stone road that led to the gate.

  Jack and Annie bounced up and down. They clutched the sides of the straw carriage, trying not to fall out. Jack could hear the guards roaring with laughter behind them. “Slow down!” Jack shouted to the elephant.

  But Morning Breeze ran even faster, her big leathery ears flapping and her bells jangling.

  “She’s more like a wind than a breeze!” shouted Annie.

  “More like a tornado!” Jack yelled.

  Morning Breeze thundered through the gate and over the wooden drawbridge. Jack and Annie held on to the sides of the carriage for dear life. After she’d crossed the moat, the elephant finally slowed to a walk.

  Morning Breeze held her trunk high. She seemed to be sniffing the hot wind. Her ears spread out as if she were listening for a distant sound.

  “We’re near the tree house! It’s right there in that row of trees!” said Jack. “We have the emerald rose. If we can just make her stop, we can jump off and go home. We can get out of this heat and away from this place—”

  “I know, I know,” said Annie. “But—”

  “Stop! Stop, Morning Breeze!” said Jack. “Let us off!”

  “But what about her?” said Annie. “We can’t just leave her here by herself!”

  Jack looked at Morning Breeze’s trunk waving in the air. He heard what sounded like crying coming from the wild elephant. She seemed terribly lost and sad.

  Suddenly Jack wanted desperately to help the elephant get back to the wild, wherever that was. “All right,” he said. “Keep going. Go fast!” His voice rose to a shout. “Hurry! Go, Morning Breeze! Go!”

  Her trunk high in the air, Morning Breeze kept sniffing the hot wind.

  “We’ll get her away from here!” Jack said to Annie. “Then you and I can walk back to the tree house!”

  “Great!” said Annie.

  “Go!” Jack yelled again at the elephant. “Go home! Go home!” He looked over his shoulder. He was afraid the Great Mogul might change his mind and send his guards after them.

  Morning Breeze let out a long, deep rumble and flapped her ears, as if she’d finally heard a distant call or caught a special scent. Her rumbling cries grew louder and louder—rrrrrrRRRRRR! She lumbered away from the drawbridge of the Red Fort.

  Jack was sure the elephant would start down the street filled with horses and oxcarts. But Morning Breeze headed up the other street, the one that went through the bazaar.

  “No, no! Go the other way!” cried Jack.

  The elephant began to run. Her flat oval feet thumped against the road as she headed toward the tents and stalls of the bazaar. The street was crowded with merchants and shoppers—bearded men in colorful coats and women in outfits that completely hid their faces and bodies.

  “Watch out, everyone!” Annie cried.

  As the elephant ran between the busy stalls, everyone scrambled out of her way.

  “Sorry! Sorry!” yelled Jack.

  “Rogue elephant!” a banana seller shouted.

  “Sorry! Sorry!” Jack kept shouting.

  Morning Breeze knocked over wooden poles that supported white tents. The tents collapsed onto burlap bags filled with figs, rice, and peas. She knocked over baskets of lemons, oranges, and pineapples.

  Angry merchants yelled and shook their fists.

  “She’s from the wild! She can’t help it!” Annie cried.

  “Sorry! Sorry!” Jack said.

  Morning Breeze pulled down hanging silk shawls and carpets with her trunk. The silk merchant shouted with rage. He and the other sellers grabbed sticks and charged at the elephant. Jack and Annie scrunched down in their small straw carriage.

  “Hurry! Go! Go!” Jack called to Morning Breeze.

  With the merchants all chasing after her, Morning Breeze bolted from the bazaar. She started down a narrow pebbled road that soon became a dirt path. She left the bearded merchants shouting angrily in the dust.

  Morning Breeze kept running down the path, passing farms with small mud huts. Sheep and goats bleated and scuttled out of her way. Chickens clucked and scattered.

  Her bells jangling wildly, the elephant clomped past women and girls tending outdoor cooking fires. She lumbered past men and boys unloading hay from wooden carts.

  “Hi! Hi! Excuse us!” Annie yelled, waving. Jack tried to smile as he clung to the sides of the swaying carriage.

  No one smiled or waved back. Everyone stared in shock as the elephant thundered by.

  Morning Breeze ran to the end of the dirt path. But she didn’t stop there. She kept running, cutting her own path through a sun-scorched field. Jack felt as if they were riding a big gray ship on waves of tall yellow grass.

  “This is fun!” said Annie.

  Not really, thought Jack. Where in the world were they going?

  A million insects hummed and buzzed. Butterflies and dragonflies darted about. The elephant burst from the sea of grass and charged into a scrubby forest. As she plowed through shrubs and trees, birds cawed and flapped out of the brush.

  “Okay, slow down, Morning Breeze!” yelled Jack. “You’re back in the wild, so you can let us off now! We need to—”

  Before he could finish, the elephant lifted her trunk and let out a loud shriek. She reared up on her hind legs. Jack and Annie tumbled out of the carriage. They slid down the elephant’s back and fell onto the ground. Morning Breeze shrieked again and tore away through the forest.

  Jack and Annie lay in the dirt. They heard the elephant trampling plants and crashing through bushes. They heard her bells jangling. Then the sounds faded away.

  “Are you okay?” Annie asked.

  “Yep,” said Jack. “But that wasn’t very polite of her.”

  Annie laughed. “Well, you asked her to let us off,” she said.

  “Yeah, but not dump us off,” said Jack. He waved away flies and slapped at mosquitoes. He felt sweaty and thirsty and exhausted. “I wonder how long it will take us to get back to the tree house?”

  “I don’t know—let’s just start retracing our steps,” said Annie.

  Jack and Annie stood up and brushed the dirt off their coats.

  “Hey, where’s your bag?” asked Annie.

  “My bag?” said Jack. Where was it? He whirled around. He saw it lying in the grass.

  “There!” he said. He hurried to his bag and picked it up. It was open. “Oh, no!” He reached in and pulled out their research book,
the blue bottle, and Teddy and Kathleen’s note. He searched frantically for the emerald rose.

  “I don’t believe it! The emerald’s missing!” cried Jack.

  “It must have slipped out when we fell off Morning Breeze,” said Annie. “We’ll find it. It has to be here somewhere.”

  Jack shoved everything back into his bag. Then he and Annie got down on their hands and knees. Jack looked intently at the forest undergrowth—the dried vegetation, sticks, clumps of dirt, and rotten leaves.

  “I can’t believe this!” said Jack. They had been so close to returning home, their mission done. Now they were stuck in the middle of nowhere and the emerald rose was missing. “I don’t see it. It’s not here. Maybe it fell out at the bazaar when—”

  “Bingo!” said Annie. “There it is!”

  “Where? Where?” said Jack.

  “There!” Annie said, pointing.

  Jack saw it. The emerald rose glittered like a tiny green light in a small, sunlit clearing. It was lying next to a mound of earth and dead leaves.

  “Yes!” said Jack. He and Annie scrambled to their feet and headed for the mound.

  But when they got closer, Annie grabbed his arm. “Wait! There’s something weird happening there,” she whispered. “Very weird. See?”

  “What? Where?” said Jack.

  Annie pointed to the mound. Something very weird was happening. The earth and leaves seemed to be moving! Then Jack saw speckled yellow bands and two shiny black eyes.

  Jack gasped. “Oh, no,” he whispered. “A king cobra!”

  The king cobra circled the leafy mound. Its skin was olive brown, the color of the dead leaves. It had speckled yellow bands that ran around its scaly body.

  “Back up, back up. Go slow,” Jack whispered to Annie. Jack picked up his bag, and they quietly stepped backward, until they got to the edge of the clearing. “Now run!”

  Jack and Annie took off. Clutching his bag, Jack ran with little steps, trying not to lose his pointy slippers. After about a hundred yards, Annie came to a halt. “Stop, stop!” She grabbed Jack’s arm. “We shouldn’t get too far away!”