The Realm of Imagination

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The Realm of Imagination Page 9

by Ruskin Bond


  Stepping back to the firing board, he took a deep breath and pushed the button. For the briefest moment there was nothing, only a dreadful silence. He let out a tiny gasp.

  Then, as though finished with its little joke, the rocket roared to life. Spitting smoke, it leaped from the pad — true in its direction — slicing the air effortlessly. It climbed wonderfully. Tom anxiously awaited the second puff. When it came, the rocket sped higher, seeming as though it could puncture the blue sky and speed into space. The parachute deployed, and it drifted down leisurely.

  Tom ran out into the field as the rocket swung to the ground. As he picked it up along with the first stage, he heard the numbers being announced.

  They were read in the order of the flights. Tom ignored them, only interested in his and Ed’s.

  “Ed Malovich,” the announcer boomed. Tom perked up and watched Ed. “Eleven hundred fifty feet.” The crowd came to life. No one else had reached a thousand feet.

  Tom wrapped the string from the parachute around his hand. For the first time, he realized he was standing in the field alone. Alone in victory or a sitting duck in defeat, he thought.

  He started walking as his name was called. He stopped. The crackle of paper came over the loudspeaker, and there was a pause. Tom stared at the mountains in the distance.

  “Eleven hundred feet.”

  The number struck Tom a blow. He began walking one way then turned, not sure of where he was going. Voices spread from the bleachers, a great noise from which he wanted to escape.

  Squeezing his rocket, he strode from the field. At his toolbox he methodically put everything in its place, amazed at how his attention to detail hadn’t left him at this horrible moment. Still his hands gripped each object as though he hated it.

  A hand fell on his shoulder. He kept his head down, not wishing to face his father. But that’s not who it was.

  “Thanks,” Ed said, when Tom finally looked up. “Sorry you didn’t win.” Tom could almost feel that he meant it. He stood up.

  He noticed a few other kids who’d gathered around him. A tall boy walked past and smirked. “Finally got your butt kicked, huh, Perry,” he said. Tom stepped backward, glancing at the others.

  “Don’t mind him,” the blond girl said. “It was nice what you did. Both of you are great rocketeers.”

  Another boy piped up. “Do you think you could help us with ours?”

  “I’d like one to fly up, not down,” the blond girl said. Everyone laughed.

  “Well, sure,” Tom replied. He felt awkward. “Anytime.”

  “We’re going over to my house,” Ed spoke up. “See you there?”

  Tom could only nod. He wanted to say something, but just couldn’t. All he did was stare after everyone as they left. At that moment he felt relaxed, and the competition seemed very far away.

  The Eighteenth Camel

  A Retelling of an Old Bedouin Folk Tale

  by Thelma Schmidhauser

  Illustrated by Rupert van Wyk

  Before the invention of mechanical vehicles, camels furnished transportation for many peoples of the Arabian deserts and were valued for their milk, meat, and skins. So important were they to the desert economy that a Bedouin would measure his wealth by the number of camels he owned.

  A tale is told of a certain wealthy Bedouin who, upon his death, left seventeen camels to be divided among three heirs. The first heir was to get half of the camels, the second a third, and the third heir … one-ninth of the lot.

  By such a division, the first heir would get eight and a half camels, while the second heir received five and two-thirds, and the third heir would inherit only one and eight-ninths of a camel. The situation seemed impossible to resolve. None of the heirs would sell his share to the others, and certainly none of them wanted to kill any of the camels, for the beasts were much more valuable alive than dead. Tempers flared. Angry words were spoken.

  Now, in the area lived a wealthy Arabian woman. Distressed by the quarreling, she offered the heirs one of her own camels in hopes of resolving the dispute.

  They now had eighteen camels to mete. The first heir received his half, nine camels. The second heir received six camels—his one-third share. And the last heir received two camels, one-ninth of the eighteen.

  To their surprise, they found that there was one camel remaining. For, when added together, nine plus six plus two equals only seventeen. So they returned her camel to the woman with their thanks.

  Without her camel, the inheritance would not have been peacefully resolved. Though it would seem that she had done nothing — for she had neither lost nor gained an animal — she was what is sometimes needed to bring about an action … a catalyst. Her action was worth more than any wealth she could have given to the heirs.

  The Camel and Hassan Djiwa

  by Stephen Davies

  Illustrated by Rupert van Wyk

  In the west of Africa there is a hot, dry country called Burkina Faso. You can find it on a map if you look hard enough. The Fulani people of Burkina Faso say that God has one hundred names and that humans know ninety-nine of them. They say that only the camel knows the hundredth name of God, and that is why it smirks.

  Hassan Djiwa of Gorom-Gorom was a bad man. He was not all bad — he loved his mother and he hardly ever forgot to feed Haroun, his pet aardvark. But he was mostly bad. He would lie, cheat, steal, and make pirate cassettes of copyrighted music. Hassan was a businessman of sorts. He would buy cheap trainers and T-shirts at Gorom-Gorom market and get his mother to embroider Nike on them. Then he would walk to the big town of Dori and sell them at high prices.

  One day, Hassan was walking back from Dori and he was feeling sad. He had not sold any T-shirts or trainers that day, and no one had even glanced at his stack of Ali Farka Toure’s Greatest Hits. And now he had to walk all the way back to Gorom-Gorom on an empty stomach.

  Before he had gone far, he came across a dromedary eating thorns off a tall acacia tree. (Camels really do eat thorns — that is one amazing thing about them.) He gazed at it, thinking about how much quicker the journey home would be if he could ride this camel.

  Hassan did not think for long. He ran up and leaped toward the camel. It stepped aside, and Hassan landed in the thorn tree.

  “Zorki!” he shouted. That is a Songhai word, but Fulani people use it, too. It is very rude, so please don’t say it if you are in Africa. But if you are in England or America, you can say it as much as you like, and no one will tell you off.

  Hassan leaped again, and this time he landed on the camel’s back.

  “Hup!” he cried, but the camel refused to budge. Hassan boxed its ears with all his might, and they arrived in Gorom-Gorom before sunset.

  Hassan did not like his new camel very much. It was ugly and it spat at him whenever he came close. Also, his mother was unhappy about having a stolen camel in her yard. She did not object to defrauding large multinational companies, but stealing a valuable animal from another poor Fulani man, that was different. She served up nothing but baobab leaves every day to show how peeved she was.

  Hassan did not like baobab leaves one little bit, and he decided to sell the dromedary at the next market. It should fetch enough money to buy a whole cartload of blank cassettes, he thought.

  But something happened that changed Hassan’s mind. On market day he got up early, put on his paisley turban, and fed Haroun. When he went to untie the camel, it launched a big glob of spit that landed in his left eye. But Hassan did not box the camel’s ears; he did not even say zorki. He had noticed something with his right eye that made him gape in wonder.

  In the dust beneath the camel, three Arabic letters were clearly written:

  H-S-N. Hassan. His name.

  As a young man Hassan had trained to be a marabout, so he could read and understand Arabic quite fluently. But who had come into his yard in the night and written his name underneath the camel? This was a mystery that demanded careful attention. He would not sell the camel today.
He would wait and see what happened.

  The wind was high that market day, and the men of Gorom-Gorom leaned forward as they walked, holding their turbans tightly over nose and mouth. Hassan went to market to haggle for white T-shirts, but he could not concentrate. He kept thinking about the writing in the dust under his camel. He returned home to look at it again, but the wind had already obliterated all trace of the letters.

  The next morning, Hassan woke early, fed Haroun, and put on his neon yellow turban. Then he went outside to look at the camel. There in the dust was written as clear as day:

  Hassan’s mouth dropped open in surprise, just as the camel spat. That is gross, so let us not dwell on it.

  That night, Hassan did not go to sleep. Someone was playing a prank on him, and he intended to find out who. There was a huge clay water pot in the corner of the yard. Hassan emptied out the water and bored a small peephole through the clay. Then he climbed inside and lowered the lid. It was cold in the pot, but Hassan did not mind. He would keep watch there all night if he needed to.

  The camel knelt down to sleep, folding its eight knees neatly beneath itself. (Camels have two knees on each leg — yet another amazing thing about them.) It did not lay its head on the ground, but held it up high. That’s how camels sleep.

  By the light of the moon, Hassan watched and watched and watched, until his eyes ached. No one came. The only sounds were from inside the hut, where his mother was snoring.

  At four-thirty in the morning, the prayer call rang out from the mosque. The camel woke and stood up. It sniffed the air. Then it raised one hoof slightly off the ground and put its head on one side as if deep in thought. Hassan watched, agog.

  The camel lowered its hoof and began to trace shapes in the dust. Hassan jumped, banging his head so hard on the lid of the clay pot that he blacked out. When he woke up, it was afternoon. Hassan climbed out of the water pot and ran over to where his camel was tied up. The letters were still visible in the red dust:

  This was inconceivably good luck. Hassan had a camel that could write! He would be rich. He would be famous. He would never have to record another Ali Farka Toure cassette in his life. Better still, he would never again have to eat baobab leaves.

  There was no time to lose — the camel’s training regime must start immediately. Hassan would cajole that animal and box its ears until it could write entire genealogies and ballads. Natural talent must be harnessed, Hassan said to himself.

  Hassan started with something simple. He stood beside the camel, took a stick, and traced on the ground, from right to left, the following words:

  Hassan is great and generous and good.

  “Copy that as neatly as you can,” he said to the camel, and with the stick he rapped its eight knees one by one. The camel turned and spat carefully into Hassan’s left ear. This was going to be hard work.

  Gorom-Gorom is a small town where everyone knows everyone, and when two market days passed without an appearance from Hassan, people began to wonder what he was up to. One man in particular was getting anxious. Yero Askula, the town troubadour, had not sold any blank cassettes for a long time, and the continued absence of his best customer perplexed him. Tabaski, the feast of Abraham, was approaching, and Yero Askula needed money to buy a new robe and a nice fat sheep. He decided to pay Hassan Djiwa a visit.

  “Salaam alekum,” called Yero Askula, standing at Hassan’s closed gate and clicking his knuckles anxiously. (The closed gate was unusual in itself. In Africa, people always leave their gates open during the day.)

  “Alekum asalaam,” came Hassan’s voice from behind the gate. “Is that you, Yero Askula? Peace, I hope?”

  “Peace only,” called Yero Askula. “I have brought you some fine C90s with the long thin labels you like so much.”

  “Very kind of you, Yero Askula, but I do not need C90s today, or indeed — Zorki!”

  Yero Askula stood on tiptoes and tried to look over the wall into Hassan’s yard, but he was too short. He clicked his knuckles harder and harder. “What are you doing in there, Hassan Djiwa?”

  “I will show you,” came Hassan’s voice, “on the day of Tabaski. On the day of Tabaski I will show the whole town!”

  Yero Askula returned to the marketplace dejectedly. Robe or sheep. Thanks to Hassan Djiwa’s curious, antisocial antics, he would have to choose one or the other.

  Tabaski dawned at last and countless small children rushed hither and thither in great excitement. Some of them went from door to door, wishing people a blessed feast and asking for sweets. Some of them went straight to the marketplace to get in place for the day’s festivities. Various activities were planned, but there was one thing in particular that the children did not want to miss. The whole town was talking about the special something which Hassan Djiwa would be unveiling that day.

  Inside his yard, Hassan Djiwa rubbed his hands together gleefully. For the fourteenth consecutive time that morning, his camel had accurately reproduced the sentence they had been working at:

  Hassan is great and generous and good.

  Three weeks of painstaking work had paid off. His prodigy was ready to face its audience. Today Gorom-Gorom, tomorrow the world.

  The Tabaski festivities followed their normal course. There was the usual three-stringed guitar contest, won by Yero Askula. There was the usual calabash race for women, won by Mad Mariama of Yengerento, followed by the usual debate amongst the judges as to whether it was acceptable to bewitch the calabash. There was the usual shooting contest, won by blind Gorko Bobo (with an impressive score of sixteen vultures). He won the pouring-tea-from-a-horse competition, too, and no one knew how he managed it.

  But throughout it all, there was an extra-special buzz in the air. What would Hassan Djiwa show them that was so wondrous? They were soon to find out.

  “Salaam alekum,” cried Hassan, leaping out from behind a mango tree. He was wearing his purple polka-dot special-occasion turban.

  “Alekum asalaam!” roared the crowd in a state of ferverish excitement.

  “I have something to show you,” cried Hassan, “that will make your eyes bulge like bullfrogs.”

  “Show us now!” roared the crowd.

  “Camel!” cried Hassan. “Come on down!”

  The crowd parted, and a camel loped down the aisle to join Hassan at the front. It was wearing Ray-Ban sunglasses, and a baobab-leaf cigar stuck out between its teeth.

  “Camel,” said Hassan quietly, “in your own time …”

  The camel chose an area of sand on a slight upward slope, in full view of the people. He smoothed it gently with a hoof, and then began to write. There was a collective gasp followed by an awed hush.

  Hassan picked up a calabash and moved up into the crowd, murmuring “Donations, please” and “Even gifted camels must eat.” By the time he looked over at what the camel was writing, it was already too late.

  The camel had diverged from the agreed script. It was writing fast and fluently, a frown of intense concentration on its face.

  Hassan was overtaken by rage. He ran through the crowd to where blind Gorko Bobo was standing. He seized Gorko Bobo’s rifle. He took aim.

  “Stop him!” someone cried, but to no avail. Children screamed. Women fainted. Men zorkied. And the camel keeled over in midsentence.

  After that, everyone was quiet. Yero Askula, Mad Mariama, and all the people of Gorom-Gorom (except those who had fainted) stared at the shapes in the sand. Most of those present did not understand Arabic. They just felt sorry for the camel that had made such beautiful lettering. The few who did understand Arabic felt a deeper sorrow, for the camel had written:

  Hassan is a thief and dresses badly.

  Please take me back to the house of Diallo Munnyal in Dori.

  By the way, the hundredth name of God is …

  Old Cricket Says

  Have you ever heard beavers talking to each other? My friend Jack D. Remington — Grandpa Jack — has, and apparently they’re quite chatty!

&nbs
p; “Grandma Betty and I often listened to beavers while canoeing in streams and lakes in this country and in Canada. Beaver houses look a little like igloos. The beavers dam a small stream to create a pool, then pile up sticks, plant stems, and mud to form a ‘house’ with an underwater entrance. Along a larger stream or river, they’ll dig a tunnel with a large room into the bank, piling up sticks and mud on top to keep other animals out.

  “The living room (which is also the bedroom and dining room) is always above the water level, and there they spend their days sleeping and eating. When daylight fades, they leave their homes to search for more food. Before they leave, they stretch their arms and legs and have a ‘family conversation.’ If you know where there is an occupied beaver house, just paddle your canoe up to it and listen. Beavers sound sort of like kittens mewing or puppies whining. What are they talking about? Maybe where to find some juicy aspen or cottonwood branches to chew on! Don’t bother to listen during the middle of the day because that’s when they are sleeping.

  “When I was a lot younger I wiggled into an old, very large, very muddy abandoned beaver house in Colorado with four other men. There were no beavers living there because their dam had broken and the water level had dropped, forcing them to move out. All five of us were able to get inside and sit in the beaver bedroom. The floor was littered with sticks, from which the beavers had chewed the outer bark. They are not very good housekeepers!”

  Cricket Country

 

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