Explosive Adventures

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Of course the snake was now quite helpless!

  “Hssss,” it went, from between its stuck-together jaws. “Hssss.”

  “It’s completely harmless now,” said Mr Bhalla, with a laugh. “You can even step right over it if you wish, Nicola. It will take hours, maybe even days, before it gets that gum out of its mouth!”

  They left the angry, but now harmless, cobra behind them and continued on the path. They could see the bubblegum trees in the distance now and soon it would be time to get into the skins. Then the real excitement would start.

  In the logging camp, the men had just finished work. They had had a hard day of cutting down bubblegum trees, and they were resting, while their cook prepared their evening meal. This was the time of the day that they always liked – when work was finished and they could sit about and chat outside their tents. But today there was something wrong.

  “Do you think that business about tigers was true?” said one of the men. “I thought it was quite safe round here.”

  The other scratched his head. “I don’t know. Why would that man lie to us? He seemed pretty sure that he had seen something. I think there might be tigers after all.”

  “If I see a tiger round here, I’m packing up and going,” said another man. “I don’t fancy being a tiger’s breakfast.”

  “Neither do I,” agreed another. “My wife doesn’t want me to be eaten. She told me so herself.”

  The head man got to his feet. “Stop all this talk about tigers! I’ve told you before and I’ll tell you again. This jungle is perfectly safe. There are no tigers.”

  Just then, from some thick growth behind one of the tents, there came a noise. It was not a loud noise, but it made every head in the camp turn and stare.

  “What was that?” asked one man. “Did you hear it? There’s something in those bushes over there.”

  “I heard something!” shouted another, rising to his feet and huddling up with one of his friends. “Do you think it could be … a … a … tiger?”

  “Nonsense!” snapped the head man. “How many times do I have to tell you? THERE ARE NO TIGERS!”

  He had barely finished speaking when another noise came from the bushes. This time it was unmistakable. It was a growl!

  8

  Tiger! Tiger!

  From within the bushes, covered in his heavy tiger skin, Billy could just make out what was happening in the camp.

  “They’re getting nervous,” he whispered to Mr Bhalla. “I think they heard your growl.”

  “Good,” said Mr Bhalla. “Let’s just wait a few minutes. Let them think about it for a while.”

  The men did think about it, and were clearly becoming more and more frightened. Several of them went to stand by the cooking fire, knowing that tigers were meant to be afraid of fire. Others stood close to the mouth of their tent, ready to dash inside if any tigers should appear.

  “I think the time has come,” said Billy quietly. “I’ll go first.”

  On all fours, looking quite like a fierce tiger, Billy started to move slowly out of the bushes. As he did so, he turned his tiger head from side to side, as if he were sniffing at the evening air. Then, for good measure, he growled.

  When the men in the camp saw him, a great shouting broke out.

  “Look!” cried one. “Tiger! Tiger!”

  “Where? Where?” shouted another.

  “Over there, by the bushes! A tiger!”

  As the shouting continued, Billy darted to another clump of bushes and disappeared.

  “Calm down!” shouted the head man, who had been looking away when Billy appeared. “You’re imagining things. I tell you again, THERE ARE NO TIGERS!”

  “But there was one right there,” howled one of the men. “A great big one!”

  As they argued amongst themselves, Mr Gopal crawled out of the bushes and stretched out a great tiger claw.

  “Oh!” shouted one of the men. “Another one! Oh, save us! Save us!”

  “Where?” shouted the head man. “Where is it?”

  He turned round, and saw Mr Gopal crawling across the ground to join Billy, closely followed by Mr Bhalla and Nicola.

  “Hundreds of them!” shouted one of the men. “We’re surrounded by tigers!”

  This was the signal for all the men to start running around at once. Stumbling over one another, they rushed about, picking up their possessions. Then, their belongings in their arms, their axes and saws left behind on the ground, the men ran as fast as they could down to the river, where their boat was moored.

  “Grrr!” roared Mr Bhalla. “Grrr! Grrr!”

  The sound of the roaring made the men run even faster. And when they reached the river edge, they did not even climb into the boat, but leapt, like frightened rats.

  In the bushes, the four tigers sat down and laughed more heartily than they had ever laughed before. Mr Gopal laughed so much that he almost choked, and he had to take his tiger head off to wipe the tears of mirth away from his eyes.

  “I’ve never seen anybody look so frightened,” he said. “They were terrified!”

  “They won’t be coming back here,” said Mr Bhalla, a broad smile on his face. “That’s the last we’ll see of them.”

  “And your bubblegum trees are saved,” said Billy. “That’s the important thing.”

  *

  They could have gone home right then, but Mr Bhalla thought that it would be a good idea to stay just a little longer, just in case the men looked back from the river. So they all refastened their tiger skins and got down on their hands and knees again. Then they walked out of the bushes, with the proud walk of a group of tigers who had just done a very good job.

  They prowled around the abandoned camp, sniffing at the axes and giving the occasional roar. It was all going very well. It had been a wonderful plan, and nothing had gone wrong. Or at least, nothing had gone wrong until then. Then it happened.

  “That was a good growl you made,” said Mr Bhalla to Billy. “It sounded very fierce.”

  “But I didn’t growl,” said Billy. “Maybe it was Nicola.”

  “It wasn’t me,” muttered Nicola from within her tiger skin.

  “Nor me,” said Mr Gopal. “I didn’t growl.”

  They all stopped. Who had growled? Had Mr Bhalla imagined it?

  He had not. For now there came another growl, and this time it was even louder. Billy spun round, and looked behind him. There, on the edge of the camp, was a great tiger, sniffing at the air with its fine, proud tiger’s nose. And this tiger, for a change, was real!

  “Let’s go!” cried Mr Bhalla. “If we scamper away he’ll think we were just a passing band of tigers. Perhaps he’ll pay no attention.”

  They started to run on all fours, as fast as they could. It was hard work, but they were managing quite well until Mr Gopal stumbled.

  When the real tiger saw one of the other tigers fall, he pounced. He did not like the sight of these four rather peculiar-looking tigers, and he thought that he would teach this one a lesson.

  The other three stopped and watched in horror as the great tiger landed on Mr Gopal’s back and dug its claws into his tiger skin. Mr Gopal collapsed under the weight of the real tiger and closed his eyes. At any moment his tiger skin would come off, he thought, and the real tiger would find a tasty snack inside. What would it be like to be eaten by a tiger? Would it hurt, or would it all be over very quickly? What will I taste like? he thought miserably.

  “Fight back, Mr Gopal!” shouted Billy. “Remember you’re a Gopal!”

  Inside the tiger skin, Mr Gopal heard Billy’s voice and the words stirred him. Remember you’re a Gopal! Yes! He was a Gopal! He was the grandson of Sikrit Pal Praviwallah Gopal, after all, the man who had fought off a tiger by biting its tail!

  Yes! That was it! Without wasting any more time, Mr Gopal reached out and grabbed the angry tiger by its tail. Then, opening his mouth as wide as he could, he popped the end of the tail inside and bit.

  It did not tas
te very pleasant, and there was a great deal of fur. But Mr Gopal’s teeth sank well into the tiger’s tail and it gave a roar of pain.

  “Take that!” muttered Mr Gopal from between his clamped teeth. “That’ll teach you to jump on a Gopal!”

  The bite was too much for the tiger. Releasing Mr Gopal from his grip, he turned round to lick gingerly at his sore tail. This gave Billy his chance. Rushing forward, he helped Mr Gopal to his feet and bundled him off down the path, followed by the other two, all running as fast as they possibly could. Everybody was back on two legs by now, and had turned into people again – very frightened people running down a path with a tiger not too far behind them.

  “Will he follow us?” gasped Nicola. “I’m sure he’ll be twice as angry now!”

  “I’m afraid he might,” panted Mr Bhalla. “Tigers get very cross about this sort of thing. They’re not ones to give up easily. We shall have to climb a tree.”

  On hearing Mr Bhalla’s suggestion, they all stopped and looked about them. The path on either side of them was flanked by great towering trees, and if they managed to scale one of these then the tiger might walk right past them.

  “What about this one?” said Billy, pointing to a particularly tall tree. “There are enough low branches to give us a start.”

  “A splendid idea,” said Mr Bhalla. “You children go first and Mr Gopal and I will follow.”

  It was not a difficult tree to climb, and soon all four of them were perched right up at the top, looking down through the leaves to the path far below. Now all they had to do was wait until the tiger went past. It would soon realise it had lost them, and all they would have to do then would be to wait a little while before they climbed down and made their way home.

  The minutes went past slowly and Billy was beginning to wonder whether the tiger had gone in the other direction. Then suddenly Mr Bhalla touched Billy on the arm and pointed downwards.

  “Tiger,” he whispered. “Right below us.”

  Billy looked down. There on the path below them was the beautiful, sinewy figure of the tiger, padding slowly along, its nose raised to sniff the breeze for the scent of its enemies.

  “Oh dear,” said Mr Gopal. “It looks very cross.”

  “Well, it’s not going to find us,” said Billy quietly. “So you don’t have to –”

  He was about to say “worry”, but before he had time to do so a terrible thing happened. Mr Gopal had taken a handkerchief out of his pocket to mop his brow and had unfortunately dropped it. Down through the leaves drifted the large white square of cloth, right down to the path, to land exactly in front of the great, angry tiger.

  Of course the tiger looked up in surprise and saw, directly above it, four frightened human beings sitting on a very high branch. At the sight of this, it let out a great growl, which seemed to fill the forest with sound before it died away.

  “Oh my goodness!” wailed Mr Gopal. “We are going to be entirely eaten up. This terrible beast will shin up our tree and eat us up – one, two, three, four. Every one of us.”

  But Mr Gopal was wrong. The tiger looked at the trunk of the tree, stretched its claws in and out, and then yawned.

  “He’s too lazy,” said Mr Bhalla. “That’s a typical tiger for you! He knows that he doesn’t even have to try to climb the tree. All he has to do is lie there until we come down.”

  The tiger looked up again, gave another growl, and then lay down at the foot of the tree. There was no need for him to waste his energy – his lunch was up the tree, hanging on to a branch, but sooner or later it would have to come down, and by then he hoped he would have an even sharper appetite!

  9

  Bubblegum to the Rescue

  They sat on their high branches, looking down at the patient tiger and wondering how long it would be before one of them was overcome by sleep and fell off. It could be a day or two, if they were lucky, or it could be before that. Whenever it would be, it was not a nice thought.

  Then, after about an hour, Mr Bhalla suddenly let out a cry.

  “I’ve had a wonderful idea,” he said. “Why didn’t I think of it before?”

  “What is it?” asked Mr Gopal. “Could it possibly help us?”

  “Yes,” said Mr Bhalla. “Do you know what sort of tree this is?”

  “A bubblegum tree,” said Billy. “Or at least it looks like one.”

  “Precisely,” said Mr Bhalla. “And it’s a very nice juicy one at that. If I cut a little hole here, sap will come out by the bucketful.”

  “But what use would that be?” asked Nicola. “It won’t do us any good to sit up here and chew bubblegum!”

  Mr Bhalla laughed. “Indeed it would not,” he agreed. “What I propose is that we make a bungee rope out of the gum and then one of us can bounce down, give that tiger a bit of a fright, and then bounce back!”

  Everybody was silent. It was a most peculiar plan, but then the Bubblegummies were most peculiar people.

  Then Billy broke the silence. “But who will jump?” he asked.

  Mr Bhalla smiled. “I was thinking you might like to do it, Billy,” he said with a smile. “I hear that you were bungee jumping last night in the village, and you did it very well.”

  Billy swallowed hard. He really had no choice. They had to do something about the tiger and he might as well be the one to do it. But a bungee jump on to a tiger’s back? That sounded even worse than biting a tiger’s tail!

  Mr Bhalla made a hole in the bark of the bubblegum tree and had soon extracted a large lump of soft pink sap in his cupped hands. He passed this to Nicola, showing her how to twist it into a rope. Then he made another hole and collected more sap and passed that on to Billy. Soon everybody had twisted a long piece of gummy rope, which Mr Bhalla tied together to make one long bungee jumping rope.

  “Now,” he said, tying one end of the rope to their branch. “Let’s attach the other end round you, Billy, and then you’ll be ready.”

  “But what do I do once I get down there?” asked Billy, his voice unsteady with fear.

  “Pull its whiskers,” said Mr Bhalla. “That’s one thing which a tiger can’t stand. If you pull its whiskers it will go away soon enough.”

  Billy looked down through the leaves to the waiting tiger. He closed his eyes and counted. One, two, three … now! Taking a deep breath, he cast himself off the branch, shooting down through the leaves, straight towards the tiger. Then, with a sudden lurch, he felt the bubblegum rope tighten and slow down his fall.

  Mr Bhalla had calculated the length of the rope to perfection. Billy found himself just above the rather astonished tiger, and he was able to reach out and give the tiger’s whiskers a good tweak. The tiger roared out in fury and slashed at Billy with his great claws, but he was too late – the bubblegum rope had yanked Billy up again and the next thing the tiger saw was the boy disappearing through the leaves!

  Down went Billy for the second time, and again he was able to give the tiger’s whiskers a good pull before he shot up into the leaves. The tiger was even more furious this time, and by the time it had happened for a third time, the animal’s patience was exhausted. With a great roar of disgust, it turned on its tail and shot off down the path, to vanish in the undergrowth.

  “He’s had enough,” shouted Mr Bhalla triumphantly. “I knew he wouldn’t like that! I knew it!”

  They waited a few minutes to make sure that the tiger did not come back. Then, once they were sure it was safe to do so, they climbed back down the tree and began the journey back to the village.

  “I feel rather sorry for that poor tiger,” said Billy to Mr Bhalla as they walked home. “I’m sure we made him feel rather miserable.”

  “Yes,” said Mr Bhalla. “But you must remember that we also did him a big favour. By saving the forest, we’ve preserved a home for him. If the loggers had cut down all the trees, he would have had nowhere to go.”

  “So even if he is rather cross with us, we’ve still saved his life,” said Billy.

&
nbsp; “Exactly,” said Mr Bhalla. “Just so.”

  *

  When everybody in the village heard about what had happened, they were overjoyed.

  “Our trees are saved!” they cried. “And we owe it all to your plan, Billy.”

  Billy, of course, was very modest. “I was only one of the tigers,” he said. “Everybody was brave.”

  They were too tired to celebrate that night, and decided that they would have a village party the next day. So they all went to bed in their rooms high up in Mr Bhalla’s tree house, and they all, in their different ways, dreamed about what had happened that day. In Billy’s dream he was prowling around in a tiger skin, growling through his teeth. In Nicola’s dream there was a snake blowing bubbles through its tightly-clamped jaws. Mr Bhalla dreamed of bubblegum trees, safe again. And Mr Gopal – well, he dreamed that he was biting a tiger’s tail while his grandfather, Sikrit Pal Praviwallah Gopal, looked on with pride.

  The next morning, the entire village was up early, getting ready for the party. Great dishes of food were prepared in the high tree-kitchens, sending delicious odours wafting through the branches. The school was closed for the day – to mark the occasion – and everybody was in a festive mood.

  Mr Bhalla was particularly excited. He dressed in his finest outfit – a gold and white tunic which had belonged to his father, who had been an official elephant driver, a mahout, to the Maharajah of Chandipore. Billy, who had not brought any special clothes with him, was lent a party tunic by one of the Bubblegummie boys, and Nicola was given a green and gold sari to wear. Everybody looked very smart indeed.

  The party began with a feast. This was a magnificent affair, with all sorts of delicious foods set out on broad green leaves freshly picked from banana trees. There were curries and pickles and large dishes of dried coconut. There were poppadoms stacked one hundred high, and great mounds of bananas fried in sugared yoghurt!