The Spotless Leopard

by Rachael Long

muttering, the baboon stood up and looked around. “You there,” he said pointing to Opa. “I am Reginald, Prince of Baboons and I claim this moon in the name of the Baboon Kingdom.”

  Opa sat down and looked at Reginald, Prince of Baboons. He appeared to have wings strapped to his arms. “Are those wings on your arms?” she asked.

  Reginald, Prince of Baboons pulled out a notebook and began scribbling things down. “This moon is a dark place with what look like trees everywhere. There is a strange looking giant cat”…he paused and looked at Opa. “Did you say something?”

  “Yes,” said Opa. “I asked if you had wings on your arms and, by the way, this is not the moon. It’s a forest.”

  Reginald, Prince of Baboons slumped to the ground. “I knew trying to fly to the moon in daylight was a bad idea. I must have been dazzled by the sun and lost my way. Help me up. I need to get back to my hilltop palace and re-launch – this time at night!”

  Opa yawned, shook her head and wandered off into the forest, following the pipeline. Quite usefully someone had drawn arrows on it. As she disappeared into the gloom she could hear Reginald, Prince of Baboons calling out, “Don’t leave me alone. I don’t like being left alone in the dark.”

  For two whole days Opa followed the pipeline until she emerged into a small clearing...

  Suddenly an elephant came crashing down through the trees and landed on all four feet right on the pipeline, squashing a large part of it completely flat! The elephant staggered then fell over on its left side. Immediately two monkeys dropped out of a tree and threw a bucket of water over the elephant. The elephant looked up at the monkeys through a half closed eye, smiled in a dazed I-probably-need-a-hospital-now sort of way, sneezed through its trunk, stood up and walked off in a very unsteady-dizzy-wobbly sort-of-way into the forest.

  “I told you I’d get an elephant to jump out of a tree,” said the first monkey to the other, then added, “Did you see his ears flapping on the way down?”

  The two tree monkeys both howled like hyenas.

  “And his trunk,” said the second tree monkey, “he used his trunk to cover his eyes!”

  The monkeys were now rolling around on the ground in uncontrollable fits of laughter. “What next...this is too much fun to stop now!”

  They both thought for a moment then looked at each other.

  “What about…a crocodile?” They laughed out loud and began turning somersaults. Then they saw Opa…

  “Hello boys,” smiled Opa and gave a little growl. “Remember me?” The two monkeys scurried back up into the trees. Opa flexed her claws and was about to give chase when…

  A bald-head eagle suddenly dropped out of the sky and hit the ground in a flurry of feathers…looking up at Opa, who had jumped back, it said, “Sorry, forgot I need to keep flapping my wings. I’m more of a soarer, you know.” The eagle stood up and waved his wings about and made whooshing noises, demonstrating how he soared. Then looking closely at Opa the eagle asked, “Mamma?”

  Opa shook her head. “Sadly no. I'm…”

  The eagle interrupted, “a lioness?” Opa shook her head. The eagle scratched his baldhead and thought for a moment. “Spotless leopard?”

  Opa sighed and turned to head back to the deepest, darkest part of the forest.

  “Well,” continued the eagle looking desperately hopeful, “spotless is a bit like bald and I’m bald. So spotless and bald are sort of related…you could be my mamma…”

  Opa shook her head again, “I don’t think spotless is the same as bald. Besides, I’m a leopard, a big cat and you…you’re…”

  The eagle gave a sad smile, “…an orphan. Look, I have this photo. The orphanage gave it to me when I left,” the eagle showed Opa a very blurred and tatty photo that could have been of anything. She shrugged her shoulders.

  “If I hold the photo to my heart and look at you,” said the eagle, “I get a warm feeling.”

  “But we’ve only just met,” protested Opa.

  “I know,” said the eagle, “that is how I know I’m right. Here, you try.”

  Opa held the blurred photo next to her heart. She looked at the eagle, his eyes full of hopeful tears. This is crazy she thought, mother to a bald-headed eagle.

  “Look, kid…” she began.

  “Bob,” my name is “Bob,” said the eagle wiping tears from his eyes.

  “Well, Bob,” said Opa sighing heavily, “I'll be your step mother.”

  Bob threw his wings around Opa and hugged her. “Enough, enough already”, said Opa. She patted Bob on the head. “Now go and play in the trees with the monkeys.”

  Just then the stork wandered into the clearing. “I see you’ve changed your hat,” said Opa looking at the stork’s tartan flat cap. The stork gave a little smile. “I don’t suppose you could pull these quills out of my back, could you?” The stork turned to reveal ten or more porcupine quills sticking from his back. “Never a good idea to deliver bad news to a family of porcupines in a dark forest.”

  As Opa pulled the quills out one by one, the stork spoke, “I have been thinking about your spotlessness,” he said, “and I came up with this.” He passed Opa a small box.

  “ I don't think covering myself in small boxes is quite the same as having real spots,” she said.

  “No, no, no,” said the stork. “Open the box. It’s full of butterflies. Rare pygmy butterflies…they need a home.” Opa looked in the box. It was full of small shimmering butterflies. She looked up at the stork – he was quite tall for his species and indeed his age – and shrugged.

  The stork took the box and emptied the pygmy butterflies onto Opa’s back. “They need a home,” he repeated. “Somewhere safe…they spend most of their time sleeping. Anyway, I thought of you. Nothing more safer than a leopard with an attitude.”

  “What do you mean attitude?” asked Opa and growled at the stork. However, before she could say anything else the stork had pulled out his clipboard and was pressing Opa’s paw print against it.

  “There,” he said. “All sorted now. Oh, you better sign for the eagle too.”

  Opa looked at the stork through narrowed eyes. They would have been wide eyes but very little surprised her now. “You know about Bob?” The stork nodded and gave a very satisfied-with-myself-stork smile. “Mmm…the photo was my idea. I’m sure you’ll all be very happy.” With that he turned and began to run but tripped over the pipeline.

  “Where did this pipeline come from?” He asked rubbing his knees.

  Opa smiled, “It’s a metaphor.”

  “A meta what,” queried the stork then added, “oh that’s like”…

  “No,” said Opa, “a simile is like. That pipeline is a metaphor for this tale; it snakes and winds its way around, sometimes it goes flat but always it goes on.”

  “Is there an end?” asked the stork.

  Opa smiled. “How long is a piece of spaghetti string?”

  The stork let out a big harrumph. “I don’t have a form for this. But I intend to get to the end of it.” And with that he straightened his cap and stalked off, in the way that only a stork can, into the forest, following the arrows on the pipeline.

  There our story must pause for night was falling…it used to come crashing down but the neighbours kept complaining about the noise, so now it gently falls.

  And as the sun slowly set, the pygmy butterflies on Opa began to shimmer and sparkle. Soon word got around the forest about a leopard with sparkling spots and from that moment on, every day at sunset, animals would gather in the clearing to watch Opa’s magical spots. No longer was she an unspotted, spotless leopard. She was now Opa, the Magical, Shimmering Leopard.

  And everyone lived happily ever after...until the next morning when they all awoke to enjoy another new day... The leaves rustled, the trees swayed, a passing Dalmatian dog got mistaken for a miniature zebra and the two tree monkeys pondered over a tricky problem…

  “Perhaps,” the first tree monkey said to the other, “it wasn’t such a
good idea to show a crocodile how to climb trees.”

  The second tree monkey agreed, this particular crocodile seemed to take to tree climbing far too easily. “And I don’t think we should have told him to stick his snout into a beehive either. Those bees were quite angry and did seem to sting him quite a lot.”

  The first tree monkey smiled. “But they were quite surprised before they got angry. Besides, what really upset him was you telling him to eat a branch because it was really a giant stick insect.” He looked down at the crocodile and sighed. “I think he is out to get us.”

  “Oh look, here comes Bob. He climbs well for an eagle. Mind out for the croc, Bob! Phew that was close.” The second tree monkey waved for Bob to join them, an idea already forming in his head.

  “Why are you all the way up here?” Bob asked, reaching the very top of probably the tallest tree in the clearing. The tree monkeys pointed down at the crocodile.

  Bob nodded. “Say no more,” he said then looking around, added, “You know what, I may just give up flying completely and climb trees instead, besides, I’m more of a soarer anyway.”

  “Before you do decide to give up completely,” said the second tree monkey, “why not have one last go. We are quite high and it wouldn’t take you much flapping to get a little higher.”

  Bob the bald eagle looked up at the sky then down at the ground and rubbed his bald head. “Hmm,” he said and, “Hmm,” again. Then without a further word, he launched himself up into the air, flapping furiously.

  “How far do