The Jungle Book

by Diane Wright Landolf

  Akela looked tired. He knew that he would most likely not live through the night. He raised up his head and said, “I have led you for twelve years. Not once in that time has any wolf been hurt or trapped. Now you have the right to kill me here on Council Rock. So who will do it? By the Law of the Jungle, it is my right to make you fight me one by one.”

  The wolves were quiet. Akela was old, but still strong. None of them wanted to face him alone.

  Then Shere Khan broke the silence with a loud roar. “Who cares about this old fool? I want to talk about the man's cub. He has troubled us for far too long. He should have been mine ten years ago. Give him to me.”

  More than half the pack howled in agreement. “Yes! He's a man! What does he have to do with us? Let him go to the other men.”

  “No!” Shere Khan snarled. “He would turn all the people in the village against us. Give him to me!”

  Akela looked up again. “He has eaten our food. He has helped us hunt. He has kept the Law of the Jungle,” he said.

  “And I paid for him with a bull when he was accepted,” said Bagheera. “That may not mean much now, but my honor means everything to me. That is something I would fight for.”

  The wolf pack was in an uproar. Bagheera turned to Mowgli. “All we can do now is fight. It's up to you,” he said.

  Mowgli stood up with the fire pot in his hands. He looked brave, but inside he was angry and hurt. He'd had no idea the wolves felt that way.

  “Listen!” he said. “You've called me a man enough tonight, even though I would have been a wolf with you my whole life. So you don't get to decide what happens next. I decide. Just in case you have any doubts about that—here! I have brought some of the Red Flower to convince you.”

  Mowgli threw the fire pot down. He stuck

  his branch into the fire and whirled it over his head. The wolves backed away in terror.

  “You're in charge now,” Bagheera muttered. “Save Akela. He has always stuck up for you.”

  “Good,” Mowgli said when he saw how Shere Khan and the wolves feared him. “Now that I know how you really feel, I'll go to live with my own people.”

  Mowgli walked straight up to Shere Khan. His burning branch threw sparks up into the darkening sky. Shere Khan closed his eyes for fear of the fire. “If you move, I'll shove this Red Flower down your throat!” Mowgli said. “Now go! But know that if I ever come back to Council Rock, it will be with your hide!”

  Mowgli turned to the wolves. “You will let Akela go,” he said. “Get out of here! I don't want to see your faces anymore!” He struck out at them with the fire, and the wolves ran away, howling.

  When there was only Bagheera, Akela, and a few of the older wolves left, Mowgli began to cry. He sobbed and sobbed. He had never cried before and didn't even know what was happening to him.

  “Let them fall, Mowgli. They are only tears,” said Bagheera.

  At last Mowgli stopped crying. He knew it was time to leave the jungle. “Before I go, I have to say goodbye to my mother,” he said. So he went to the cave and snuggled against Mother Wolf and cried some more. The little wolf cubs howled.

  “You won't forget me?” Mowgli asked his little brothers.

  “Never,” said the cubs. “When you're a man, come to the bottom of the hill, and we'll talk to you.”

  “Come back soon!” said Father Wolf. “Your mother and I are old.”

  “Come soon!” Mother Wolf repeated.

  “I will come,” Mowgli promised. “And I will defeat Shere Khan. Don't forget me! Don't let anyone in the jungle forget me!”

  So just before dawn, Mowgli went down the hillside to meet those mysterious things called men.

  Mowgli had stolen the fire from the nearest village. But Mowgli felt it was too close to home and all his enemies. So he jogged twenty miles down the valley, where it opened onto a plain. At one end of it was another village. Mowgli had never seen this place before. He decided he had gone far enough.

  Cattle and buffaloes were grazing all over the plain. When the herder boys saw Mowgli, they shouted and ran away. The village dogs began barking.

  Mowgli was not afraid. He walked calmly along. He was hungry, and he wanted to get to the village and find something to eat.

  A huge thorny bush stood beside the gate at the edge of the village. At night the villagers rolled it in front of the gate to keep the jungle animals out.

  Mowgli sat down next to the gate. Soon a man came by. Mowgli stood up and opened his mouth. He pointed at it to show that he wanted food. The man ran away, startled.

  The man came back with a priest and a crowd of people. They all shouted and stared and pointed at Mowgli. These people have no manners, thought Mowgli. Only the Bandar-log would act like this. He tossed his long black hair and frowned.

  “There is nothing to be afraid of,” said the

  priest. “See the marks on his arms and legs? They are wolf bites. He is just a wolf child who has run away from his jungle.”

  If Mowgli could have understood the priest's words, he would have laughed. The other wolf cubs had nipped a little too hard sometimes in play, but Mowgli would never call it biting. He knew what real biting was.

  “Poor child,” some of the women said. “He is a handsome boy, with eyes like fire.”

  One of the women turned to her friend. “Messua, he looks like your boy who was taken by the tiger.”

  A woman with copper bracelets and anklets stepped forward to see Mowgli more closely. “He does,” she agreed. “He is thinner, but he looks a lot like my son, Nathoo.”

  The priest looked up at the sky as if he were searching for an answer from the heavens. “The jungle took away your son,” he said to Messua. “Now it has given you this boy. Take him in and care for him.”

  Mowgli felt like he was being examined by the wolves once again. Would this man pack accept him?

  Messua beckoned him to follow her.

  They went to her hut. It was full of things that were strange to Mowgli—a red bed, copper pots and pans, a little statue of a Hindu god, and a shiny mirror.

  Mowgli had never been under a roof before. It made him uneasy. Still Mowgli knew he would have to get used to it.

  Messua gave Mowgli a drink of milk and some bread. Mowgli decided that if he was going to be a man, he would have to learn to talk like one. He began to point to things in the hut, and Messua gave him the words for them. Since Baloo had taught him the languages of all the animals, Mowgli learned quickly.

  Bedtime did not go as smoothly. The thatched roof reminded Mowgli of a panther trap, and he would not sleep under it. As soon as Messua and her husband closed the door, Mowgli climbed out the window.

  “Let him go,” said Messua's husband. “He is used to sleeping outside. If he is meant to replace our lost son, he won't run away.”

  Mowgli stretched out on some long grass at the edge of the field. He closed his eyes, but a moment later, he felt a soft nose poking him under the chin. It was Grey Brother, the oldest of Mother Wolf's cubs!

  “Phew!” Grey Brother said. “You smell like cattle and wood smoke. You smell like a man already!”

  Mowgli sat up. “Is everyone all right in the jungle?” he asked.

  “Everyone except the wolves who were burned,” said Grey Brother. “But listen. Shere Khan is embarrassed. He has gone away to hunt somewhere else until his scorched fur grows back in. He swears that when he comes back, he'll throw your bones in the river.”

  Someday, Mowgli knew, he would have to defeat Shere Khan. But he was too tired to think about it now. He thanked Grey Brother for the news.

  “You won't forget you are a wolf?” Grey Brother asked. “Men won't make you forget?”

  “Never,” said Mowgli. “I will always remember that I love you and everyone in our cave. But I can't ever forget I've been cast out of the pack, either.”

  “Men may cast you out of their pack, too,” Grey Brother warned. “Men are only men, Little Brother.”

  For the
next three months, Mowgli hardly left the village. He was too busy learning how to be a man. First, they made him wear strange clothing. He didn't like it. Then they tried to teach him about money. He could not understand the use of it.

  The little children laughed at him when he said words wrong and because he wasn't interested in toys or games. Luckily for the children, the Law of the Jungle had taught Mowgli that it was unfair to hurt little cubs. He kept his temper under control.

  In fact, Mowgli did not know his own strength. He was weak compared to his animal friends, but to the villagers, he was as strong as a bull. He was also fearless.

  Every evening the village headman, the watchman, the barber, and Buldeo, the village hunter, gathered on a platform under the fig tree. They sat and smoked. Above them in the tree, monkeys chattered, and under them, below the platform, lived a cobra.

  The men settled in and began talking. They told wonderful tales of gods and men and ghosts. Then Buldeo began to tell stories about the beasts of the jungle. Mowgli, who knew better than anyone what the jungle was really like, tried hard not to laugh. Buldeo's stories were ridiculous!

  Buldeo began talking about the tiger that had carried away Messua's son. He said it was a ghost tiger. He said that the spirit of a wicked old man named Purun Dass had taken over the tiger's body.

  “I know this is true because Purun Dass walked with a limp. And this tiger has a limp, too,” said Buldeo.

  Buldeo was talking about Shere Khan! Mowgli had to say something. “Everyone knows that tiger limps because he was born lame. This is child's talk! Are all your stories such nonsense, such cobwebs and moon talk?”

  Buldeo and the other elders of the village were shocked. “Oh, it's the jungle brat,” Buldeo said. “Well, if you know so much about that tiger, get his hide! There's a reward of a hundred rupees to the one who kills that tiger. Now, settle down and don't talk when your elders are speaking.”

  Mowgli stood up to go. “I've been listening all night!” he shouted over his shoulder as he walked away. “Almost nothing Buldeo has said about the jungle is true—and the jungle is all around us! If I can't believe his stories, then why should I believe all the tales of ghosts and gods and goblins?”

  Buldeo puffed and snorted.

  “It is high time that boy was put to work,” the headman said.

  The people of the village decided Mowgli would go out the next day to herd the buffaloes. It was a good job for Mowgli. He wanted to be outside, away from this strange life among the men.

  At dawn the next day, Mowgli rode through the village street on Rama, the great herd bull. The buffaloes woke up and followed him. He told the other herder children to take the cattle to graze on their own. Mowgli himself took charge of the buffaloes.

  Buffaloes in India like to wallow in muddy places. Mowgli led them to the edge of the plain, where the Waingunga River left the jungle. Then he climbed down from Rama's back and went to a clump of bamboo. Grey Brother had promised to wait for him at this spot.

  There he was! Mowgli and his brother greeted each other happily. It had been months since Mowgli had had any news from the jungle. “What is Shere Khan doing?” he asked.

  “He came back looking for you,” Grey Brother said. “He went away again because the hunting isn't good here right now. But he still says he will kill you.”

  Mowgli thought for a minute. “Okay,” he said. He pointed to a large rock in the distance. “As long as he is away, you or one of the brothers sit on that rock every morning as I leave the village with the herd. When he comes back, wait for me in the ravine by the dhâk tree. Then we can make a plan.”

  After Grey Brother left, Mowgli settled down for a nap. Herding in India is very lazy work. The herdsboys doze or catch grass-hoppers or make mud castles. An afternoon seems as long as a whole lifetime.

  Day after day, Mowgli led the herd out. Each morning, he saw Grey Brother far away on the rock, and he knew he was still safe from Shere Khan.

  Then one day, Grey Brother wasn't there. Mowgli headed for the meeting place under the dhâk tree to find him.

  “Shere Khan has been hiding for a month to throw you off track,” Grey Brother said. “He crossed the ranges with Tabaqui last night, hot on your trail.”

  “I am not afraid of Shere Khan,” Mowgli said, “but Tabaqui is very cunning.”

  “Don't worry about Tabaqui,” said Grey Brother. “I attacked him last night. I found out all their plans. Shere Khan will be hiding at the village gate tonight. He is waiting now, in a big, dry ravine.”

  “Has he eaten?” Mowgli asked. He knew that if Shere Khan was hungry, he would be light and fast and very dangerous.

  “He ate a pig at dawn, and he drank, too,” Grey Brother said.

  “What a fool!” Mowgli gloated. Shere Khan would be heavy and sluggish with a stomach full of food and water.

  Mowgli tried to think of a plan. “The buffaloes would charge only if they caught his scent. I can't speak their language. Is there any way we could get the herd behind him so they can smell him?” he asked.

  “He swam far down the river to hide his scent,” said Grey Brother.

  Mowgli considered this. If he got the buffaloes to charge down one end of the ravine, Shere Khan could just sneak out the other end. He would escape.

  “Do you think you could divide the herd?” Mowgli asked Grey Brother.

  “Not by myself,” he answered, “but I brought help.” Grey Brother walked away and dropped down into a hole. A few seconds later, a great grey head rose out of the hole with a loud hunting howl.

  “Akela! Akela!” Mowgli shouted, clapping his hands. Now he knew they would get the job done. “Akela, help me divide the herd. Put the females and young calves in one group and the bulls in another.”

  Akela and Grey Brother dashed into the herd. They weaved in and out, driving the females and calves to one side and the bulls to the other. The mother buffaloes were red-eyed and angry. The bulls were bigger, but Mowgli knew the protective mothers were more dangerous.

  Mowgli told Akela to drive the bulls away to the left. “When we are gone,” he said to Grey Brother, “drive the mothers and calves down to the foot of the ravine, until the sides of the ravine are higher than Shere Khan can jump. Keep them there till we come down.”

  Then Mowgli leapt onto Rama's back and followed as Akela led the bulls away. The wolf turned them toward the jungle.

  Rama snorted and shook with anger.

  “Oh! If I could only talk to Rama and tell him what I need him to do!” Mowgli said.

  They led the bulls in a long, wide circle. That way, Shere Khan could not smell the herd and figure out Mowgli's plan too soon. Finally Akela and Mowgli brought the bulls to the top of the ravine where the tiger rested. Grey Brother had led the mothers and calves to the other end of the ravine. If the plan worked, Shere Khan would be sandwiched in between.

  Mowgli gave the bulls a minute to catch their breath. Then he put his hands up and called down the ravine. His voice echoed from rock to rock.

  Shere Khan woke up with an angry snarl. “Who calls?” he asked.

  “I, Mowgli! Shere Khan, it is time to come to Council Rock!” Mowgli shouted. “Go, Akela! Go, Rama! Bring them down!”

  The bulls paused. Akela gave a great howl, and they began charging down the ravine.

  In a few seconds, Rama caught Shere Khan's scent. He bellowed.

  “Ha!” Mowgli yelled to the bull. “Now you understand!”

  By now it was a full stampede. Foaming at the mouth, the bulls crashed down the ravine. Weaker bulls were shouldered to the side as the strongest ones charged on.

  Shere Khan heard the thunder of their hooves. He got up and lumbered in the other direction. He looked at the sides of the ravine, but he could not find a way out. He moved as quickly as a tiger on a full stomach can.

  The bulls bellowed when they reached the pool where Shere Khan had just been. The cows at the other end of the ravine gave an answering bellow. The tiger halte
d and turned. He was trapped!

  Rama and the bulls came on like thunder. They trampled Shere Khan and kept running. The two parts of the herd met in a loud and furious mass.

  “Break them up, Akela,” Mowgli said. He jumped down from Rama's back. “Softly. Softly, my children,” he said soothingly to the herd.

  Between the three of them, Mowgli, Grey Brother, and Akela managed to calm the buffaloes. Mowgli gathered the herd together, then went to check on Shere Khan.

  He was dead. “His hide will look good on Council Rock,” said Mowgli. He quickly set to work skinning the tiger, a task no village man would think of doing alone.

  After an hour or so, Mowgli felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Buldeo, the village hunter. The other herder boys had run back to the village and told everyone about the buffalo stampede. Buldeo had come out to scold Mowgli for not taking better care of the herd.

  As soon as they saw the man, the two wolves ducked out of sight.

  Buldeo had noticed what Mowgli was doing. “So the buffaloes killed a tiger?” he said. “What is this foolishness? You think you can skin it yourself? Look, it is the lame tiger! The one worth a hundred rupees.” Buldeo paused. “Well, maybe I will overlook you letting the herd get away, since this happened. Maybe I will even give you one rupee from the reward.”

  Mowgli kept on skinning. “Hmm,” he said, half to himself. “So you're going to take the hide from me, turn it in for the reward, and maybe give me one rupee? I think I'll keep the hide for myself, old man!”

  Buldeo opened his mouth in shock. “How dare you speak like that to the chief hunter of the village?” he demanded. “You're not getting a bit of the reward. The only thing I'm giving you is a beating!”

  Mowgli was still not impressed. He sighed. “Must I listen to you all day?” he asked. Then, in wolf talk, he said, “Akela, this man is getting on my nerves.”

  It seemed to Buldeo that the grey wolf rose up out of nowhere. Quickly, Akela knocked the hunter down and stood over him. Buldeo was terrified. A boy who commanded wolves must be a powerful sorcerer, he thought.