by Esther David
The girlfriend’s dark gaze was fixed on Dr Flo. ‘You want me to go to those deadly wasps?’
‘This will be the experience of a lifetime! If you don’t like it, you can have me for dinner tonight!’
‘Cool, now that you’ve agreed to that.’ The lady spider scuttled to the trunk, clearing the exit, and Dr Flo clambered out too.
‘Hey, Dr Flo! What about our registration?’ Hudhud called from behind. Kilkila looked at him aghast.
Dr Flo stopped and turned with irritation. ‘That can wait. Come tomorrow morning, will you?’
And within a moment he was gone.
The caterpillars stood looking at the doorway to the crevice for a few moments to take in all that had happened. Breaking the trance, Kilkila kicked Hudhud with a few of his front legs.
‘Ouch! What’s that for?’
‘What about our registration, huh? You should have asked him to stay back for dinner too!’
Hudhud chuckled, and Kilkila joined in the laughter.
‘Quick thinking, brother mine. Playing a trick on the trickster! If the wasps don’t finish off Dr Flo, his lady surely will. And now, what do we do about Mahua and All Legs?’ Kilkila shuddered once again, looking around the dark cave and at the two still pupae lying in it like Dracula’s coffins.
‘Hurry, Kila, let’s roll them out and see whose help we can take to get the girls back to the bush.’ He started to roll one of the pupae with his legs.
‘Easy, easy, kids.’ They saw another form perched on the entrance. ‘You’ll crack the pot.’
The gent butterfly fluttered in erratically, flying in their typical screw-shaped flight pattern. ‘Serenity is not in a good mood today, but I brought others who can help.’ Three more butterflies flew into the cave before a pleasantly surprised Hudhud could even mutter his thanks. The four butterflies picked up the two pupae and flew outside the crack. They hovered near the trunk as the gent looked at them and asked, ‘Where to?’
‘Serenity, really?’ Kilkila began. ‘That lady butterfly should be called—’
‘Nettles.’ Hudhud smiled at the gent butterfly. ‘Um, that’s not for your lady. We have to go to the fourth nettle bush on your right.’
Hudhud looked at his soft, crumpled wings and grinned. He slowly tried to unfold them to dry. Being in the pupa all these days, with his caterpillar body gradually turning to liquid and then re-forming again, had been quite taxing. But looking at his new avatar made up for all the trouble. Kilkila, who hung from his chrysalis, from which he had emerged just a few minutes before his friend, looked at his own body in awe.
‘Hello there, shape-shifter!’ Hudhud winked at Kilkila.
‘Hey there, painted lady!’ Kilkila gave him a weak smile.
‘Who’re you calling lady, mate? Call me Cosmopolitan, like they do in North America.’
‘All right, Mr Cosmopolitan. I’m hungry! Days without food, can you believe that? Do you fancy some flower nectar today or honeydew?’
‘He he he … I’ve eaten enough leaves for a lifetime. Let’s just fly to the flowers, yeah!’
‘And what do you think about flying north?’ Kilkila closed his new wings with care. ‘Leaving the plain of nettles behind, crossing oceans, passing the Old Fart … with flying colours?’ He guffawed at his own joke.
Hudhud’s eyes widened with wonder. ‘Who could have imagined that butterflies could embark on intercontinental journeys, Kila, on such delicate little wings …’
‘What do you mean? What’s the big deal in that? Even the globe skimmer dragonflies, our cousins, do it. No less than an 18,000-kilometre-long round trip from India to Africa, the longest insect migration!’
Kilkila frowned when Hudhud didn’t reply. ‘You’re giving me a scare now. Seems like the adventure with Dr Flo has been too much for your nerves, buddy.’
‘Is the answer this, then: Don’t take shortcuts in life? Only tricksters offer that …’ Hudhud stared at the plains with a faraway look in his eyes. The leaves of the tree rustled a reply, which he couldn’t quite make out. Before he could ask again, a whirlwind surrounded him and he was zapped away into a darkness that was darker than Dr Flo’s horror of a hospital.
3
As the Crow Flies
Agust of wind dispersed the cloud of mosquitoes around Hudhud’s head but they breezed right back. ‘Ghazzzzaal will win,’ their leader buzzed in the caribou’s ears. Hudhud shook his antlers in irritation but the leader only chuckled. ‘Ghazzzzaal will win.’
A few Porcupine caribou trotted across a river, crossing it where it was the shallowest. The faint sound of their knees clicking reached Hudhud, and he waited intently to see who would be the first to emerge on the smooth rounded stones on the shore.
‘Place your betssss! Place your betsssss!’ The leader of the swarm of mosquitoes continued buzzing near his head. A few mosquitoes sighed and some cheered as Ghazaal appeared on the shore first.
‘Bravo!’ a bulky male caribou with a brownish coat and a large rack of antlers said in a booming voice. Even though his fuzzy velvet-covered antlers were still growing, he towered above Hudhud and the other juveniles standing on the slope where the valley ended. His brand-new set of antlers this spring were even more impressive than the ones he’d shed last year. The mosquitoes were already betting if they would reach fifty-one inches and branch out into forty-four points.
‘Boys, learn, learn!’ boomed the large caribou again.
The young caribou bulls grunted as one of them said, ‘Hudhud did it in almost the same duration, Coach Clicks.’
‘Almost is not the same, Kilkila. Learn from the girl, you good-for-nothings!’
Hudhud rolled his eyes as Ghazaal walked towards them, as proud as the fearless black flies sucking his blood.
‘I’m sorry you can’t match my speed, Hudhud.’ She gave him a condescending smile. ‘I don’t blame you. You’re named after a hoopoe, after all.’
‘Oh, was this a race? I thought I was just being chivalrous, Ghazaal. Ladies first, after all.’
‘Ha! We’ll see who tries to claw his way to the top of the class again this week, bull. Take my friendly advice, just concede to your betters.’ She humph-ed and took a few small, deliberate steps. ‘Not that I don’t enjoy seeing you struggle each time.’
Behind them, the laggers in their herd continued to cross the river.
‘Don’t sweat, bro.’ Kilkila came cantering to Hudhud’s side as Ghazaal left. ‘You will for sure beat her at getting bigger antlers in a few years’ time.’ He grinned.
‘Shut up, Kila. I’ll be first in the class this week.’
‘You say that after coming second in six out of the seven tests given by Clickety, Hud? That’s another level of optimism, I would say. Almost bordering on crazy.’
‘Coming from a student who’s a weak second-last, I’ll take this as a compliment. And I meant the coming week, not the one gone by.’
Kilkila chuckled. ‘Don’t get all worked up, mate. Think of what Clickety said earlier today. Your antlers, after they shed and regrow for a few years, could become one of the grandest in the herd. Hey, do you think he meant the entire Porcupine caribou herd in the Arctic Circle? That’s no mean feat—you’ll top a herd of 1,60,000 caribou!’
‘He he he … I’m sure he didn’t mean that,’ said Hudhud, pacified. The hairy bud he had on his head last year had already grown into a forked set that was considerably larger than all the other young bulls’ in his class. ‘It’s not to my credit, anyway.’ He looked at Coach Clicks in the distance, who seemed to be nodding at Ghazaal in approval. ‘Sure as the midnight sun, I will beat her next week!’
Kilkila watched the last of the young caribou emerging from the river. ‘Hey, look at Rudolph drifting in lazily at the end!’ He trotted to the shore to call out to his friend. ‘Rudolph, mate, did you forget you’re a caribou, not a floating log? Move it …! Move … IT!’
Hudhud looked up at the endless summer sky, in which the sun tirelessly hung. Soon t
hey would have twenty-four hours of daylight, and it would be dark only when you closed your eyes. At a distance, a herd of Dall sheep was grazing in the meadow by the river. This was such a great adventure, Hudhud thought—to go from the Porcupine caribou’s winter feeding grounds in the Brooks Range to the summer calving grounds by the Beaufort Sea. An annual round trip of almost 5000 kilometres! The wildebeest, their distant cousins, migrated in herds like them in the wilds of Africa, but theirs was the largest land migration of any mammal on earth, being 2400 kilometres only one way. In the winters, when they dispersed in forests, the bulls would strut and show off and engage in furious sparring battles among themselves to woo the girls. The bigger the antlers, the greater would be their chance to impress their lady-loves, five to fifteen of them at once! Even Coach Clicks had a cleaved-off ear, once lost in a battle for love. After the pairing, the gents would shed their antlers in the winter and grow a new set in early summer, but the ladies would keep theirs till they gave birth. As spring approached, the caribou would start to gather in the forest to migrate as a herd to the tundra, where the caribou cows would give birth.
Their herd always took the well-travelled Old Crow route. This was just the start of their migration to the north. In the days to come their small herd would join larger ones and the numbers would swell to tens of thousands of caribou, all named after the Porcupine River, which ran through large parts of their herds’ range. They would pass their cousins, like the woodland or barren-ground caribou, but none could undertake a marathon of such epic proportions. It was full-throated, red-cheeked summer now, and the tundra was robed in her summer gown of grasses, flowers, streams and shrubs.
Hudhud had seen Rudolph struggling to keep pace with his classmates while crossing the river. He shuddered just thinking about his first journey from the coastal sea to their wintering grounds in inland forests with his mother three years back. It was terrifying for him, as a calf, to cross the icy waters of turbulent rivers and avoid grizzlies and wolves and indigenous humans who had been hunting them since the Stone Age. He remembered his mother turning and going back with him to the shore of one of the rivers when he’d panicked midstream. She had even chased away a grey wolf trying to sneak up on him once. Half of the calves he’d known were killed by wolves, bears and even golden eagles during their first migration. He lived under his mum’s solid protection for five to six months. From the year after, Coach Clicks had taken him under his wing, with the caribou cows leaving weeks before the bulls followed with the yearling calves. For the last three years, Hudhud had migrated with Coach Clicks and had always outshone everyone in his class. Until Miss Hoity-Toity, the only girl in the class, came along.
‘I don’t know why I bet on you, missssster. I should place my bets on Ghazzzzaal,’ a mosquito buzzed in his ear before floating away to bite his back.
‘You bet I’ll be first next time!’ Hudhud said irritably.
‘Well, Rudolph was the last again.’ Kilkila ambled towards him. ‘By the way, who are you talking to? Not the mosquitoes again? Ignore them, dude.’
Hudhud nodded in embarrassment and scraped his four-toed, crescent-shaped fleshy hooves on the grass. ‘I like our shrunken hooves in the winter—thin and hard, to save us from exposure to the snow. Ah, that tough hornlike rim!’
‘If you ask me, I like our summer hooves better, bro.’ Kilkila trotted by his side. ‘Soft and spongy. I am a guy who likes extra traction on his wheels.’
‘And I like sharp edges, bro. Something that can cut deep into the ice.’
‘Ugh … you like hair between your toes in the winter, buddy?’ Kilkila shook his modest antlers to shoo away some mosquitoes.
‘Don’t you like digging small craters in the snow with your hard toes to get to the divine reindeer moss?’ Hudhud’s eyes turned dreamy thinking about his favourite winter lichen.
‘Dude, stop drooling.’
‘Dude, stop bugging.’
‘Dude …’
‘Dude …’
They fell silent as hundreds of adult caribou suddenly started crossing the river, gradually emerging on the other side and shooing the young ’uns to give them way on the slope.
Coach Clicks hoarsely shouted his command from the top of the hill, ‘Get your baby butts moving, troopers!’
The herd of juveniles followed Coach Clicks on a long strip of snow to the top. The snow kept the mosquitoes away and gave them some respite.
‘This week we only have three tests,’ the coach said gruffly. ‘The last set of tests before we join the other caribou herds on our journey. Let’s see if anyone can beat our undisputed star here.’
Ghazaal gave Hudhud a wry smile.
‘For now … let’s begin our trek, troopers! As the Old Crow flies!’ The coach called to the herd of young ones.
‘As the Old Crow flies!’ the youngsters replied, ambling down the Old Crow route.
As they walked, the coach began asking questions in his thundering sing-song voice. ‘Reindeer or caribou … who are you, who are you?’
The students replied in rhythm as the stream of questions from Coach Clicks flowed and their march continued.
Reindeer or caribou … who are you, who are you?
Reindeer and caribou … both are same, both are same.
Last domesticated deer, in the world, false or true?
Domesticated by humans, what a shame, some are tame.
What covers nose and all … to the bottom of your feet?
Wool below and hollow hair … on the top, on the top.
Air trapped in hair, what’s it do, give you heat?
Yes, and helps us float, as we swim, with a plop.
Cut the ice and help you swim, what are those?
Hooves that change, every summer, every winter.
Does it only pick up scents, the super sniffer nose?
Warms the air, keeps us cosy, makes us sprinters.
How do you keep warm through blizzards?
We are winter specialists … winter wizards.
Reindeer or caribou … who are you, who are you?
We are reindeer … we are caribou, caribou …
Once they were past the herd of adults, of no less than 10,000 caribou, Coach Clicks stopped near a tree and shook his antlers to shake off botflies. There were a few bright-red patches on his antlers where the velvet had fallen off.
‘Go grab a bite before I give you the first challenge of this week.’ Black and warble flies hovered around his head, trying to suck the blood from his warm, growing antlers, which were still a long way from turning hard. ‘Don’t wander off. This is only a short break. And …’ he said to the caribou sprinting off, ‘NO NONSENSE. It’s almost twenty-four hours daylight, troopers—I don’t miss a thing.’
The snow had started to melt and there were glistening pools of water everywhere. The sun shone on the faces of tiny flowers in the grass. Rudolph, a young caribou with watery eyes and a big red spot on his nose, sauntered towards Hudhud and Kilkila.
‘Th-there’s just m-moss and f-f-fern that side,’ he said, sniffing.
‘Dig in,’ said Hudhud with a mouthful of leaves from a birch shrub.
‘What do you think will be the challenge today?’ Kilkila glanced towards Coach Clicks, who had moved on to munch on shoots.
‘I j-just hope it’s not re-reciting the s-s-song he taught us last week. I c-can’t …’ Rudolph dipped his head to pull out some herbs from the earth.
‘Something as simple as that for the final tests? No chance …’ Hudhud stopped eating and tried to locate Ghazaal in the herd.
‘Shhhhhhe knows the challenge …’ the leader of the mosquitoes suddenly buzzed in Hudhud’s ear.
‘No, Coach is fair!’ Hudhud snapped, stomping his feet.
‘Who are you talking to again?’ Kilkila turned abruptly. ‘Stop listening to the darned mosquitoes, bro!’
Hudhud smiled awkwardly. ‘Yes, dude. My bad.’
‘I’m l-longing for m-mushrooms now,’ Rudolph chi
med in.
‘You’ll soon be granted your wish, reindeer,’ said Kilkila. ‘Eat all you get during the summers. As Clickety says, the winters are long and hungry.’
‘Why, I love to scoop out the heavenly reindeer moss with my hooves in the winter …’ Hudhud chewed dreamily.
‘Ah … here we go seeing stars in the sky of the midnight sun.’ Kilkila’s eyes rolled skyward.
‘Stop nagging, dude …’
‘Stop drooling, dude …’
‘Dude …’
‘Dude …’
‘Dude …’ A girl’s voice cut in through their chuckling and Kilkila stopped shouldering Hudhud playfully. ‘Are you ready to dare?’
Hudhud’s smile dissolved into a frown as he turned to see Ghazaal standing behind them. Kilkila’s seemed plastered on his face. ‘Always, my sister from another mister,’ he said.
‘Oh, I’m not talking to you, but to your brother from another mother,’ Ghazaal snapped. ‘Don’t mind my saying it, Kilkila, but you’re not worth challenging.’
‘Ready to dare, and ready to win.’ Hudhud bristled.
‘I like this positive attitude … especially in losers.’ Ghazaal smirked, moving her thick neck. ‘See you in the war zone real soon.’
Hudhud looked daggers at her.
‘And Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer?’ She stopped near the caribou, who had a mouthful of grass hanging down his jaws. ‘How precious. Your parents tried hard to make you the butt of jokes, sweetie. My sympathies.’ With a final swing of her tail, she sprinted away.
‘You m-must w-win this w-week, Hudhud.’ Rudolph sniffed with his red-spotted nose.
Hudhud stared after Ghazaal as she joined the other foraging students. Some of them turned and giggled, glancing in Hudhud’s direction.
‘Troopers, are you ready for the challenge?’ Coach Clicks’ voice blasted from the incline.
‘Place your betssssss,’ the leader of the swarm buzzed by Hudhud’s head again.
‘Keep your wits about you, bro,’ Kilkila cautioned. ‘You can win if you just keep your wits about you.’
Coach Clicks stood near a stream tumbling down the hill, tall and majestic, with his coat of fur shining and his head held high. Strong winds blew on the slope at a speed of fifty kilometres per hour. When it touched a hundred in the tundra, it would get difficult to hear what the next caribou was grunting. But the good thing was that the strong winds kept mosquitoes and flies at bay.
