Mowgli had lived in Mahajat – or the ‘man village’ as his animal friends had always called it – for a little over five years. Adopted by the Chieftain and his family, he had soon made great friends with their daughter, Chi.
It hadn’t been an easy transition from his former life, living in the deep jungle; it had taken a long time to adjust to the ways of man. He’d never used tools before, nor bowls and cooking pots. He’d managed just fine living in the same way as his friend Baloo – with just the bare necessities of life.
In time, he’d learned, though, and these days he was quite skilled in the use of tools. The Chieftain had taken him aside on a number of occasions to tell him how impressed he was that Mowgli had become such a valued member of the tribe. He was a skilled fisherman and was confident when it came to taking care of the crops and domestic animals which the tribe kept. He would take the Chieftain’s goats to fresh new grazing places every day, warming himself in the sunlight and pondering about what dinner might be, whilst still keeping an attentive ear to the sounds of the jungle; lest some opportunistic predator – who was especially partial to goat – happened to pass by.
Yes, the years had passed by gently. There had been a few members of the tribe who were a little hesitant at first to welcome the ‘wild boy’ into their midst, but most of them had made him feel welcome. The others, seeing the affection which their Chieftain held towards him, had been won over in time. He had gained so much of the Chieftain’s trust, in fact, that these days, he also tended to his adoptive father’s chickens and crops, as well as his prized goats. He would often bring treats back for the flock in the form of the foraged fruits, nuts, and sweet, juicy tubers which he gathered while goat herding. In return for his consideration, the chickens provided his family with a plentiful supply of eggs, enough so that they could be exchanged with other tribal members for useful things like clay pots, a keen-edged, flint-bladed fishing knife, bone hooks or woven line. One time he had even received a beautiful woven basket to help him carry back his foraged finds. Truthfully, and despite his initial misgivings, he had found living amongst his own kind to be both peaceful and fulfilling. Unfortunately, this was all about to change.
On the morning in question, Mowgli had just finished feeding the chickens and checking the cornfield. He collected his lunch – safely secured in a clean piece of cloth courtesy of his new mother – and his full water-skin. She prepared his lunch every morning, and it never failed to bring a smile to his face. It was nice to be part of a family, and he already felt comfortable calling them ‘mom,’ ‘dad,’ and ‘sister,’ just as if he had spent his whole life living as part of the tribe. He had loved his animal family too, of course, but being with his own kind, he felt, more than ever before, as if he ‘belonged.’
He made his way over to the goat enclosure – a square space surrounded by cut and stacked thorn bushes – but, as he entered, he could feel that something just wasn’t right. He quickly checked the herd, once, twice, and a third time just to make sure that his eyes weren’t deceiving him – Arabella was missing! A pure white goat with long black ears, Arabella was usually the easiest one to spot in amongst the jostling herd. He quickly scanned the boundary line to see if he could locate where she had managed to get through. He couldn’t find any obvious weak points, but a little goat whose hide was as thick as her legs were strong, could still push their way through if they were determined enough.
Mowgli searched for over an hour but still could find no sign of his wayward charge. Heart sinking, he decided to take the rest of the flock out to graze, in the hopes that Arabella would hear them and find her way back to him. He refused to entertain the little voice, which told him that she may not be alive in order to hear them. Resolutely, he shoved it to the very back of his mind where he didn’t have to listen to it anymore. But, as the day wore on, Arabella didn’t hear them, and she didn’t find her way back to the flock.
At last, the sun began to descend across the sky. Glumly, Mowgli set the herd for home, and, after a short distance, he stumbled upon something that no goatherd ever wanted to find. Large animal tracks marked deep furrows into the path in front of him, unmistakably those of a large tiger, although none had been seen in the area for years – not since that last terrible encounter with Shere Khan. But it couldn’t be… could it? Shere Khan was miles away now. Surely, he wouldn’t dare return to the place of his ultimate defeat? One thing that Mowgli did know for sure was that he needed help. He hadn’t used his ability to speak with the animals for some time, but it wasn’t something he thought he’d ever likely forget. Taking a deep breath, he called out to the forest and then sat back to wait.
Before long, he heard noises in the undergrowth. Out into the clearing walked his old friends and mentors, Bagheera and Baloo.
“How goes it, Little Britches?” asked Baloo with a grin, while Bagheera just raised a questioning eyebrow. Mowgli ran over to greet his friends, throwing his arms around the neck of each of them in turn and hugging them tightly. He hadn’t realised just how much he’d missed their company. For a few precious minutes, it was as if nothing had ever changed, as if he had never left his wild jungle home for the company of his own kind. He wanted to ask them all kinds of questions about what had been happening in his absence, but that would have to wait as the sun was dipping ever lower towards the canopy.
He stepped back, worry about Arabella reasserting itself at the forefront of his mind. “Is Shere Khan back?” he asked, feeling his heart tighten painfully, as Bagheera dropped his gaze to the ground rather than meeting his eyes.
“I’d heard rumours.” He confirmed with a frown.
“Baggi! And you never even told me?!” Baloo exclaimed, shooting a disgruntled look at his friend.
“Well, they were only sketchy rumours at best. I wanted to be certain before raising the alarm and letting panic loose.” Bagheera explained, patient as ever.
Baloo seemed a little mollified at that and scratched his head in thought for a moment before turning back to Mowgli. “What makes you ask, Little Britches? Have you heard rumours too?”
“No, but a little while ago, I came across tracks in the forest, and Arabella – the Chieftain’s prized goat – is missing.”
“We gotta do something, Baggi!” Baloo exclaimed, looking around as if he expected to see Shere Khan waiting to pounce on them from behind every tree.
“We’ll call a ‘council of the elders’ and see what can be done.” Bagheera agreed.
Mowgli thanked them both and watched as they melted back into the undergrowth before turning, once again, for the relative safety of home. Once back within the walls of the village, he let his flock back into their enclosure, lit the tallow lamp in its stone cradle, and settled down in a pile of dry grass to wait out the long night. He knew that the council of elders would meet by the light of the moon that night, but until he knew more about what was going on, and whether Shere Khan had, indeed, returned to their part of the jungle, there was no way that he was leaving his new father’s herd unguarded.
At last, the sun crept back up above the treeline again, and Mowgli set about his chores, bleary-eyed from the long sleepless night. There was still no sign at all of Arabella, but at least all of the other goats were present and accounted for.
Chores done, at last, Mowgli sprinted back to the same clearing where he’d met his two friends the day before. He called out and, almost instantly, Bagheera and Baloo appeared from the bushes.
“Yo, Little Britches,” Baloo said, his larger than life personality clearly undaunted by the bad news which his serious-faced friend was about to impart.
“We must act, and soon. Shere Khan is holed up in a cave in the nearby mountains.” Bagheera said grimly. “It seems that he has sworn to enact his revenge and kill you, Mowgli. Not only that, but he plans to kill as many of your kind from the man-village as he can.” Fear shot up Mowgli’s spine as images danced behind his eyes of his last encounter with the murderous tiger. He was about to speak, but before he could, Bagheera continued, “You must return to the village and get your people to make a cage strong enough to hold him… we will do the rest.”
“But how are you going to catch him?” Mowgli asked, fear for his friend’s safety overriding all else.
“We have come up with a plan to trap him in the cave, but once we do so, we will need your man friends to drive him into the cage, so that he can’t escape.” He then told Mowgli exactly where the cave was located before finishing with, “You must hurry, Mowgli, there isn’t much time.”
“Consider it done,” Mowgli promised before running from the clearing to seek out the Chieftain and explain what was needed.
It wasn’t easy to convince his father and the rest of the villagers of what needed to be done. Mowgli explained the danger that Shere Khan posed to them all and told them of their last meeting and of how it was a miracle that the tiger hadn’t succeeded in killing him and his friends. After hearing his tale, though, the villagers agreed to help, and they immediately began work on the new cage.
As soon as the cage was ready, Mowgli led the villagers into the jungle, following the directions that Bagheera had given him. The cage was heavy and quite large, but several of the biggest men in the village helped to carry and manoeuvre it along the narrow trail. The villagers who had accompanied Mowgli were all seasoned hunters, but even so, they were nervous – tigers were too dangerous a prey to try to capture or kill in ordinary circumstances, too risky a venture by far. It was only their faith in their ‘wild boy’ which carried them onwards.
At last, they arrived at the cave, only to find it blocked by a landslide. On top of the landslide sat four familiar forms, the vultures. For a minute, Mowgli wondered if they had come to make fun of him again, but then they spotted him in amongst the crowd of villagers and swooped down to land on a large branch just overhead.
“Well, if it isn’t the Little Blokey. The bear said you’d come, but we wasn’t sure,” said Buzzie with a shrug.
“You weren’t,” said Flaps.
“No, I wasn’t,” replied Buzzie.
“Wasn’t what?” Asked Dizzy, looking completely confused.
“Sure,” supplied Ziggie, helpfully.
“That’s what I said, wasn’t it?” Asked Buzzie, sounding more than a little irritated.
Flaps shook his head with a smile, “No, you said we wasn’t”
“Wasn’t what? Asked Dizzy for the second time.
“Now, don’t start that again!” snapped Buzzie, flapping his wings.
Mowgli sighed, “Did Baloo… the bear, I mean… well, did he give you a message for me?”
“Well, he and the panther turned up, and they set to work on the slope above the cave, you see….” Buzzie began, only to be interrupted in his flow, once again, by Flaps.
“Well, it was mostly the burrowing animals, really,” he corrected.
“And the birds,” chimed in Dizzy.
“Oh yes, the birds definitely helped,” agreed Ziggie with a nod.
“Will you lot let a vulture get a word in edgewise???” Buzzie snapped.
“Edgeways,” corrected Flaps, earning himself and the other two an angry glare.
“Okay, okay… have it your way,” he huffed. He motioned to the other two, and they soared off, back up to the top of the cliff to watch the proceedings.
“You were saying?” Mowgli prompted Buzzie, who was still glaring in the direction that the other three had flown.
“Oh yeah… now, where was I?”
“They were digging away at the slope above the cave….”
“That’s right! And when they had dug away a fair amount, loosening it up like, the elephant….”
“You mean Colonel Hathi?” Asked Mowgli, rather surprised that the Colonel would take time out of his drill training to help them.
“Yep, that’s the one. Well, he came on through – stomp-ity-stomping, as he does – and sent the whole blasted lot tumbling down over the entrance of the cave.”
“That’s brilliant!” Mowgli said, grinning at his friend’s ingenuity.
“Sure, sure. So, the bear said that all that’s left is for you to dig the tiger out and get him into that there cage.”
“That’s great. Thank you, Buzzie. I really appreciate you helping out like this.” Mowgli said.
“No problem at all, Little Blokey. We had nothin better to do anyway.” With that, the vulture flew off to join his companions once again, and Mowgli told the rest of the men what he’d been told.
The villagers dug away at the scree until they had made a small opening in the debris – not large enough for a tiger to come through, but big enough to get the cage into place. Once the cage was secured and the door levered open, the men set back to digging, widening the hole bit by bit.
Suddenly a loud “ROARRRR!” sounded from within the cave, and a giant shape hurtled from the darkness and straight into the waiting cage. Yellow and black, with a fire-scarred tail, Shere Khan, the great tiger, was captured!
The Chieftain decreed that the tiger be transported to a far distant nature reserve, where he would live out his days and be prevented from harming anyone ever again. The village, Mowgli, and all of the jungle animals were now safe again.
Knowing that the animals had, once again, helped to rid the jungle of Shere Khan, the villagers were happy to settle back into a harmonious co-existence with those that inhabited the same jungle that they did.
A few days later, early one morning, Mowgli was preparing to take the goats back out to graze again. He felt much safer now, knowing that Shere Khan was never coming back again. As he led the goats from the enclosure and into the jungle, he suddenly heard a rustling, and a soft whisper reached his ears.
“Pssst. Mowgli,” a voice whispered from within the dense foliage at the side of the trail.
Mowgli recognized the voice immediately. “Is that you, Baloo?” He asked, already knowing the answer to his question. Sure enough, moments later, Baloo emerged from the bushes.
“Hey, Baloo!” Mowgli hugged his friend again.
“Hey, yourself, Little Britches,” Baloo grinned. Pulling a rope from behind his back, he handed it to Mowgli.
Following the line of the rope, Mowgli was met with the familiar white face and black ears of Arabella.
“Arabella!” Mowgli cried. He had never expected to see the little goat again. He ran forward and hugged her, much to the little goat’s surprise and confusion.
“I found her wandering and lost in the deep forest. She didn’t know the way back.” With a wink, Baloo turned to leave again.
“Wait, Baloo,” Mowgli called.
Baloo turned and looked back at his friend.
“Let’s not leave it so long before we speak again this time, okay?”
“Sure thing, Little Britches,” Baloo grinned broadly.
“I’d like to be a part of both of my families from here on out.”
“That sounds like a very sensible plan.” He turned and walked off into the jungle again, whistling a very familiar tune.
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F&F Winter 2019: Disney