Week 2 Story: The Lumberjack, the Clouded Leopard, and the Boy

The Lumberjack, the Clouded Leopard, and the Boy

(Clouded Leopard, Wikipedia Commons)

The lumberjack poked the handle of his axe through the narrow bars of his cage, attempting to jab at the lock and dislodge it.  But the angle only allowed him to barely graze the padlock.  He huffed in dismay, pulling his axe back into the cage.  It was no use.  How could he have allowed himself to get locked in here?

Looking up, he met the unexpected gaze of a pair of luminous eyes, watching him steadily from the bushes of the tree line.  It was a large cat, all piercing amber eyes and crouching limbs and perked ears.  The lumberjack thought it must be one of those rare Clouded Leopards from this area, although the exact species wasn't important to him right now--this cat could be his ticket out of the cage.

"Here, kitty, kitty," he called softly, waving the leftover fish from his lunch.  "Are you hungry, kitty?"

The feline approached, caution in each silent step, until she was close enough that her whiskers grazed the bars of the cage.

"That's right," the lumberjack coaxed.  "Just open the cage and you can have all the fish you want."

With great difficulty, the cat wrenched the door open with her teeth and entered the cage.  As soon as she fully crossed the threshold, the lumberjack darted past her and out of the cage, fish still in hand.

"Ha!" he cried.  "I'm free!"

The leopard stared at him with those large eyes.  "But you promised me fish," the cat growled.

"Be glad I've let you live this long!" the lumberjack snapped.  "Unless you can find someone who can convince me that your species deserves to live, I'll chop down every tree in your precious rainforest!"

What the lumberjack didn't tell the cat: his mission was utter deforestation, no matter what the leopard did next.

But the feline didn't know this fact, so she searched in vain for someone who would protect her species, someone who would see her value and want to preserve it.  Although she looked everywhere, no one wanted to help her.

Eventually, she met a young boy, only about twelve years old, wandering through the rainforest.  The leopard figured that the boy was not old enough to make a difference, but because of her desperation, she knew she had to try, so she explained the situation to him.

At the end of her monologue, the boy scratched his head.  "Sorry--was there something you wanted me to do?"

So, she tried again, this time going more slowly and emphasizing how much she needed him to come with her.

"I'm still not sure what I'm supposed to do," the boy said, still obviously confused, "but I guess I can follow for a moment."

When the pair returned to the lumberjack, the man laughed.  "This boy was the best you could do, kitty?  He's pretty young, isn't he?"

"And maybe that's my problem here," the boy said.  "I think I need the story in pictures.  Could you show me what happened?"

"Well," the lumberjack snorted, walking into the cage for a demonstration, "I accidentally locked myself in this cage, you see--"

Like a snake, the boy struck, slamming the door closed and twisting the lock shut simultaneously.  The man was trapped inside the cage again, back where he had begun.

"Hey!" the lumberjack yelped.  "Let me out of here!"

The boy shook his head slowly.  "I don't think I can do that.  After all, I am a bit young to change the world like that, right?"

"Don't be ridiculous!  We're both human, aren't we?  We're on the same team!"

"And we're on the same planet as this leopard.  Doesn't that make all three of us on the same team?" the boy countered, smirking.

The Clouded Leopard looked at the boy.  Here, at last, was someone who understood.  She purred--maybe there was hope for her species after all.

Author's Note:  For this story retelling of The Tiger, the Brahman, and the Jackal, I swapped the humans and animals in this story, so that instead of an animal being trapped in the cage initially, it was a human, etc.  In my reading notes, this idea intrigued me, because I wondered how the story might change if they were switched.  I found that changing the identity of the humans and the animal species was also important to make the new message of the story apparent.  Instead of a cautionary tale about a trickster, the new story has conservation undertones instead.  The Clouded Leopard (an endangered species) does not want his forest to be destroyed by the lumberjack, who is solely focused on the human benefit of deforestation.  The boy, representing the next generation, is able to see that the Clouded Leopard deserves to be saved.  The cage at the end serves as a reminder that humans are merely one species on the planet among many, and that the planet is not ours alone to consume.

Bibliography: The Tiger, the Brahman, and the Jackal, from Indian Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs, with illustrations by John D. Batten, (1912).