Kids · 4 minThe Jackal and the Drum

Once upon a time, at the edge of a forest, there lived a jackal called Gomayu. That summer the streams had dried up, the rabbits had moved away, and Gomayu had been hungry for three whole days. His ribs showed, his tail drooped, and his stomach made sad little noises all night.

On the fourth morning he said to himself, "I will walk to the village. Perhaps someone has dropped a piece of bread, or a banana skin, or anything at all." So he crept out of the forest and along the dusty cart track until he came to a wide open ground at the edge of the village.

A week before, the village had held its big festival there. Now the ground was empty. Only a few torn paper flags still fluttered on their strings, and the grass was full of flattened leaf plates. Gomayu sniffed hopefully at every one of them, but the crows had been there first.

Then, from under the big mango tree at the far end of the ground, came a sound.

DHUM!

Gomayu jumped so high that all four paws left the ground at once. He dived into the tall grass and lay there with his heart going thud, thud, thud.

DHUM! DHUM-DHUM!

"What is that?" whispered Gomayu. "It must be some great beast. Only a giant could roar like that. Its mouth must be as big as a well. It will swallow me in one bite, tail and all." He turned to run back to the forest.

But then his stomach growled. It was not as loud as the beast, but it was loud enough. Gomayu stopped.

"If I run away now," he thought, "I will be hungry again tomorrow, and the day after. And I will be afraid of this field for the rest of my life without even knowing what I was afraid of. My grandmother always said: before you run from a thing, take one good look at it."

So Gomayu began to creep forward. He put one paw down, very softly. Then another. His ears were flat and his tail was tucked under him. Each time the wind blew, the sound came again, DHUM, DHUM, and each time he froze and pressed himself into the grass. But each time he also noticed something: the sound only came when the wind blew.

"That is strange," thought Gomayu. "A beast does not wait for the wind before it roars."

At last he reached the mango tree, and there, lying on its side in the shade, was a big round thing with a painted wooden body and a tight skin stretched over each end. The villagers had forgotten it after the festival. A long thin branch of the mango tree hung down over it, and every time the wind blew, the branch swung and tapped the skin. DHUM!

Gomayu stared. Then he laughed so hard that he had to sit down.

"A drum!" he cried. "I hid in the grass, I shook like a leaf, I nearly ran all the way home, all because of a drum and a mango branch!"

He reached out one paw and tapped the drum himself. Dhum, it said, quite politely. He tapped it again. Dhum. It did not bite. It did not chase him. It only made a noise, because inside, it was completely empty.

Three sparrows hopped onto the rim of the drum to see what the jackal was laughing about. And because Gomayu had come close enough to look, he now saw what he could never have seen from the tall grass: behind the drum, half hidden under the leaves, lay a cloth bundle that someone had left after the festival. Inside were two big round laddus, a little dusty but still sweet.

Gomayu ate one slowly and happily. The other he carried home for the next day. And from then on, whenever he heard a loud noise in the forest, he did not run at once. He stopped, he listened, and he went to take one good look.

And so the elders say: do not be afraid of a noise until you know what makes it. The loudest things are often the emptiest, and a brave look can turn a fear into a laugh.