War Drum

Mukabla, the Jackal was very sad. He had not eaten for many days. He had travelled all over the jungle searching for food, but with no luck. Now, he was hungry and tired too.

It was a hot afternoon, so Mukabla decided to rest under a tree. The tired Jackal immediately fell asleep. Soon it was dark.

Suddenly, Mukabla was woken up by some strange noises.

Wooosh-dum-dum-shhhhh-dum-da-dum-da-dum.

The wind was blowing hard. And the strange noises continued. Wooosh-dum-dum-shhhhh-dum-da-dum-da-dum. The Jackal had never heard such sounds before and he was scared. He started to run.

He had not gone very far, when he stopped. “Hey, why am I running? What could those noises be?” So he gathered some courage and slowly started walking back to where the noises were coming from.

As he got nearer the noises became louder. Wooosh-dum-dum-shhhhh-dum-da-dum-da-dum. But Mukabla had made up his mind to find out what the strange noise was all about. And then suddenly he saw it.

Somebody had left a large drum next to a tree. And the branches of the tree were swinging in the wind and hitting the drum.

Wooosh-dum-dum-shhhhh-dum-da-dum-da-dum.

‘Oh, it is just a drum, and here I was scared and running away from it. How silly of me,’ thought Mukabla.

He went closer to the drum, and, oh, look what he found! There was food near the drum. Whoever left the drum in the forest, must have forgotten the food too.

The hungry Jackal immediately started eating. Licking his lips, he said to himself. ‘Had I run away from this strange noise, I would have missed out on such great food.’

277 words | 2 minutes
Readability: Grade 4 (9-10 year old children)
Based on Flesch–Kincaid readability scores

Filed under: folktales
Tags: #jackal

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