How the Whale Became (3 page)

When the animals had been on earth for some time they grew tired of admiring the trees, the flowers and the sun. They began to admire each other. Every animal was eager to be admired, and spent a part of each day making itself look more beautiful.

Soon they began to hold beauty contests.

Sometimes Tiger won the prize, sometimes Eagle, and sometimes Ladybird. Every animal tried hard.

One animal in particular won the prize almost every time. This was Polar Bear.

Polar Bear was white. Not quite snowy white, but much whiter than any of the other creatures.
Everyone
admired her. In secret, too, everyone was
envious
of her. But however much they wished that she wasn’t quite so beautiful, they couldn’t help giving her the prize.

‘Polar Bear,’ they said, ‘with your white fur, you are almost too beautiful.’

All this went to Polar Bear’s head. In fact, she became vain. She was always washing and polishing her fur, trying to make it still whiter. After a while she was winning the prize every time. The only times
any other creature got a chance to win was when it rained. On those days Polar Bear would say:

‘I shall not go out in the wet. The other creatures will be muddy, and my white fur may get splashed.’

Then, perhaps, Frog or Duck would win for a change.

She had a crowd of young admirers who were always hanging around her cave. They were mainly Seals, all very giddy. Whenever she came out they made a loud shrieking roar:

‘Ooooooh! How beautiful she is!’

Before long, her white fur was more important to Polar Bear than anything. Whenever a single speck of dust landed on the tip of one hair of it – she was furious.

‘How can I be expected to keep beautiful in this country!’ she cried then. ‘None of you have ever seen me at my best, because of the dirt here. I am really much whiter than any of you have ever seen me. I think I shall have to go into another country. A
country
where there is none of this dust. Which country would be best?’

She used to talk in this way because then the Seals would cry:

‘Oh, please don’t leave us. Please don’t take your beauty away from us. We will do anything for you.’

And she loved to hear this.

Soon animals were coming from all over the world to look at her. They stared and stared as Polar Bear stretched out on her rock in the sun. Then they went off home and tried to make themselves look like her. But it was no use. They were all the wrong colour.

They were black, or brown, or yellow, or ginger, or fawn, or speckled, but not one of them was white. Soon most of them gave up trying to look beautiful. But they still came every day to gaze enviously at Polar Bear. Some brought picnics. They sat in a vast crowd among the trees in front of her cave.

‘Just look at her,’ said Mother Hippo to her
children.
‘Now see that you grow up like that.’

But nothing pleased Polar Bear.

‘The dust these crowds raise!’ she sighed. ‘Why can’t I ever get away from them? If only there were some spotless, shining country, all for me…’

Now pretty well all the creatures were tired of her being so much more admired than they were. But one creature more so than the rest. He was Peregrine Falcon.

He was a beautiful bird, all right. But he was not white. Time and again in the beauty contests he was runner-up to Polar Bear.

‘If it were not for her,’ he raged to himself, ‘I should be first every time.’

He thought and thought for a plan to get rid of her. How? How? How? At last he had it.

One day he went up to Polar Bear.

Now Peregrine Falcon had been to every country in the world. He was a great traveller, as all the creatures well knew.

‘I know a country,’ he said to Polar Bear, ‘which is so clean it is even whiter than you are. Yes, yes, I know, you are beautifully white, but this country is even whiter. The rocks are clear glass and the earth
is frozen ice-cream. There is no dirt there, no dust, no mud. You would become whiter than ever in that country. And no one lives there. You could be queen of it.’

Polar Bear tried to hide her excitement.

‘I could be queen of it, you say?’ she cried. ‘This country sounds made for me. No crowds, no dirt? And the rocks, you say, are glass?’

‘The rock,’ said Peregrine Falcon, ‘are mirrors.’

‘Wonderful!’ cried Polar Bear.

‘And the rain,’ he said, ‘is white face powder.’

‘Better than ever!’ she cried. ‘How quickly can I be there, away from all these staring crowds and all this dirt?’

‘I am going to another country,’ she told the other animals. ‘It is too dirty here to live.’

Peregrine Falcon hired Whale to carry his
passenger.
He sat on Whale’s forehead, calling out the
directions
. Polar Bear sat on the shoulder, gazing at the sea. The Seals, who had begged to go with her, sat on the tail.

After some days, they came to the North Pole, where it is all snow and ice.

‘Here you are,’ cried Peregrine Falcon. ‘Everything just as I said. No crowds, no dirt, nothing but
beautiful
clean whiteness.’

‘And the rocks actually are mirrors!’ cried Polar Bear, and she ran to the nearest iceberg to repair her beauty after the long trip.

Every day now, she sat on one iceberg or another, making herself beautiful in the mirror of the ice. Always, near her, sat the Seals. Her fur became
whiter and whiter in this new clean country. And as it became whiter, the Seals praised her beauty more and more. When she herself saw the improvement in her looks she said:

‘I shall never go back to that dirty old country again.’

And there she is still, with all her admirers around her.

Peregrine Falcon flew back to the other creatures and told them that Polar Bear had gone for ever. They were all very glad, and set about making themselves beautiful at once. Every single one was saying to himself:

‘Now that Polar Bear is out of the way, perhaps I shall have a chance of the prize at the beauty contest.’

And Peregrine Falcon was saying to himself:

‘Surely, now, I am the most beautiful of all creatures.’

But that first contest was won by Little Brown Mouse for her pink feet.

One creature, a Wild-Dog-Becomer called Hyena, copied Leopard-Becomer in everything he did.

Leopard-Becomer was already one of the most respected creatures on the plains. He was strong, swift, fierce, graceful, and had the most beautiful spotted skin.

Hyena longed to be like this. He practised walking like him, crouching like him, pouncing like him. He studied his every move. ‘I must get it perfect,’ he kept saying to himself.

He followed Leopard-Becomer so closely, in fact, that he never had time to go off and kill his own game. So he had to eat what Leopard left. Leopard didn’t take at all kindly to Hyena, and often made him wait a long time for the left-overs. In this way Hyena grew used to eating meat that was none too fresh.

Nevertheless, so long as he could keep near Leopard he was satisfied.

Only one thing could take him from Leopard’s track, and that was a chance to boast to the
wild-dogs.

‘You’re nothing but a Wild-Dog yourself,’ they said. ‘Who do you think you are? Putting on all these Leopard airs?’

‘Ha ha,’ he replied. ‘You wait. Watch me and wait. You’re in for a surprise. I’ll be a leopard yet.’

One morning he awoke to find his skin covered with big spots, almost like a leopard’s.

‘Joy! Joy!’ he cried, and danced about till he was sodden with dew. He ran off to show himself to the wild-dogs. When they saw his spots they all fled, looking back over their shoulders fearfully.

‘Ha ha!’ cried Hyena. ‘So you thought I was Leopard, did you?’

It was a long time before he could persuade them that he really was Hyena. Even so, they never quite trusted him again.

They began to move away quietly whenever they saw him coming.

As for Hyena, he returned to his Leopard-
Becoming
with a renewed zest.

This went on for many years.

At last, Hyena began to feel impatient.

‘Shall I never be a leopard?’ he asked himself. ‘I’m still not anywhere near as good as Leopard-Becomer. In fact, he picks up new tricks faster than I learn his old ones.’

He ran to the Wild-Dog-Becomers.

‘Am I Leopard yet?’ he asked.

They peeped back over the skyline behind which they had run at the first sight of him.

‘You are not,’ they said. ‘But you are not
Wild-Dog
either, not any more. The Lord knows what sort of a thing you are now.’

Hyena went back to Leopard. For some years he went about in a very disgruntled condition, but still following Leopard. One day he came as close to Leopard as he dared and said:

‘Shall I never become a leopard, Leopard?’

Leopard looked at him in disgust.

‘You,’ he said, ‘have already become what you are going to become.’

‘And what is that, please?’ asked Hyena politely.

‘You have become,’ said Leopard, ‘a
Leopard-Follower
.’

Hyena retired to a safe distance and thought about this. He became very embittered.

‘Very well,’ he said at last. ‘If I cannot ever be a leopard, that’s finished it. I shall go back to being a wild-dog. Leopard is a stupid creature anyway,
calling
me a Leopard-Follower.’

And he ran back to the wild-dogs. He knew they would run away when they caught sight of him, so while he was still in the distance he began to shout:

‘It’s me, Hyena. I’m coming back to be one of you. I’ve finished with Leopard.’

But it was no use. The wild-dogs ran, and faster than Hyena they ran. He chased them as far as he could move, shouting till his throat ached. At last he stood alone, panting, in the middle of a flat, empty, silent plain.

Sadly, he drooped his tail and turned back. He was feeling hungry. Then he remembered that he
didn’t know how to kill anything. He walked on and on, getting hungrier and hungrier.

Suddenly he stopped, and sniffed. A leopard had killed a gazelle near there a week ago. He found the bones, cracked them, and sucked them. Then, sniffing, he followed the track of the leopard.

This leopard lived under a rock on top of a hill. Hyena made his bed at the bottom of the hill.
Whenever
Leopard went out hunting Hyena followed him and ate what he left. In this way he lived.

But he was deeply ashamed. He now saw that he was nothing but a Leopard-Follower after all. He became more bitter than ever. He no longer imitated Leopard. His greatest pleasure now was to sit at a safe distance, when Leopard was eating, and make critical remarks in a loud clear voice:

‘What a stupid animal you are! How gluttonously you eat! How boorishly you tear the meat! How
disgustingly
you growl as you chew!’

And between each comment he gave a laugh, a loud mocking laugh, so that all the other animals within hearing would think he was getting the better of Leopard in some way.

‘If I cannot be a leopard,’ he said to himself, ‘then you shall be ashamed of being a leopard.’

Leopard, of course, was much too fine a beast ever to be ashamed of being what he was.

That was as far as Hyena ever got. He is the same still. He follows Leopard from meal to meal, and laughs and laughs, while Leopard gorges himself on the choicest portions of the meat.

Afterwards, when Leopard has eaten his fill and strolled off to sleep, Hyena stops laughing. Then, at dusk, and on bent legs so as not to be seen, he runs in and tears and gulps all night long at the bones and scraps and rags of meat that are left.

When God made a creature, he first of all shaped it in clay. Then he baked it in the ovens of the sun until it was hard. Then he took it out of the oven and, when it was cool, breathed life into it. Last of all, he pulled its skin on to it like a tight jersey.

All the animals got different skins. If it was a cold day, God would give to the animals he made on that day a dense, woolly skin. Snow was falling heavily when he made the sheep and the bears.

If it was a hot day, the new animals got a thin skin. On the day he made greyhounds and
dachshunds
and boys and girls, the weather was so hot God had to wear a sun hat and was calling endlessly for iced drinks.

Now on the day he made Torto, God was so hot the sweat was running down on to the tips of his fingers.

After baking Torto in the oven, God took him out to cool. Then he flopped back in his chair and ordered Elephant to fan him with its ears. He had made Elephant only a few days before and was very
pleased with its big flapping ears. At last he thought  that Torto must surely be cool.

‘He’s had as long as I usually give a little thing like him,’ he said, and picking up Torto, he breathed life into him. As he did so, he found out his mistake.

Torto was not cool. Far from it. On that hot day, with no cooling breezes, Torto had remained
scorching
hot. Just as he was when he came out of the oven.

‘Ow!’ roared God. He dropped Torto and went hopping away on one leg to the other end of his workshop, shaking his burnt fingers.

‘Ow, ow, ow!’ he roared again, and plunged his hand into a dish of butter to cure the burns.

Torto meanwhile lay on the floor, just alive,
groaning
with the heat.

‘Oh, I’m so hot!’ he moaned. ‘So hot! The heat. Oh, the heat!’

God was alarmed that he had given Torto life before he was properly cooled.

‘Just a minute, Torto,’ he said. ‘I’ll have a nice, thin, cooling skin on you in a jiffy. Then you’ll feel better.’

But Torto wanted no skin. He was too hot as it was.

‘No, no!’ he cried. ‘I shall stifle. Let me go without a skin for a few days. Let me cool off first.’

‘That’s impossible,’ said God. ‘All creatures must have skins.’

‘No, no!’ cried Torto, wiping the sweat from his little brow. ‘No skin!’

‘Yes!’ cried God.

‘No!’ cried Torto.

‘Yes!’

‘No!’

God made a grab at Torto, who ducked and ran like lightning under a cupboard. Without any skin to cumber his movements, Torto felt very light and agile.

‘Come out!’ roared God, and got down on his knees to grope under the cupboard for Torto.

In a flash, Torto was out from under the other end of the cupboard, and while God was still struggling to his feet, he ran out through the door and into the world, without a skin.

The first thing he did was to go to a cool pond and plunge straight into it. There he lay, for several days, just cooling off. Then he came out and began to live among the other creatures. But he was still very hot. Whenever he felt his own heat getting too much for him, he retired to his pond to cool off in the water. In this way, he found life pleasant enough.

Except for one thing. The other creatures didn’t approve of Torto.

They all had skins. When they saw Torto without a skin, they were horrified.

‘But he has no skin!’ cried Porcupine.

‘It’s disgusting!’ cried Yak. ‘It’s indecent!’

‘He’s not normal. Leave him to himself,’ said Sloth.

So all the animals began to ignore Torto. But they couldn’t ignore him completely, because he was a wonderfully swift runner, and whenever they held a race, he won it. He was so nimble without a skin
that none of the other creatures could hope to keep up with him.

‘I’m a genius-runner,’ he said. ‘You should respect me. I am faster than the lot of you put together. I was made different.’

But the animals still ignored him. Even when they had to give him the prizes for winning all the races, they still ignored him.

‘Torto is a very swift mover,’ they said. ‘And
perhaps
swifter than any of us. But what sort of a
creature
is he? No skin!’

And they all turned up their noses.

At first, Torto didn’t care at all. When the animals collected together, with all their fur brushed and combed and set neatly, he strolled among them,
smiling
happily, naked.

‘When will this disgusting creature learn to behave?’ cried Turkey, loudly enough for everyone to hear.

‘Just take no notice of him,’ said Alligator, and lumbered round, in his heavy armour, to face in the opposite direction.

All the animals turned round to face in the opposite direction.

When Torto went up to Grizzly Bear to ask what everyone was looking at, Grizzly Bear pretended to have a fly in his ear. When he went to Armadillo, Armadillo gathered up all his sons and daughters and led them off without a word or a look.

‘So that’s your game, is it?’ said Torto to himself.
Then aloud, he said: ‘Never mind. Wait till it comes to the races.’

When the races came, later in the afternoon, Torto won them all. But nobody cheered. He collected the prizes and went off to his pond alone.

‘They’re jealous of me,’ he said. ‘That’s why they ignore me. But I’ll punish them: I’ll go on winning all the races,’

That night, God came to Torto and begged him to take a proper skin before it was too late. Torto shook his head:

‘The other animals are snobs,’ he said. ‘Just because they are covered with a skin, they think everyone else should be covered with one too. That’s snobbery. But I shall teach them not to be snobs by making them respect me. I shall go on winning all the races.’

And so he did. But still the animals didn’t respect him. In fact, they grew to dislike him more and more.

One day there was a very important race-meeting, and all the animals collected at the usual place. But the minute Torto arrived they simply walked away. Simply got up and walked away. Torto sat on the race-track and stared after them. He felt really left out.

‘Perhaps,’ he thought sadly, ‘it would be better if I had a skin. I mightn’t be able to run then, but at least I would have friends. I have no friends. Besides, after all this practice, I would still be able to run quite fast.’

But as soon as he said that he felt angry with himself.

‘No!’ he cried. ‘They are snobs. I shall go on
winning
their races in spite of them. I shall teach them a lesson.’

And he got up from where he was sitting and followed them. He found them all in one place, under a tree. And the races were being run.

‘Hey!’ he called as he came up to them. ‘What about me?’

But at that moment, Tiger held up a sign in front of him. On the sign, Torto read: ‘Creatures without skins are not allowed to enter.’

Torto went home and brooded. God came up to him.

‘Well, Torto,’ said God kindly, ‘would you like a skin yet?’

Torto thought deeply.

‘Yes,’ he said at last, ‘I would like a skin. But only a very special sort of skin.’

‘And what sort of a skin is that?’ asked God.

‘I would like,’ said Torto, ‘a skin that I can put on, or take off, just whenever I please.’

God frowned.

‘I’m afraid,’ he said, ‘I have none like that.’

‘Then make one,’ replied Torto. ‘You’re God.’

God went away and came back within an hour.

‘Do you want a beautiful skin?’ he asked. ‘Or do you mind if it’s very ugly?’

‘I don’t care what sort of a skin it is,’ said Torto, ‘so long as I can take it off and put it back on again just whenever I please.’

God went away again, and again came back within an hour.

‘Here it is. That’s the best I can do.’

‘What’s this!’ cried Torto. ‘But it’s horrible!’

‘Take it or leave it,’ said God, and walked away.

Torto examined the skin. It was tough, rough, and stiff.

‘It’s like a coconut,’ he said. ‘With holes in it.’

And so it was. Only it was shiny. When he tried it on, he found it quite snug. It had only one
disadvantage
. He could move only very slowly in it.

‘What’s the hurry?’ he said to himself then. ‘When it comes to moving, who can move faster than me?’

And he laughed. Suddenly he felt delighted. Away he went to where the animals were still running their races.

As he came near to them, he began to think that perhaps his skin was a little rough and ready. But he checked himself:

‘Why should I dress up for them?’ he said. ‘This rough old thing will do. The races are the important thing.’

Tiger lowered his notice and stared in dismay as Torto swaggered past him. All the animals were now turning and staring, nudging each other, and turning and staring.

‘That’s a change, anyway,’ thought Torto.

Then, as usual, he entered for all the races.

The animals began to talk and laugh among
themselves
as they pictured Torto trying to run in his heavy new clumsy skin.

‘He’ll look silly, and then how we’ll laugh.’ And they all laughed.

But when he took his skin off at the starting-post, their laughs turned to frowns.

He won all the races, then climbed back into his skin to collect the prizes. He strutted in front of all the animals.

‘Now it’s my turn to be snobbish,’ he said to himself.

Then he went home, took off his skin, and slept sweetly. Life was perfect for him.

This went on for many years. But though the
animals
would now speak to him, they remembered what he had been. That didn’t worry Torto, however. He became very fond of his skin. He began to keep it on at night when he came home after the races. He began to do everything in it, except actually race. He crept around slowly, smiling at the leaves, letting the days pass.

There came a time when there were no races for several weeks. During all this time Torto never took his skin off once. Until, when the first race came round at last, he found he could not take his skin off at all, no matter how he pushed and pulled. He was stuck inside it. He strained and squeezed and gasped, but it was no use. He was stuck.

However, he had already entered for all the races, so he had to run.

He lined up, in his skin, at the start, alongside Hare, Greyhound, Cheetah and Ostrich. They were all great runners, but usually he could beat the lot of them easily. The crowd stood agog.

‘Perhaps,’ Torto was thinking, ‘my skin won’t
make much difference. I’ve never really tried to run my very fastest in it.’

The starter’s pistol cracked, and away went
Greyhound
, Hare, Cheetah and Ostrich, neck and neck. Where was Torto?

The crowd roared with laughter.

Torto had fallen on his face and had not moved an inch. At his first step, cumbered by his stiff, heavy skin, he had fallen on his face. But he tried. He climbed back on to his feet and made one stride, slowly, then a second stride, and was just about to make a third when the race was over and Cheetah had won. Torto had moved not quite three paces. How the crowd laughed!

And so it was with all the races. In not one race did Torto manage to make more than three steps, before it was over.

The crowd was enjoying itself. Torto was weeping with shame.

After the last race, he turned to crawl home. He only wanted to hide. But though the other animals had let him go off alone when he had the prizes, now they came alongside him, in a laughing,
mocking
crowd.

‘Who’s the slowest of all the creatures?’ they shouted.

‘Torto is!’

‘Who’s the slowest of all the creatures?’

‘Torto is!’ – all the way home.

After that, Torto tried to keep himself out of sight, but the other animals never let him rest. Whenever
any of them chanced to see him, they would shout at the tops of their voices:

‘Who’s the slowest of all the creatures?’

And all the other creatures within hearing would answer, at the tops of their voices:

‘Torto is!’

And that is how Torto came to be known as ‘Tortoise’.