Bagheera (formerly This is the Law of the Jungle), revised

Short story. A father and his son wander accidentally into the forest of Kipling's The Jungle Book. Title is VERY tentative. I want to call out to Kipling, but can't decide what to use.

"Come on, buddy, it's time to go to dinner," I said to my son.

Billy's shaggy blond head poked out from between two piles of boxes. "But Daddy, I playin'" he said. He held up a decorated, padded drumstick he'd found in the new house to demonstrate. To a three year old, playing trumps everything.

"That's great, Billy, but Mommy and I haven't unpacked the dishes yet, so we can't make dinner. We're going to go to Roosterburger."

Billy paused in his attempt to stuff himself under a wing-back reading chair and looked at me over his shoulder. Roosterburger was his favorite restaurant that didn't involve animatronic animals and ball pits. He sat down and rubbed his chin, then tapped the side of his head. His favorite thinking pose.

"Can 'Geera come?"

"Bagheera again?" I said, feigning exasperation. "Why doesn't Mowgli ever come?"

Billy looked at me like I was an idiot. It was a look I'd grown used to since the onset of fatherhood. "Mogi not here, Daddy. He go to man vij." That one took me a moment. Oh, the man village.

I had started reading him The Jungle Book and Just So Stories the month before, and it was only a matter of days before they were his favorite bedtime books. Within a week after that, Baloo, Bagheera, and a handful of other characters, started showing up as Billy's imaginary playmates. He had trouble with some of the Indian names, but loved the characters.

"Well, Best Beloved, I guess Bagheera can come, then. But he's not allowed to order mouse tacos again."

Billy cackled delightedly and ran to me for a hug. I scooped him up in my arms and squeezed him tight. He pointed to the stairs with his stick and said, "Let's go get him. He's in my room."

We marched past the doorway to the kitchen where my wife was unpacking silverware. "We'll be ready to go in a few minutes, Jen. We're just going to his bedroom to get Bagheera and some socks."

"Thank goodness," she said, "I was starting to think you'd gotten lost in the boxes and we'd have to eat without you."

I started up the stairs with Billy still in my arms. He was singing a little marching tune under his breath and waving the drum stick like a conductor's baton. "Going to the jungle, going to the jungle! Me and Daddy, going to the jungle!"

It seemed like his song was prophetic as we reached the top of the stairs only to run head first into a wide leafed, dark green plant. I sputtered and pushed the big glossy foliage out of our faces.

"Silly Mommy, the top of the stairs is a terrible place to leave a plant!"

"We grow big plants inside?" I never got tired of Billy's wide-eyed, wondering expression when he learned about new ideas.

"Yep. People grow plants inside to make the house pretty, or just to smell good." I decided to leave the details of Jen's earlier, doomed attempts at raising plants for a later time. The harsh realities of vegetable husbandry could wait.

Billy wrapped his arms around his drumstick and clutched at his shoulders as though the excitement would make him fly apart without the reinforcement. "We could have our own jungle in the house!"

"Settle down, there, Best Beloved. I don't think we're going to grow quite that many plants. But maybe we can get you a plant of your own to take care of. Mommy can show you how while she takes care of hers."

"Oooo."

I walked into Billy's room, doing a familiar parental dance around dropped action figures, building blocks, and the remains of a snack cracker. We'd put Billy's room at the top of the list, trying to minimize the disruption of his routine, so the room was already unpacked. Dinosaur wall-clings, left over from his last obsession, looked down at us from the walls. His furniture was in place, and his toy box and shelves were full of his things. If you could only see Billy's room, you'd never believe we moved in three days ago.

I set him down and moved to his chest of drawers to find a pair of socks. Billy dropped to the floor and started looking around and under things, calling quietly for Bagheera. The tall plant in the hallway had permeated the room with an earthy, green smell. I would have to remember to compliment Jen on her choice.

"Not under my bed, Daddy," he said.

"Keep looking, buddy." I raised my voice a bit to address the hypothetical panther. "Bagheera, we have to leave in a few minutes. If you want chicken tenders from Roosterburger, you'd better come out."

"He not in my toy box, Daddy," Billy said. He was starting to sound worried, now. I didn't remember ever having such a vivid imagination. "Where could he be?"

"Did you look under your table? Sometimes I find you there."

The "dumb as rocks" look has a companion, the "Dad's the smartest guy in the history of smartness" look. They sort of balance each other out. Billy flashed me a grateful smile and pulled the bright red plastic chair away from his kid sized picnic table. He crawled underneath, calling out to his friend.

I had the socks in hand, but I gave him a couple of minutes to play pretend before raining on his parade. "Okay, Billy, it's time to come out. I bet Bagheera will come downstairs before we get in the car."

Only silence returned from beneath the table. He couldn't have sneaked past me; the table was pushed into a corner and only two sides were open. I felt a flash of annoyance and fought to control it. Billy had been shockingly patient with the chaos and strangeness of moving. I could put up with a little attempt to fool me.

I dropped to one knee and looked under the table as suddenly as I could. "Gotcha!"

There was no little boy to be found.

"Uh oh, you got away from me!" I started looking around the room. I must have gotten distracted while looking at something on the walls so he could sneak out. He wasn't under the bed, or hiding in the closet. His toy box was too full for him to fit, but I looked there, too.

I went to the head of the steps. He knew better than to go down them on his own, but sometimes adventurous boys don't let what they know stop them. There was no toddler on the steps, either. Neither clinging to the bannister nor laying at the bottom, so that was a relief.

"Honey? Do you have Billy down there already?"

"No," she called back. "I thought he was with you."

"Yeah, so did I," I muttered.

I walked down the hallway, quickly checking the empty guest bedroom, office and my bedroom. I didn't find him anywhere. I also didn't hear him giggling over his own cleverness, which is what usually gives him away.

"Daddy," came Billy's voice, very faint, from his bedroom. "C'mon, Daddy."

I dashed back to his bedroom, but he wasn't there. I dropped to my knees to check under the furniture one more time.

"We gotta find 'Geera, Daddy. Mommy's waiting." The voice was coming from my left, which was ridiculous. The only thing to my left was Billy's chest of drawers, and the picnic table.

I crawled to the picnic table and felt a warm gust blow over me. It was July, and we had the air conditioning going to combat the ninety degree weather. Besides, the vents were nowhere near the table. I stuck my head under the deck of the table and called for Billy. The only response I got was a frustrated "c'mon," from dead ahead.

I pushed under the table, scraping my back in the process. The green smell from the plant was oddly strong here. I reached forward, imagining that somehow I had lost track of Billy in the shadows under the table. I'd rather my vision be failing than lose the boy. My hand banged into the table leg that sat furthest back in the corner, then landed on moist warm soil.

I jerked upright, banging my head on the particle board top of the table. Cursing, I pulled myself from beneath it and then jerked the table out of the corner. There, the wall seemed to have partly collapsed, crumpling into a strangely organic shape, with a hole in the center. Beyond it, I could see bare dirt. I hopped to my right and looked out Billy's window, but there was nothing wrong with the house. I was on the second floor, and there was nothing disturbing the siding to explain a hole.

I crouched to examine it. The sides of the hole transitioned smoothly into some sort of wood, gnarled and smooth. It was impossible to say precisely when the drywall became the wood. There was no seam, the sides of the hole just seemed to extend backward into the wall, and become slowly more wooden.

A little pair of sockless feet in soft leather moccasins toddled up to the whole. "Daaaaaaddy! C'mon!"

"Come back, Billy. Daddy needs you to come back through the hole."

Billy bent down and looked through the hole. "There you are, Daddy. C'mon, we gotta get 'Geera for dinner." He turned and started walking back along the bare dirt.

Cursing, I scooted forward, trying to grab him. I missed, and sprawled on the dirt, halfway through the hole. I called out to him once more as I stood up.

"Billy, wait for Daddy. Stop right there." Since Billy became a toddler, I had discovered that I possessed a Serious Dad Voice. It seems to push some kind of button in the spine of young children. Sometimes Billy could ignore it, but it seemed to be a function of just how serious I was. I was very serious. He stopped short, and turned to wait for me with his hands behind his back.

I strode over to him quickly and swung him up into my arms. “What have Mommy and Daddy told you about wandering off alone?”

“Don’t go off alone,” he said in a sing song voice. “But you said we could go and get ‘Geera.”

“I thought we were going to get him from your room. Not from a jungle.”

“Yeah. I never have a jungle in my room before.”

“Well, let’s go back to your room and worry about the jungle after that,” I said. I turned around to head back across the short clearing, but stopped immediately. The tunnel I had crawled through was gone. The jungle continued on as far as I could see.

“Well, s**t.”

“Oooooh! Daddy said a bad word!”

“Yeah, well, Daddy is upset that the tunnel we crawled through is missing.” I didn’t mind the ribbing; I was just pleased the boy wasn’t freaking out.

“We find ‘Geera. ‘Geera knows all the secrets in the forest.”

Personally, I was hoping not to meet any panthers. Or preferably, to wake up in my bed. Either way, we were going to have to move.

“Okay, buddy. Let’s take a walk and look for Bagheera, or a way back to Mommy.”

We walked along together down a narrow track. I guess it was a game trail or something, but I’m no kind of hunter, so I don’t know for sure. Billy was still having fun on his adventure, and skipped along, swinging his toy. He made up songs as we went, or sang snatches of the soundtrack to the cartoon version of The Jungle Book.

As we passed a large tree with exposed, gnarled roots, there was a blur of movement and something tan and brown knocked Billy down. As they struck the floor of the forest, I saw that it was an enormous snake. It didn’t seem to have bitten him, but a large loop of coils was holding him down. They were face to face, and Billy was simply staring at it, slack jawed. By the shape of its head, I thought it was a python or a boa. I had to get the thing off of him before it started squeezing. I grabbed a loop of the snake and pulled backwards as hard as I could.

My first impression was that the snake was even larger than I thought, at least ten feet long, and that much snake was heavy. My second impression was one of extreme pain as the snake turned its head toward me and struck me in the left shoulder with a mouth full of backward curving teeth.

I screamed, and grabbed at its head and tried to pull it off, but that just resulted in even worse pain as those teeth dug in. The world got fuzzy for a second, but I managed to stay conscious. I grabbed the snake behind the head, the way I’d seen them do on the nature shows. I tried putting some pressure on its jaw bone to force them open. On the shows they always seem to be doing that with two or three foot snakes. This one was bigger around than my forearm, and didn’t seem very impressed with my efforts.

Billy had recovered from the shock and started to cry. “Daddy!”

I managed to gasp out, “Daddy’s okay! Get away from the snake. Can you find Daddy a nice big rock? Big as your tummy.” I wasn’t prying this snake off, so I’d need a weapon to make myself unpalatable.

I felt something slide over my thigh, and realized the snake was going to wrap me. I let go of its head and started fending off the encroaching coils as best I could. It wasn’t long before its tail had trapped my ankle, and we went down in a heap. As fast as I could think about getting back up, more of the snake was around my legs. It was too strong for me to fend off in that position.

The snake’s coils were pressing my left forearm against my chest, now, but I’d managed to keep my right hand free by shoving the thing below my arm pit. My breath started to get short as it squeezed, and pain shot up my knee as it began bending sideways.

“Son, you got that rock?” My breath came in gasps, now. “Daddy needs it in a hurry!” The edges of my vision were collapsing into a blurry tunnel.

“No rock, Daddy. Just ‘Geera.”

What?

A wide paw covered in mottled black velvet appeared in my field of vision. Wickedly curved claws sprang out, and slashed down onto the back of the snake. It let go its bite and whipped its head around, pointed down my body. The paw came back, and slapped viciously at the snake’s head, accompanied by a terrifying roar.

The crushing coils released me as the snake turned to face the panther. Every breath was agony as I scrambled to stand up. I cast around for a loose rock, but found nothing. I pulled Billy behind me and stood between him and the wild animals, panting.

The snake and panther were staring at each other, mere feet apart. The panther licked casually at the blood on its paw. I’d been wrong about how big the snake was. Some of it must have still been in the undergrowth when it landed on Billy. How in the hell was I still alive?

The snake reared up, its head higher than the big cat’s, and seemed about to strike out again. At that moment, a loud and terrifying growl came out of the woods. The cat looked behind himself, toward the sound, then back at the snake.

The python subsided, and slithered off between two trees. As soon as the snake began to move out, I turned to Billy and scooped him up. Panthers were well known to view small animals like toddlers as food. We were out of the frying pan and into the fire.

The cat began to stalk toward us, and I backed away slowly.

“Where we going, Daddy? That’s ‘Geera,” Billy said. He squirmed in my arms, using a toddler’s native contortionist skills to try to get away. “He came to rescue us from Kaa.”

“I don’t know why that panther attacked the snake, and I’m glad it did,” I said. “But I don’t think that’s really Bagheera. And the snake got away so I bet he’s hungry.” I was still looking around for a stick to use as a club, a heavy rock, anything. There was nothing but dirt, leaves and vines that I could see. In the distance I could see boulders that would be too big for me to lift, anyway.

Billy squirmed and managed to slip on the blood running down my arm from my shoulder. He landed lightly on the ground and ran toward the big cat.

“No, Billy! Real panthers aren’t like Bag�"“

Before the sentence was out of my mouth, Billy had his arms around the panther’s neck. The big cat was nuzzling his face, and licking the dirt and blood off. After a moment more, the big cat padded over to me and nuzzled against my leg. He rumbled a loud purr. I felt like furniture being claimed by the world’s biggest housecat.

I was stupefied by the animal’s behavior. My legs felt like jelly from fear and adrenaline. I didn’t know where to put my hands, and decided to offer the thing a gentle scratch between the shoulders. It purred louder, and leaned into me.

The impression of near perfect blackness was broken now that I had the time to really look. One of the cat’s furry ears had been badly mauled and bore stark white scars. A pair of straight scars slashed down the left side of his muzzle as well. His large yellow eyes regarded me alertly. He looked like a cat who’d been there and done that.

I stumbled backward until my back was against the trunk of a tree, then slowly slid down until I was sitting.

“See, Daddy? I told you ‘Geera was waiting.”

I laughed weekly, “Yeah, I guess you did.” A sickening thought sent a chill up my back. “Have you come here to see Bagheera before?”

“Nope, never go to ‘Geera’s house before. He sleeps in my room.” I knew there was no panther in the boy’s room at night. So whatever was happening to us, it was new, and the ‘Geera we knew and loved was imaginary.

“Does Bagheera know the way home?” I was still staring into those eyes. I felt like there was more going on in there than I’d ever seen in a wild animal. “Do you know how Billy can get home, Bagheera?”

The panther purred again, then turned toward the screamed out a call. The unseen animal that had roared earlier did so again, and I heard the sound of something huge moving through the brush. Before long, I saw a huge brown bear moving toward us. It didn’t seem hostile. The bear stayed on all fours, and the panther’s hackles remained low.

Part of me, the exhausted and hurt part, wanted to believe that the insanity of this place would hold, and that would be the wise teacher, Baloo. That part of me wanted to let Billy go to the bear, wanted to trust that everything would be fine.

The father in me wouldn’t allow it, and drove my tortured body upright. I snagged Billy’s arm while he was still staring in wonder at the new visitor.

“Daddy, it’s Baloo!”

“Maybe,” I said. “I hope so, because Baloo is wise and maybe he can help us get home. But just in case it isn’t Baloo, you stay here with Bagheera until Daddy meets the bear.” I gibbered a little inside at having said that sentence.

I limped toward the bear, hands open and down by my sides. He watched me calmly. I was well within range of the thing, and probably too hurt to get away. I was gambling my life, and probably Billy’s on being inside a children’s story. Too many strange things had happened to doubt it much. Either the animals were trained and we’d ended up in someone’s amusement park, or we were truly in Mowgli’s jungle. When I thought about the fact that I’d gotten here from a hole in my suburban home, it didn’t seem any more unreasonable.

“Is it really you, Baloo?” I wasn’t truly surprised when the bear nodded it’s head twice.

“You’re the wise one, aren’t you? Do you know how Billy and I can go home? His mother will miss him.”

The bear butted me with its head, shoving me backwards. I had to back up to keep my balance, and the bear kept nudging me. In this fashion we were back beside Bagheera and Billy in short order.

“Baloo!” Billy cried. He ran toward the bear. I raised a hand to stop him, but held it back. My faith was rewarded when the bear did nothing but put a gentle paw around Billy’s backside in response to a clinging hug.

When the boy let go, Baloo sat back on his haunches. He reached out a long-clawed paw and tapped his claws with surprising gentleness against the feathered drumstick that Billy was still clinging to.

His chubby, grubby fist was still wrapped tight around the handle of that drumstick. It seemed no worse for its unexpected adventure. The suede of its round head was clean and gray, and the bright beads and feathers seemed to have survived the jungle intact as well. It was ridiculous. The boy had been tackled by a monster snake, and skidded along the ground in a rain forest. I’d bled on him after I picked him up. He was dirty from his head to the bottoms of his feet. The beater should be filthy, if not broken.

I didn’t know a damn thing about it. Billy found it underneath the wing-backed chair the previous occupants had left when we moved it. We’d checked the drumstick for sharp edges, valuable materials, and odd smells. When it checked out, we let him keep it. It was just a fancy stick for beating a drum, one of Billy’s favorite pastimes.

I thought about everything that had happened. Billy had be waving that stick and singing about it all. The strange plant in the hallway. The earthy smell. The snake even attacked us after he had a go at the python’s song from the cartoon.

“The drumstick brought us here?” I muttered. Baloo moaned a subdued agreement. “And it can take us home?” The bear nodded again.

“Billy, I think Baloo means your drumstick and your songs were what brought us here. Do you think you could sing us a going home song?”

Billy thought about it for a moment, then opened his mouth and started singing. His voice was nothing unusual, just that adorably off-key little kid voice. He made up a song about seeing Mommy, and wanted chicken fingers. It was a song about missing his toy cars, and wanting to take a bath. The rhymes were strained and the meter was terrible, but he put every ounce of his little heart into it.

After a minute or so, the smell of cardboard boxes and furniture polish breezed through the forest. Bagheera shook his head and sneezed, and I laughed aloud. I started looking for the tunnel mouth.

When Billy was done singing, Baloo reached out toward Billy’s hand, and speared the suede bag on the head of the drum, lifting it from the boy’s fingers. Then he looked at me, and motioned to my right with his head.

I turned, and there was a circle, about three feet wide, spilling electric light into the gloom of the jungle. Our way home had opened, just as I had hoped.

“Come on, Billy. It’s time to go home,” I said, softly. Both of the big predators were staring at me, now.

“My drumstick!”

“I think Baloo wants it to stay here,” I said. “So other little boys and Daddies don’t get lost in here.” He pouted, but gave me a nod.

“But Daddy, I want to stay here with ‘Geera,” he whined.

“Sorry, buddy. He’ll have to come visit you in your room, just like before. Okay?”

Big tears welled up in his eyes, and his lips quivered, but he managed a choked “’k.”

Billy gave more hugs to the animals, and I watched the hole. It didn’t seem to be anchored anywhere, just hanging in space at the level of the path. It wasn’t pulsing or shrinking, but I was terrified it might close on us like the one earlier.

As Billy shuffled toward me with his head down, the animals began to make noises at one another. I am certain it was speech, though of course it was only animal noises. The bear seemed alarmed. He got loud, and stood up to his full height, but didn’t bare his teeth at us. I urged Billy to hurry through the hole anyway.

Once his slippers disappeared, I got down on the ground and started to crawl through myself. I stopped just as my head entered the circle to look back once more. Before I could get turned around, I was bumped hard from behind, and had to crawl forward to keep my balance.

I spilled out onto the hard wood floor of our living room. Jen stood a few feet away, around a pile of boxes. She was holding Billy, who was trying to tell her about his adventure. As I stood up, she noticed me.

“Why is he filthy? What have you been doing? Why didn’t you answer me when I called?” She seemed pretty steamed, and I guess I would be, too. I had no idea how I was going to explain this without looking crazy.

As I opened my mouth to answer, there was a loud meow from my feet. I looked down, and a lean, muscular housecat cat bumped its head against my calf and purred. It had bright yellow eyes, and a pair of straight scars on sits muzzle. Its left ear was half-gone. Billy slid down from his mother’s stunned arms and rushed forward to hug the cat.

I looked behind me, at the hole that seemed to be part of my wall. Baloo was on the other side, head low to the ground, looking in and making a whining sound. As I watched, the hole began to shrink.

“And what is that?” Jen asked, pointing to the cat.

“That, my darling, is Bagheera.”

Author's Note

I thought it was an interesting challenge to ride the line between evoking the speech and vocabulary of a toddler without becoming annoying. How do you think I did?

version 2, 11/20 - ratcheted up the tension a bit, and clarified some things at the end.