BEVERLEY NAIDOO : CROCODILE AND THE STORK _ LEBANON LEBANON BOOK LAUNCH SEP 2006 AL SAQI BOOKS

I'm Beverley Naidoo and this is a tale that I have refashioned from an old Mozambican fable. I call it the crocodile and the stork. Stork was in mourning. Her black feathers hung like a cloak around her white breast. Crying had made her eyes as blood red as her long beak. But tears could not bring back her babies. She was resolved to have her revenge on crocodile who had raided her nest. Crocodile shall cry tears like mine, she vowed. Every day she waited for hours in the reeds beside the water. The leg on which she stood was as still stimulus read itself only in the evening shadows when hunger made her feel faint. Did her beak strike down like an arrow to catch 1 or 2 fish. Afterwards she returned to her mute pose from her hiding place. She saw where crocodile hid her eggs in a hole on the river bank. Patiently, stork waited day after day until the young had hatched. Silently, she watched crocodile carry the first baby in her mouth and lower it gently into the water. Stork remained perfectly quiet. As soon as the little crocodile began to swim away from the bank, its mother set off for her nest to collect. Another stork saw her chance and swooped, lifting the crocodile baby in the cradle of her beak. She flew down the river and dropped it into an empty animal pen at the edge of a village. By the time the baby shrieked, its mother was too far away to hear one by one while crocodile's back was turned.
Stork captured every one of her 12 babies. When crocodile realised that they had all disappeared, she screeched with rage and pain. Stork now flew up into a tree above the riverbank. Have you seen my children, crocodile? Cried giant. Tears welled up in her eyes. Oh yes, stork replied, I have taken them. Where are they? Crocodile would give them back, or I'll. If you want them back, you will have to bring me 70 fish for each child, stork said calmly. Crocodile gnashed her teeth and ripped her tail. But in the end it was agreed that the exchange would take place three days later. Crocodile knew that she would have to work night and day to collect enough fish in time. On the day of the exchange, crocodile pulled her heavy basket of fish upstream towards the appointed place. On the way, she passed some villagers plucking a large bird near a fire. The small gust of wind caught one of the feathers and blew it towards crocodile. It was a long black feather. Fear launched in crocodile's throat. She swam closer to the shore, and sure enough, the bird that the croc villagers were preparing to roast was stork. Crocodile wept tears of fury. She knew that she would never see her babies again. With a heavy heart, she turned away, swearing to kill all those who ate the bird that had stolen her babies. Thank you.