Week 7 Strorytelling: The Poor Mongoose

I live in a small town with my mother, father, and brother. My mother loves to take care of my brother and me. We are a poor family and my father has to always go search for food. All of my family members look different than me, but it has never bothered me. I am a mongoose. They are human.They treat me as if I am one of them, so it doesn't bother me. They are my family.

One day I overheard my mother and father talking. My mother thought that I was going to hurt my brother. I was appalled! I would never hurt my sweet, innocent brother! He is just a baby.
My mother asked my father to watch us while she went to get water in the water jar. My father stayed for a minute, but then he was hungry. He left the house to go beg for food. My brother and I were alone.

We had never been alone before. Mother would always watch us and now I know why. She does not trust me. I don't know what I did to make her feel this way. I have never hurt my brother before. I want to do something to make her trust me! Now I just have to think of something to do.

As I was thinking, a huge black snake crawled out of a hole. This was in my room! It was crawling toward my baby brother's crib! I need to stop it!

I ran toward the baby's crib and pounced on the snake. The snake did not like this, but I didn't care. I was not going to let it hurt my baby brother! It tried to fight back, but I was too fast for it. I used my sharp teeth and tore the snake apart. There were pieces of the snake all over my room. Blood was everywhere. But I stopped the snake from hurting my brother!

After my shock wore off from what I had just done, I realized my mother could trust me now! She would know that I wouldn't let anything happen to my brother, because I saved him! I must find her immediately!

I ran outside to search for her. I ran toward the well that she went to for our water. I saw her and ran up to her as fast as I could. She saw me and looked horrified. I don't understand why she looked that way. She should be excited, right? I tried to explain to her what I had done, but she can't understand me. She started screaming at me telling me to get away from her and that she couldn't believe what I had done. She was so angry. Shouldn't she be happy? Then I realized that she thought that I killed my brother.

I had no time to explain. She dropped the water jar on my head, killing me instantly.

Author's Note: The story that I based this story off of is The Loyal Mongoose. As I was reading the original story, a narrator was telling the story. This was so the whole story could be told. I thought it would be interesting to see the mongoose's side and how it was feeling. I stayed with the original story line. The only difference is the story being in the mongoose's point of view.

Bibliography: The Panchatantra of Vishnu Sharma, translated by Arthur W. Ryder (1925).

The Mongoose