New Year in the Jungle

Hello, and welcome to Storynory!

You’re listening to Jana and I’m back with a fun jungle story.

Like everyone else, the animals in the jungle celebrate the new year. As the monkey loves to say, “Out with the old and in with the new!”

At this time, every animal makes a resolution. For example, the skunk promises not to be so smelly. And the owl promises not to keep everyone awake all night with his twit-to-woos. And the monkey promises to turn over a new banana skin and not play tricks any more. And does he manage to keep his promise for long? Well, we shall see.

Now the bear is one of those animals who likes to hibernate in the winter. This means that he’s often asleep in his cave around this time of year, annoying his neighbour, the tigress, with his loud snores. But the bear does not like to miss out on the New Year fun, so he asks the parrots and peafowls to wake him up on new Year’s Eve by screeching. The birds are loud – And I mean LOUD – so as to annoy the tigress even more than the bear’s snoring.

Last year, just as the bear was stretching and yawning, the animals were discussing which party game to play next.

The elephant suggested Coconut roll, to see who could push a coconut along the ground furthest and fastest, just using their nose.

The tortoise wanted a game to see who could keep still the longest.

And the crocodile suggested a swimming race, but nobody took up that challenge.

In the end, they decided to play charades, a game in which one player acts out an idea, and the others have to guess what it is.

The owl appointed himself as referee. He stood on a low branch, puffed out his chest and reminded everyone of the rules.

“No talking,” he tweeted.

“No noises,” he added.

“And absolutely no cheating.”

The animals nodded back. Some touched their noses wisely. Others pointed at their eyes to show they were watching carefully.

The owl chose the first player: a bright blue bird with a long tail.

He fluttered down and whispered the secret idea into the bird’s ear.

The bird gasped — silently — and immediately spread out his wings. He puffed out his chest, tilted his head proudly, and made a grand circle above his head with his wings, like an invisible crown. Then he crouched low, stretched one wing forward, and pointed dramatically at an imaginary horizon.

The animals burst into guesses.

“A bossy chicken!” – the bird shook his head.

“A cat!” the bird flapped his wings.

“A king!” The bird was jumping up and down and nodding excitedly, but they hadn’t got the whole answer yet.

So he did another mime in which he puffed out his chest and opened his beak like he was roaring.

The jackal was the first to bark out:

“The Lion King!”

And that was the correct answer, so the bird opened up his wings and flew up to a branch.

The jackal grinned and rubbed his paws together. His turn.

The owl whispered again.

At once, the jackal stood on his hind legs and began snapping his front paws together like enormous jaws.

“A crocodile?” Piped up the elephant.

The jackal pointed at her and nodded. Then he went to sit down on a large bolder.

“A rock?” said the tortoise.

“Of course, it’s Crocodile Rock,” purred the tigress. She had the right answer, and it should have been her turn at miming, but she insisted that the bear take her place because she was “too shy”.

The bear beamed. He lumbered forward proudly as the owl fluttered down to whisper his secret.

The bear nodded. Then frowned. Then nodded again, as if the idea were wobbling about inside his head.

He lifted one enormous leg and tried to balance. His other leg trembled. He stuck out his paws and attempted a graceful turn, rising up onto his toes like a ballet dancer on one leg.

He wobbled.

He hopped.

He spun.

He fell over with a thump that made all the birds cry out. The monkey was laughing even louder than the hyena.

The bear got back up and tried again, standing on one leg, stretching his neck, and waving his arms like feathery wings.

The monkey clapped his hands.

“I know, he’s hopping mad!”

The bear glared.

“Or maybe a wobbly flamingo!” cried the monkey at last. “Or… I know, Lake Flamingo?”

The owl twit-to-wooed. Lake Flamingo was where all the animals went to drink, and it was the correct answer.

The monkey pulled a face at the bear. The bear scowled back. As usual, he was pretty fed up with the monkey.

Now it was the monkey’s turn.

The owl whispered.

The monkey’s eyes sparkled.

First, he pretended to eat. And eat. And eat some more. He stuffed invisible berries into his cheeks, patted his belly, then staggered about, looking for somewhere to lie down.

He curved his arms into a rough cave shape, curled himself up on the ground, and began to snore.

Very loudly.

“Sleeping Bear!” called the tigress at once. “And I can tell you, that snoring is extremely annoying.”

The bear leapt to his feet.

“That’s cheating!” he roared. “He made a noise!”

The monkey sat up calmly.

“I wasn’t talking,” he said. “I was breathing.”

The owl opened his beak, shut it again, and gave a small, puzzled twit.

The bear had heard enough.

With a roar, he charged at the monkey.

The monkey squealed and swung straight up into the trees. The bear tried to follow, hauling himself onto a low branch. The branch bent. It creaked. It snapped.

Down came the bear, landing in a heap of leaves and hurt pride.

The next day, the tigress crossed her paws and looked at him sternly.

“If you want to catch that monkey,” she said, “you’ll have to fight that flab and get fitter.”

And so the bear began training. Every morning, at sunrise, the tigress made him work out.

He skipped.

He did press-ups. “More, more,” roared the tigress.

He ran on the spot. “Faster! Faster!” she urged.

He ran around the jungle. “Go on, you can do it,” encouraged the tigress, bounding alongside him.

And when he was really exhausted, the tigress made him do chin-ups on branches.

The monkey sometimes sat nearby, pretending to coach.

“Higher knees!”

“Try breathing!”

“Careful — that tree looks nervous!”

Bit by bit, the bear grew leaner and faster.

One spring morning, when the monkey called out.

“Hey Mr Bear, you’re five minutes late for training. That will be 200 extra push-ups!”

The bear lost his temper and charged at the monkey. And boy, was he fast. The monkey managed to leap into the trees and pull his tail out of the way just in time.

The bear carried on tearing and ripping through the jungle. He had super strength and speed, and it seemed he would never give up the hunt.

“Hey Mr Bear, can’t catch me!” called a monkey’s voice from the right. The bear started to swing on a vine to the right.

But just then, another monkey voice called out from the left. “Isn’t it time for your morning honey?” and the bear dropped off his vine and charged to the left, cutting through the undergrowth. But he hadn’t gone far when a monkey voice called out from high above, “How’s your climbing, Mr Bear!” and the bear began to climb up the tree as fast as he could.

But which ever way the bear went, up, down, left, right, straight ahead, or back again, there was always a monkey voice calling out, “Hey Mr Bear!”

And by the end of the morning he flopped down totally exhausted.

“Meow.. didn’t you understand, it wasn’t one monkey, it was a whole family of them calling from different parts of the jungle,” purred the tigress, amused at her friend’s slow uptake.

“I don’t care,” moaned the bear. “Training’s no good. Dieting’s no good. I want my honey and a good sleep.” and he stomped off to his cave for just that. In fact, he slept the whole winter and well into spring until it was almost summer. And of course his snoring was far from quiet, and the tigress was more annoyed than ever.

And that was New Year in the Jungle!

Read by me Jana for Storynory.com

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 Bye bye for now!