Jar 39

Jar 39

 

  Copyright 2015 Sakuntala Gananathan

  Part 1

  “It was the bandit chief who tricked Mustafa into joining the band of thieves,” said Vaani. She was reading the story of ‘Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.’ “The chief imprisoned his parents and promised to release them only if the boy would serve him for two whole years. It’s sad only one year has passed when this story takes place. I wish we could help him escape.”

  “But how is it possible?” Venyaa asked. “Doesn’t he live in a far off place?”

  “True, but why can’t we…”

  Venyaa broke in, “Let’s not think of doing the impossible. We just cannot go back in time. Now don’t disturb me as I need to return this book by Wednesday evening. Else, Jenny will eat my head off.” Jenny was her best friend in school, generous and kind, but was particular her story books be returned within the time stipulated, and in good condition.

  Vaani was lucky her birthday fell during the summer vacation so that most of her cousins were able to come over to her home. While the ladies were busy with last minute arrangements for the party that afternoon, the older girls were seated under the shade of a maple tree reading their books.

  “We need to somehow find a way to help him get away,” Vaani mused, placing her fancy bracelet as a bookmark. “He is a good robber after all.”

  Venyaa was absorbed in her book and didn’t seem to hear her. “O dear! There are some blank pages in this book. I wonder what’s happening.”

  “It could be a printer’s error,” Vaani suggested helpfully. “I hope Jenny is aware of it.”

  “Huh! A good robber, is he?”

  “Who said that?” asked Vaani, looking around.

  There was nobody except her sister Annika, digging up earth to plant a yellow hibiscus her mother had bought for her at the nursery.

  Ignoring a bed of lettuce, a rabbit hopped past it.

  “Incredible!” exclaimed Annika, wiping muddy hands on her apron. She had heard farmers dread rabbits because they nibbled on all the greens they came across. “But this animal is quite different.”

  “I’ve found a white glove,” said Tulasi, running up to her cousins.

  “Finders keepers,” said Vaani, giving her a fond smile.

  “Not so fast,” said the animal, rudely snatching it off Tulasi’s hand and slipping its forepaw into the glove.

  The girls were too shocked for words.

  The rabbit stood upright on its hind legs like a circus puppy. More was the girls’ bewilderment to see it sporting a bowtie and checked waistcoat, from which hung a golden pocket watch. “Ha ha! How ridiculous can you be! I’ve never heard of a good thief in all my life.”

  By now Venyaa had recovered her wits. With hands on her hips, she neared the animal. “Don’t try to be clever, White Rabbit. I order you to come back this instant,” she said, opening a blank page in her book.

  Vaani adjusted her glasses and said softly, “I have a better idea, Venyaa. Do you think Alice will create problems?”

  Leaning over, Venyaa whispered, “She is in deep slumber fortunately, and isn’t aware of White Rabbit’s existence as yet.”

  “Good,” said Vaani, lowering her voice. “Let’s send him on a rescue mission to Ali Baba’s place.”

  “I quite like the idea of getting the boy released but I’m rather worried how Jenny would react if …”

  “Please inform Jenny it’s for a good cause...that we are helping an innocent boy escape from the bandit chief.” She hurried over to Annika. “Please stop making a planting hole.”

  Annika was in a daze, unable to take her eyes off the ‘talking rabbit.’

  Vaani placed a hand on her shoulders. “Quickly cover it with earth and stones.”

  “Sorry, Vaani,” Annika said, coming out of her stupor. It had taken her more than thirty minutes just to loosen up the earth. “All my hard work will go to waste if I don’t plant this while the roots are still moist.”

  “But it’s important that we stop White Rabbit from scuttling down the hole … at least not until he agrees to carry out our plan. We need his help to save the good robber. I have just discovered that Mustafa is hiding in the 39th jar in Ali Baba’s house.”

  White Rabbit looked accusingly at Vaani. “Just because you are reading the book, it’s no reason why you should give the tale a twist. It’s not fair by all those …”

  “Oh, they will understand,” broke in Vaani, turning to the younger girls.

  “I mean the characters in the book, not these stupid girls.” Even as the rabbit spoke, he looked around for an escape route. It was important he find a passage to burrow through. “I am late. I am late for my date!”

  On seeing White Rabbit’s eyes well up with tears, Tulasi felt sorry for him. “Let me share my pack of dates with you,” she said. “Mind you, don’t eat up the whole lot.”

  The next moment the packet flew right across the garden.

  “You are so rude!” cried Venyaa, nearing the animal. “You don’t deserve to wear a waistcoat and bow tie.” She was so annoyed that she decided to tease him for a few minutes. “I am sure your ears grew long after you eavesdropped on other people’s conversations.”

  “Or maybe you are a relative of the bad wolf in the story of Red Riding Hood,” said Tulasi.

  “Please accept my apologies,” White Rabbit said to her. “I didn’t mean to be rude.” He stood up on his hind paws and addressed the cousins. “I need to meet with the Duchess, such a stickler for punctuality.”

  Anxious to plant the hibiscus, Annika advised, “In that case why don’t you jump back into the book. That should solve your problem and mine.”

  “But it will take me a long time to arrive at the Duchess’s palace.”

  Tulasi whispered to Arthi, her kid sister. “Let’s adopt the bunny in our basement so we can pass on vegetables we don’t like.”

  “Don’t worry, White Rabbit,” Annika said, on finding the animal cast suspicious looks at them. “They will take good care of you. But please don’t eat up all the tomatoes and lettuce in their garden.”

  “Let me inform you, children, I’ve no use for your garden produce. I am having high tea with the Duchess and Mad Hatter. By the way, how many of you eat up all the greens and vegetables your mothers take the trouble to prepare for you?”

  “I finish off all the blueberry muffins,” said Tulasi, giving him a charming smile.

  “I love strawberry yogurt,” said Arthi.

  “I love apple tarts and banana chips,” Annika said. On seeing the rabbit purse his lips she was quick to add, “Well, I don’t mind cheese and potato … more of cheese, actually.”

  “So you call them vegetables, do you?” asked White Rabbit, lifting his ears. He had no eyebrows and had, therefore, to rely on his ears to express mockery or anger.

  While he was advising them on the goodness of eating vegetables, Venyaa and Vaani quickly made a lasso out of two skipping ropes joined together and soon had White Rabbit struggling.

  He just couldn’t loosen his paws free of the ropes. He screamed, he cried. He rolled on the ground, not caring that his spotless white fur was turning dirty. “Please let me go. I shan’t be rude again. I promise.”

  “Okay, we shall undo the knots,” said Vaani, “on condition you help us save the good robber.”

  “Good robber, my foot!”

  “Don’t be impolite,” warned Venyaa. “I have shut the book so you can’t get back into the page. Carry out Vaani’s instructions.” She was most annoyed with him and wasn’t inclined to be nice to him.

  Vaani ordered, “Make a tunnel long enough to reach Ali Baba’s house in Persia, where Mustafa is hiding.”

  “Mustafa?”

  “He is the good robber.”

&n
bsp; “Don’t be absurd. I can’t burrow a tunnel all the way to Persia.”

  “How do you think you ended up in this garden?” asked Venyaa. “You simply jumped off Lewis Carroll’s book, ‘Alice in Wonderland.’ So, if you apply your mind to it, you jolly well can travel over there without much trouble.”

  “Since there wouldn’t be any traffic lights and speed police to stop you,” said Vaani, “and also floods and storms to delay you, the mission could be accomplished within a short time.”

  “Ok, ok,” said the rabbit, yawning. “First, let me clean up. You girls are most irritating, to say the least.”

  “Time is of the essence,” warned Vaani.

  As an added measure, Venyaa took off his gloves and promised to hand them back on his return. She was certain that White Rabbit wouldn’t travel to Wonderland without his white gloves.

  After struggling through muddy earth for more than an hour, White Rabbit arrived at a neatly laid out network of tunnels. The place seemed somewhat familiar. Why of course, he thought, it was his uncle’s warren, from which branched out several passages and exits so that his relatives could escape in case of danger. “Why not make my getaway from those girls?” A moment’s distraction on his part, and White Rabbit went hurtling down a deep crevice.

  “I wonder, how many miles I have fallen …” he broke off, feeling guilty. “These are Alice’s words and she is yet to follow me. I’ll be charged with travelling into the future and stealing her speech.” The next moment, he sniggered, “Travelling into the future, did I say? I am actually travelling back into the past … a few centuries back in fact. Life is such a maze that I don’t know whether I am travelling forward or coming back.”

  White Rabbit continued burrowing, unaware he was going upward. All of a sudden he saw through an opening, white clouds passing by. He let out a shout of glee, believing he had reached Persia. He nosed his way up until he reached level ground.

  He sniffed again and again to check for predators. Relieved to find there was none, he took in a few deep breaths of the crisp air, a welcome change from the mildewed smell he had suffered the last hour. Everything seemed quiet and peaceful.

  The next instant, the silence was shattered by a leopard, growling not far away. Quick as lightning, he jumped back into the hole and went plunging down till his head struck a boulder. For a few minutes he felt thoroughly confused. He would have stayed there longer, but his pocket watch indicated that he had better make it quick if he were to attend the Duchess’s tea party. Crouching in the shadows, he muttered under his breath, “Which direction should I take to avoid the animal?”

  Since nothing more was heard of the leopard, he decided to try his luck again. With his heart pressing painfully against his ribs, he inched his way up again.

  “Dirty looking, White Rabbit, what brings you here?”

  Great was his relief to see Cheshire Cat, peering into the tunnel and grinning at him. “I am not White Rabbit,” he protested, crawling out.

  “Liar!” said Cheshire Cat. “Your pocket watch has given you away.”

  Not caring to be original, White Rabbit borrowed Alice’s words again. “Would you tell me which way I ought to go from here?”

  Cheshire Cat snarled. “I shall have you punished for stealing Alice’s speech even before she has had a chance to utter them.”

  “Well, I didn’t say ‘please’ as she would have done normally. Besides, I don’t need to be courteous except to the Duchess,” said the conceited White Rabbit.

  “There’s no need to be rude,” said Cheshire Cat.

  “I am sorry. Could you please let me know which way I should travel to Ali Baba’s house?”

  “Don’t tell me, you have planned to join the band of thieves! Well, I am not surprised at the turn of events. You were always in a hurry. Pity on Alice! Without you to guide her to Wonderland, I bet she would change her mind and get back to sleep.”

  “Let her,” retorted White Rabbit under his breath. Aloud he said, “Please be good enough to direct me to Persia.”

  “That sounds better. Tunnel further until you reach Perth and then swim across the Indian Ocean, up the Arabian Sea, and proceed towards…”

  Before Cheshire Cat could give him further directions, White Rabbit put his head back down the passage and continued scraping, scratching and tunneling.

  Soon he was swimming across the warm currents of the Indian Ocean. He found to his immense joy his fur was now rid of all the mud, while his ears were restored to rose pink. “How I wish the dirt didn’t wash off my ears,” he lamented.

  When he was a month old bunny, White Rabbit’s ears weren’t a healthy colour and his mother would lick his ears morning, noon and night until they turned rosy pink. Although his ears became a matter of envy among his female cousins, he was at the butt of many a mean joke from their brothers.

  Vaani looked anxiously at her wristwatch. “Let’s hope White Rabbit returns home soon,”

  “Wish I had thrust him back inside the book,” said Venyaa.

  “It’s my fault really. Since he was a character from ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ I believed he had supernatural powers to burrow through to Ali Baba’s house.”

  “What’s eating you, Vaani?” asked her mother. “You don’t look your normal cheerful self.”

  “It’s the heat, Aunt Lakshmi,” said Venyaa, coming to her cousin’s rescue.

  The party was a joyous affair and to cap it all Mike Audi Zammersmith, the magician, entertained the kids with his astonishing tricks. He pulled out a red hankie through a sewing needle and gave it to little Arthi. She wasn’t happy with the colour.

  “What’s your favourite?” he asked, kneeling beside her.

  “Well, let me think,” she said, curling her hair, a habit when she is deep in thought. “Sky blue!”

  He took the handkerchief back and crushed it in his hands.

  Amazing! He opened up his palm and there was a lovely pale blue hankie.

  “Ooh! Aah!” breathed in the children, about thirty in all. They held their breath for so long that the older folks became worried.

  The magician snapped his thumb and forefinger and the kids exhaled, much to everybody’s relief.

  Next, he cut a silk cord, about a metre long, into five pieces of different lengths.

  “But why have you destroyed such a lovely cord?” asked Grandma. She could never tolerate anyone damage or throw away anything new or nearly new. “I am sure it would have cost you a tidy sum.”

  “I’m sorry, Grandma,” said the magician. “Let me see if I could have it mended.” Placing the cut pieces in a straight line, he covered them with a large sheet of paper. He waved his magic wand and ordered, “Open Sesame!” And then he made a deep bow to the audience before throwing the paper away.

  Alas, the pieces lay scattered on the table.

  He cut such a sorry figure that even Grandma was overcome with sympathy for the man. “It’s okay,” she whispered, patting his arm. “I am sure there are plenty of other tricks you can come up with.”

  He thanked her and addressed the children, who seemed to have lost interest in his gimmicks. “Please come up all of you and help me join the pieces.”

  The younger kids ran up to the table and as requested by him placed the bits parallel to one another.

  The magician spread a scarf over the pieces and called out, “O Fairy from the Land of Magic, please help me mend the silk cord.” Saying so, he removed the scarf.

  “Ooh! Aah!!” chorused young and old.

  The pieces had joined together to form one long cord, not more not less than a metre.

  The loudest cheer came from Grandma.

  Vaani and Venyaa looked on anxiously at the magician and he didn’t fail to notice there were no cheers coming from that corner.

  As he was packing up, Venyaa asked him, “Could you please pull out a white rabbit from your magic hat?”

  The man chuckled. “It’s for a novice. I passed the elementary stage many years
ago.” On seeing the girls nearly in tears, he asked, “What’s so special about a white rabbit?”

  Vaani quickly briefed him about White Rabbit and his mission to rescue Mustafa.

  He held his sides and laughed. “I must say you two are going to be good story tellers.”

  Venyaa wasn’t amused. She immediately took the book out of her bag and showed him the blank pages.

  “It’s simple, dear children. Buy another copy and give it to your friend. She will be happy to get a new book for old. Now if you will please excuse me, I need to get going.”

  The next morning, Venyaa asked her mother if she and Vaani could accompany her to the mall. “I wish to buy a book for Jenny.”

  “I hope you haven’t lost her book,” said her mum, shaking her head.

  “It’s not lost, Mum,” Venyaa said.

  “All right, girls, come along. I will see you at the food court between 12 and 12.15. That should give you plenty of time to look around.”

  The two cousins headed straight to the nearest bookshop on the ground floor. They searched through all the shelves but couldn’t find what they wanted. So they made their way to the upper floor where there was a store, selling only children’s text books and fiction. There, too, they drew a blank.

  One of the sales staff, wearing a purple hair piece, asked them if they needed any help.

  Venyaa said, “We are looking for a copy of ‘Alice in Wonder…’

  “I am sorry, dear. It isn’t available until further notice from the publishers. They have recalled all the copies. It’s most unfortunate because they are a reputed company.”

  Just at that moment a lady walked in with her daughter. “I wish to return this book I bought at Christmas. My daughter says some of the pages are missing. Unfortunately, I have lost the invoice.”

  “No problem, Madam,” the sales person said, taking her to the cashier’s counter. In no time, the customer received the full refund.

  The girls heard the cashier tell her assistant, “This is about the fourth complaint we have received since last morning.”

  The assistant turned to speak to the cousins. “Please leave your phone number with us and we shall contact you as soon as the new edition is available.”

  “Thank you,” said Vaani, giving her the details.

  It was well past midday when White Rabbit reached the shores of Arabia. Since there were no tree roots to block him or rocks to knock his head on, he cheerfully dug one straight tunnel across the desert, stopping briefly at an oasis to refresh himself.

  He soon arrived at Ali Baba’s mansion, the walls of which were of polished marble and the window frames of silver.

  White Rabbit happily danced around, nibbling on cucumbers, while admiring the beautifully laid out gardens and water features. There were numerous date palms along the path that led to the inner courtyard. On finding baskets full of dried dates ready to be sent to the market square, he picked up a packet of dates and put it inside his waistcoat pocket. “Tulasi will be happy when I present her with this,” he said to himself.

  Without wasting any more time, he directed his eyes everywhere until he located the earthen jars.

  However, he was annoyed to note they were numerous and of various sizes; some rounded and large enough to seat a family of three in comfort, others with wide rims, tapering down to narrow bases.

  To add to White Rabbit’s irritation the jars were not numbered in serial order. He had to discover Jar 39 before anybody noticed him. After a thorough search he found Mustafa’s jar wedged in between two vessels of similar shape.

  White Rabbit couldn’t reach up to the mouth of the jar and so he tapped softly at the base. There was no response. Was the fellow sleeping? He tapped again, slightly louder. There was nothing heard from inside.

  He found a three legged stool near rolls of carpet, piled up neatly. Bringing it alongside Jar 39, he climbed up on it. “Wake up, Robber,” he whispered, peering inside. The jar was empty. “Am I on a wild goose chase?” he grumbled angrily. “Let me rush back and explain to those girls.”

  “Silence!” ordered a woman in a low voice.

  Overcome with terror, White Rabbit hopped back to the pile of carpets and prayed the woman would go away soon.

  Walking stealthily around, she was distributing food packets to some of the robbers hidden inside the earthen pots. When she came up to Jar 40, she whispered, “Get back into 39. He will be here any moment.”

  “Thanks,” said a boy, climbing out of Jar 40 and jumping into Jar 39.

  “Good news is your parents have escaped.”

  “Where to?”

  Before she could reply or give him his food, the bandit chief came along, dressed in black pajamas and his head covered in a red turban. A large dagger hung from his belt of sheep leather. He stepped into jar numbered 40.

  Suddenly, White Rabbit heard a sound coming from his waistcoat pocket. He was shocked to find a curious gadget address him.

  “It’s Vaani here, White Rabbit. What’s the delay?”

  Quickly getting over his amazement, and without a moment to lose, he explained the position.

  “It’s unfortunate the bandit chief is next door to Mustafa,” whispered Vaani. “Could you distract the chief so that he goes away for a few minutes?”

  It was all White Rabbit heard before a strong hand pulled him out by his pink ears and threw him away. He made such a commotion, running among the earthenware, that Ali Baba and his servants were alerted.

  The chief immediately let out a low whistle. All of the robbers climbed out of their hiding places and ran away in different directions like rats leaving a sinking ship. He issued orders that Mustafa, whose parents had made their escape, be imprisoned in a cell where no one could visit him.

  He had a suspicion that there was somebody attempting to make a get away with the boy, but he never suspected even in his wildest of dreams a rabbit would be the fellow’s saviour.