Lynne Banks - Tiger, Tiger

He rolled over swiftly and stood up, sniffing this new addition to his body. He didn’t like it. He caught the stuff in his teeth and tried to pull it off, but he couldn’t. It fitted tightly around his legs and was too strong to tear.

He rolled and rubbed and bit, but it was useless. The young two-legs watched him, and, when he could, scratched the cub’s ears.

‘Get used to it, friend. You’re a shod tiger now, and you must wear them till you learn good manners. Till you can be trusted.’

‘If that day ever comes!’ said one of the others.

But the cub understood only that when he tried to walk he couldn’t properly feel the ground under his feet and learn from it. He didn’t yet know that he couldn’t use his claws. But when his day’s meat was brought to him, he found out. He was used to pinning the meat down with his claws and chewing chunks off it. But this meat was in small pieces. He didn’t realise that it was because his jaws ached too much to chew properly. All he knew was that he couldn’t hold it, he couldn’t rend it… He was no longer whole, no longer what he had been. What he knew he was meant to be. He was muffled. He was less.

*

When he was taken to the female two-legs, he was already angry.

She took one look at him and began to make a mouth-noise.

‘Oh, look! He’s got boots on!’

‘Yes, Princess. It was Caesar’s orders when he heard that you’d forbidden us to draw his claws.’

She capered about joyfully.

‘I couldn’t think of a name for him, but now I have it! I’ll call him Boots!’

The cub named Boots without knowing he’d been named, watched her, surprised because she whirled like a peacock. She had no tail but she had something like a tail, that sparkled and flared. She made a noise rather like a peacock, too. But she still looked like a big monkey to him and she smelt good. He sensed she wasn’t as strong as the males. He thought he would try to eat her. But only if the male two-legs wasn’t there to put his hand on his neck and stop him.

But the big two-legs didn’t go away. He stayed.

He took the cub out of the cage. The cub liked being held by the two-legs. It made him feel very safe. It was strange, smelling his food-smell and, at the same time, liking to be held close to him. The anger was still there because of what had been put on his feet. But he already knew better than to bite the male two-legs. The puzzling thing was that he no longer wanted to.

*

That day he learnt to play.

Of course, he had played before, with his brother. But not for a long time. Not during the bad time in the dark, rocking place. They had been too fearful and wretched. But now he remembered that it was good to chase something that rolled along the ground, to catch it and leap with it, knocking it into the air and batting it with his muffled paws. He almost forgot they were muffled.

The female two-legs made the peacock noise and the rain-on-leaves noise with her front feet. She crouched down and made the same sound over and over again: ‘Boots! Boots!’ He sensed she wanted him to come to her, and he wanted to come. At first he was too timid, but then the male two-legs picked him up and put him down close to her. She smelt good and her paws when she touched him were knowing and cunning amid his fur, scratching and stroking in ways that made him squirm and lie on his back and rumble deep in his chest. He had a vague memory of the rough tongue and the warm flanks and the nipple that filled his mouth with sweet flowing power.

He hadn’t forgotten his brother, either.

*

And his brother hadn’t forgotten him.

The bigger, stronger cub was not frolicking with a tender, laughing female two-legs, being fed titbits of meat in a pleasant sunlit open place. He was in a dark, bad-smelling, closed-in place, under the ground.

He knew he was under the ground because he had been carried, in his cage, down a long flight of steps into dimness and coldness. He growled and snarled all the way and tried to reach through the bars to claw the bodies of those who carried him, but he couldn’t. At last he was released from the cage. The front of it was raised by some invisible agency and he came out with one bound – only to find his way blocked by cold black stone. There was a clang behind him as bars came down.

His thoughts were all confusion, rage, frustration. His stomach churned and threw up bitterness into his mouth. He clawed the hard, stopping walls. It was useless.

At last he stopped. He put his front paws on to the wall and stretched his neck, but he couldn’t see anything beyond.

He had never felt so alone in his life. He had never been alone, till now. He whined miserably.

A coarse, loud voice shouted, ‘Quiet, you little brute, or I’ll give you something to howl for!’ The threat in it was unmistakable. The bigger cub urinated with fear, then found a corner, pressed himself tight to the cold wall, and lay down.

He didn’t sleep. He was too nervous. He shivered and all his striped fur stood on end. There had been something in that voice that filled him with dread.

*

For several days no two-legs came near him. He could hear them, at a distance, shouting. His food was pushed between the bars at the front of his prison on the end of long poles, while the cub clawed and gnawed it. As the days passed he lost condition and became listless with misery.

Two days went by without any food. And then the teasing started.

The cub sensed something bad was going to happen when a two-legs came into the dark place and made sounds that were the same as the shouting from afar. Unlike his brother, this cub had never had kindness from a two-legs, and all he knew of them was that they were the all-powerful source of food, and fear.

This two-legs, very big and very threatening, stood over him as he lay in the corner he had chosen as a sleeping place. The cub didn’t know the nature of the threat but he knew he was afraid and helpless. He held himself alert as he lay with his head on his forepaws.

‘Get up, you,’ growled the two-legs. And it was a growl, deep in his throat, the sort of growl tigers make. It was almost the language the cub understood. The words meant nothing but the threat was clear. He didn’t move.

The man prodded him sharply with something he carried.

The cub lifted his head and snapped at the thing that had hurt him. But it wasn’t there any more.

‘Get up,’ the two-legs growled again.

When the cub still didn’t move, the two-legs jabbed him again. This time the sharp thing nearly pierced his hide. He jumped up with a snarl of pain and swiped at the thing with his claws. It went away, came back, jabbed again, was snatched away before the cub could seize it.

The cub was infuriated. He crouched, ready to spring at his tormentor. But he couldn’t, because a volley of small jabs kept him at bay.

‘Come on, you little pig’s whelp, you miserable mangy little runt! Spring at me! Just try it! You’ll never make the arena, you weakling! Come on, coward, what are you waiting for?’ The threatening voice went on and on, daring him, ordering him, provoking him, rousing him for battle – but always keeping him off, prodding him back. At last the cub, infuriated beyond bearing, did leap, full at the sharpened stick, not even seeing it in his blind rage. It didn’t pierce him. It vanished, as the man leapt aside and the cub dropped to the ground.

‘Good,’ said the two-legs. ‘Good. Now you’re learning.’

He gave him a piece of meat and went away.

So. That was it. He was supposed to spring. If he sprang, the sharp thing would not hurt him. It would only hurt and torment him if he did not spring. If he sprang, he would get meat.

Thus the little tiger began to absorb the lessons that prepared him for his destiny.