Explosive Adventures by Alexander McCall Smith

quietly. “I’ll go first.”
    On all fours, looking quite like a fierce tiger, Billy started to move slowly out of the bushes. As he did so, he turned his tiger head from side to side, as if he weresniffing at the evening air. Then, for good measure, he growled.
    When the men in the camp saw him, a great shouting broke out.
    “Look!” cried one. “Tiger! Tiger!”
    “Where? Where?” shouted another.
    “Over there, by the bushes! A tiger!”
    As the shouting continued, Billy darted to another clump of bushes and disappeared.
    “Calm down!” shouted the head man, who had been looking away when Billy appeared. “You’re imagining things. I tell you again, THERE ARE NO TIGERS!”
    “But there was one right there,” howled one of the men. “A great big one!”
    As they argued amongst themselves, Mr Gopal crawled out of the bushes and stretched out a great tiger claw.
    “Oh!” shouted one of the men. “Another one! Oh, save us! Save us!”
    “Where?” shouted the head man. “Where is it?”

    He turned round, and saw Mr Gopal crawling across the ground to join Billy, closely followed by Mr Bhalla and Nicola.
    “Hundreds of them!” shouted one of the men. “We’re surrounded by tigers!”
    This was the signal for all the men to start running around at once. Stumbling over one another, they rushed about, picking up their possessions. Then, their belongings in their arms, their axes and saws left behind on the ground, the men ran as fast as they could down to the river, where their boat was moored.
    “Grrr!” roared Mr Bhalla. “Grrr! Grrr!”
    The sound of the roaring made the men run even faster. And when they reachedthe river edge, they did not even climb into the boat, but leapt, like frightened rats.
    In the bushes, the four tigers sat down and laughed more heartily than they had ever laughed before. Mr Gopal laughed so much that he almost choked, and he had to take his tiger head off to wipe the tears of mirth away from his eyes.
    “I’ve never seen anybody look so frightened,” he said. “They were terrified!”
    “They won’t be coming back here,” said Mr Bhalla, a broad smile on his face. “That’s the last we’ll see of them.”
    “And your bubblegum trees are saved,” said Billy. “That’s the important thing.”
    *
    They could have gone home right then, but Mr Bhalla thought that it would be a good idea to stay just a little longer, just in case the men looked back from the river. So they all refastened their tiger skins and got down on their hands and knees again. Then they walked out of the bushes, with the proud walk of a group of tigers who had just done a very good job.
    They prowled around the abandoned camp, sniffing at the axes and giving the occasional roar. It was all going very well. It had been a wonderful plan, and nothing had gone wrong. Or at least, nothing had gone wrong until then. Then it happened.
    “That was a good growl you made,” said Mr Bhalla to Billy. “It sounded very fierce.”
    “But I didn’t growl,” said Billy. “Maybe it was Nicola.”
    “It wasn’t me,” muttered Nicola from within her tiger skin.
    “Nor me,” said Mr Gopal. “I didn’t growl.”
    They all stopped. Who had growled? Had Mr Bhalla imagined it?
    He had not. For now there came another growl, and this time it was even louder. Billy spun round, and looked behind him. There, on the edge of the camp, was a great tiger, sniffing at the airwith its fine, proud tiger’s nose. And this tiger, for a change, was real!
    “Let’s go!” cried Mr Bhalla. “If we scamper away he’ll think we were just a passing band of tigers. Perhaps he’ll pay no attention.”
    They started to run on all fours, as fast as they could. It was hard work, but they were managing quite well until Mr Gopal stumbled.
    When the real tiger saw one of the other tigers fall, he pounced. He did not like the sight of these four rather peculiar-looking tigers, and he thought that he would teach this one a