Explosive Adventures by Alexander McCall Smith Page A

lesson.
    The other three stopped and watched in horror as the great tiger landed on Mr Gopal’s back and dug its claws into his tiger skin. Mr Gopal collapsed under the weight of the real tiger and closed his eyes. At any moment his tiger skin would come off, he thought, and the real tiger would find a tasty snack inside. What would it be like to be eaten by a tiger? Would it hurt, or would it all be over very quickly? What will I taste like? he thought miserably.
    “Fight back, Mr Gopal!” shouted Billy. “Remember you’re a Gopal!”
    Inside the tiger skin, Mr Gopal heard Billy’s voice and the words stirred him. Remember you’re a Gopal! Yes! He was a Gopal! He was the grandson of Sikrit Pal Praviwallah Gopal, after all, the man who had fought off a tiger by biting its tail!
    Yes! That was it! Without wasting any more time, Mr Gopal reached out and grabbed the angry tiger by its tail. Then, opening his mouth as wide as he could, he popped the end of the tail inside and bit.
    It did not taste very pleasant, and there was a great deal of fur. But Mr Gopal’s teeth sank well into the tiger’s tail and it gave a roar of pain.
    “Take that!” muttered Mr Gopal from between his clamped teeth. “That’ll teach you to jump on a Gopal!”

    The bite was too much for the tiger. Releasing Mr Gopal from his grip, he turned round to lick gingerly at his sore tail. This gave Billy his chance. Rushing forward, he helped Mr Gopal to his feet and bundled him off down the path, followed by the other two, all running as fast as they possibly could. Everybody was back on two legs by now, and had turned into people again – very frightened people running down a path with a tiger not too far behind them.
    “Will he follow us?” gasped Nicola. “I’m sure he’ll be twice as angry now!”
    “I’m afraid he might,” panted Mr Bhalla. “Tigers get very cross about this sort ofthing. They’re not ones to give up easily. We shall have to climb a tree.”
    On hearing Mr Bhalla’s suggestion, they all stopped and looked about them. The path on either side of them was flanked by great towering trees, and if they managed to scale one of these then the tiger might walk right past them.
    “What about this one?” said Billy, pointing to a particularly tall tree. “There are enough low branches to give us a start.”
    “A splendid idea,” said Mr Bhalla. “You children go first and Mr Gopal and I will follow.”
    It was not a difficult tree to climb, and soon all four of them were perched rightup at the top, looking down through the leaves to the path far below. Now all they had to do was wait until the tiger went past. It would soon realise it had lost them, and all they would have to do then would be to wait a little while before they climbed down and made their way home.
    The minutes went past slowly and Billy was beginning to wonder whether the tiger had gone in the other direction. Then suddenly Mr Bhalla touched Billy on the arm and pointed downwards.
    “Tiger,” he whispered. “Right below us.”
    Billy looked down. There on the path below them was the beautiful, sinewyfigure of the tiger, padding slowly along, its nose raised to sniff the breeze for the scent of its enemies.
    “Oh dear,” said Mr Gopal. “It looks very cross.”
    “Well, it’s not going to find us,” said Billy quietly. “So you don’t have to –”
    He was about to say “worry”, but before he had time to do so a terrible thing happened. Mr Gopal had taken a handkerchief out of his pocket to mop his brow and had unfortunately dropped it. Down through the leaves drifted the large white square of cloth, right down to the path, to land exactly in front of the great, angry tiger.
    Of course the tiger looked up in surprise and saw, directly above it, four frightened human beings sitting on a very high branch. At the sight of this, it let out a great growl, which seemed to fill the forest with sound before it died away.
    “Oh my goodness!”