The Dance of the Animals

Once, a long time ago, a little girl called Rumiyah heard from her old grandmother that, when the moon was full and bright, then all the animals in the forest would hold a dancing contest.

“Every animal tribe sends its very best dancers” said the grandmother, “ The rabbits and the deers and even the wolves and they all have a truce among them so that the wolves, that normally chase rabbits and deers, dance with them instead”.

Now Rumiyah loved to dance and she really wanted to go and dance with the animals and so, one night when the moon was full, she crept out of her house and into the forest.

And, because humans were not allowed to join in the dance, Rumiyah disguised herself as an animal, putting on a false tail and false ears and painting whiskers on her face.

And, after she had been only a short way into the forest, she came to a clearing where, in the moonlight, all the animals were dancing.

First, she saw the rabbits do their dance; a strange sort of hopping dance in which they stomped their large feet on the ground and bumped their fluffy tails together.

Then she saw the deers dance, tapping their hooves and waltzing with their antlers interlocked.

Then she saw the wolves do their dance; a whole pack of them leaping and pouncing in a circle, making a howling sound as they leapt round and round, wagging their tails behind them.

But then Rumiyah wanted so badly to dance that she leapt into the centre of the clearing.

“And what kind of animal are you?”, asked a lion who was judging the dancing.

“Uhh?”, said Rumiyah, “I’m a..a little girl beast”.

None of the animals had ever heard of a little girl beast before and they were very eager to see her dance.

“Very well”, said the Lion, “Show us your dance little girl beast”.

And so, Rumiyah got down on all fours and did a funny sort of four legged dance that she made up on the spot, first turning one way and then the other; shaking her tail and bobbing her head and stamping her hands and her feet.

Unfortunately, while she was dancing, her tail started to fall off and then she shook her head so much that both her fake ears fell off.

Rumiyah was too focussed upon her dancing to notice what had happened, however, the moment that the animals saw her without her ears and tail, they all gasped and then a wolf shouted, angrily,

“It’s a human! A human being!”.

“Human beings are not allowed at our dance”, said the Lion, also with an angry growl, “This is an animal dance”.

Then, suddenly, Rumiyah noticed that all of the animals were glaring at her angrily, growling and bleating and she started to feel very afraid.

“No humans!”, all the animals started to shout, “No humans allowed!”.

And then, the next thing Rumiyah knew, she was being chased through the forest by all the animals.

“Oh no! Oh no!”, Rumiyah said, looking back over shoulder at the animals behind her.

In fact they chased her almost all the way home and might have caught her if a cat who liked humans had not advised her to climb up a tree and hide.

She had to hide up the tree with the cat for quite some time and it got very uncomfortable sitting on a branch but, eventually, the other animals got tired of looking for her and went away.

And, when she got home she was so tired from dancing and running and sitting in trees that she just crawled into bed and fell asleep.

But in the morning she told her grandmother all about her adventures and she even did a dance for her; her very own, special, four legged dance.