The Raggedy Tiger by Mark Roland Langdale

Author:Mark Roland Langdale
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Juvenile fiction; animal stories
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
Published: 2023-06-28T00:00:00+00:00

21

Somewhere Over the Moonbow

Sunday lunch…

‘Pass the potatoes around. No, not you, Goliath, that’s Father’s job, you can pass the rice around,’ laughed Mrs Moon as the tiger reached out its paws as if to pick up the steaming hot bowl of potatoes to pass it on. ‘What is that expression: “If you want something doing do it yourself”? There are times I find myself wishing I had as many arms as Durga the Mother Goddess.’

‘Then you’d have to have a set of clothes with many, many armholes, my dear. Furthermore you would need to sit at the weaving loom morning, noon and night to make your own clothes. For there isn’t a tailor in this great country which could take on such a mammoth task,’ said Mr Moon.

At this point Mrs Moon was imagining her husband as Ganesha, the god with the head of an elephant, the way he was tucking into the food on the table. Ganesha was the remover of all obstacles as Mrs Moon found herself further wishing her husband would remove the clockwork train set which was still set up on the large table from the night before.

Grandfather Moon was imagining something quite different: Durga the Mother Goddess as a simple street magician, her sleight-of-hand tricks even outdoing the great King of the Conjurors, Robert-Houdin. Given the fact Durga had so many hands it did rather give this imaginary street magician an unfair advantage over her rivals.

The lime-green clockwork train pulled by five chocolate-coloured livery trucks was supposed to be bringing the condiments to each person sitting at the table. But as the train sped around a tight corner it tumbled off onto the tablecloth causing salt and pepper to fly everywhere. This caused everyone at the table, including the tigers, to start sneezing as if everyone at this banquet fit for a maharaja had a bad case of hay fever. Still, better a bad case of hay fever than a bad case of moon fever. Regarding the Moon family, Tiger imagined it was far too late for them, as it was clear as day they were already in the grip of moon fever.

The feast set before the Moon family was also fit for a king and queen as well as a maharaja and his princess, for half the food on display was traditional English food – a Sunday roast, potatoes, vegetables, etc, etc – and the other half was traditional Indian food: curry, rice, Tandoori chicken, mango chutney, chickpeas, onion bhaji, homemade breads – plain naan, peshwari naan with fruit filling, chapati. To Tiger’s eyes it looked as if there were enough food to feed a small army.

Tiger was surprised to see that the railway set the boys had been playing on after riding on the miniature railway that morning in the woods hadn’t been cleared off the table. It soon became clear there was method in Mrs Moon’s madness, the table being so long the condiments were put in the livery carts as the clockwork train ran around the table.

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