Tonight I will be
aman.
I stand
there, cradling
the scaly ball.
I can feel the
pangolin’s
heart beating.
Then I do what I
must do to be a man.
When the box is full, I close the flaps.
Aaaaah! Suddenly a high, haunting cry
fills the night. Like a siren, it cuts through
the treetops. The hair on the back of my neck
stands up. Aaaaaah!
Aslam shrieks. “Rahim, it’s a ghost!” Up
in the tree canopy, a face gazes at us, ebony
black except for one white stripe. The animal
swings down through the black tress on long,
hairy arms.
“Let’s go!”
Dadu runs toward us as we turn to rush
away, the beam of his torch bobbing about
jerkily. He cheers when he sees the box. “You
found one! Just in time!” He jerks his thumb
at the black-and-white gibbon still swinging
through the trees toward us. “This angry mon-
key thinks I want to steal his bananas!”
Aslam is already tearing ahead of us
through the forest, squealing as he pulls spider
webs from his face. I grab the box, and Dadu
and I follow. The call of the gibbon fades away
behind us.
Two uniformed men are waiting for us on
the train tracks. One stands next to Dadu’s
bicycle.
“Hide the box,” Dadu
whispers, but it is too late.
“Ei! You there,” one
of the police officers yells.
“Bring that box over here.”
Dadu’s voice shakes as
he lays trembling fingers on
my arm. “Give me the box,
Rahim. Now!”
But Aslam grabs the
box from my hands. He
strides forward before Dadu
can do anything, a brazen
smile on his handsome
face. “Officers, what is the
trouble?”
One of the officers pokes
the box with his night stick.15