The Magic Twigs

At last, Amadi could retrieve the magic twig that produced food and scampered back with it into the bushes. He imagined honey cakes and snapped a small piece off one end. Presto! A feast of honey cakes spread before him. He didn't need to snap the other end to make the feast disappear - Amadi took care of that himself.

By carefully breaking only fragments of the twig, Amadi was able to live by himself in the bush. Each night before sunset he would creep up to the meetinghouse in hopes of witnessing another meeting and collecting more magic twigs, but the meetinghouse stayed dark. Careful to hide signs of himself, he covered his footprints and stayed in the thick bush.

Finally when he neared the end of his twig, he determined to search for another meeting in the Community of Animals. He followed voices that seemed to be headed in a certain direction and was relieved to see them end at another meetinghouse, though different animals were inside. Amadi stayed outside to listen.

"Attention all Hunters!" said a lion. "Our meeting has commenced. We shall share any new magic discoveries. Everyone is talking about the elephant's magic twigs at the Grazers' meeting. Does anyone here have magic twigs?"

"I do," said a jackal. The jackal demonstrated the same magic twigs, much to Amadi's delight. Before they adjourned, a leopard said, "Well! I doubt the Reptiles will have a meeting like this one!" Amadi collected the broken twig that had produced food. He wished for honey cakes, and his wish was instantly granted. Tipped off that there may be yet a third meeting, this one for the Reptiles, he went in search of that part of town.

It so happened that a wild dog passed the spot where Amadi had kneeled outside the meetinghouse of the Hunters, and caught a whiff of something odd. Sniffing about, he said, "It's a human scent, no doubt about it. There's a human here at the Community of Animals!"

An emergency meeting was called of Grazers, Hunters and Reptiles.