VERNIE FEBRUARY

In the dusty old veld, where the sun shone mercilessly sometimes, there lived mother mouse with her two children. And, in that same old veld, some 1000 yards further on, in a hole, there lived mother snake with her two little snakes.

And, during the day, when mother mouse was busy, the veld mice played around, explored the veld, first timidly, then boldly. Until at last, they wandered off so far from their hole that they came upon a pool of clear crystal water, some five-hundred yards away. And when the sun shone it conjured up myriads of little diamonds on the water.

And, the snakes also explored their world, first timidly, then boldly, until they too came upon the pool of crystal clear water. The mice saw the snakes first. They turned and were about to run away. The snakes spoke to them.

They stopped and listened:
“And you, what are you?
Such funny bodies.
Such funny heads
Such funny tails
Such funny noises
Peep, peep. peep
What are you?”

And the little mice answered: “We are veld mice.’
Then, the mice asked the snakes:
“And you, what are you?
Such tunny bodies
Just one long tail
No head
No body
No feet
Just one long tail
With everything on it
What are you?”

And the snakes answered: “We are called snakes.”

And the mice answered: “We like you.”

The veld mice and the snakes played together for the first time in the African veld. And they were happy. And the sun of Africa, as if it wanted to lend extra lustre to this wonderful moment, the sun shone so beautifully, that myrlads and myriads of little diamonds were conjured up in the water. And the snakes danced with the mice and the mice with the snakes. They pirouetted, swooshed their tails, squeaked and hissed with glee, while myriads of diamonds glittered on the water.

When night fell so dramatically in one swoop, enveloping everything, the mice scuttled off in a hurry, peep, peeping their way to their hole. And the snakes slithered their way through the veld.

Mother mouse asked her little ones:
“Where have you been? What have you done?”

The veld mice replied:
“We met these funny creatures
No body
Just one long tail
No feet
Just one long tail
And, they called themselves snakes.”
Then mother mouse shouted with fear:
“‘Snakes!
You played with them
Don’t you know we’re enemies
They eat us up
We’re enemies.”

The veld mice trembled with fear for they did not know.
When the snakes came home their mother asked them:
“Where have you been? What did you do?”

The snakes answered their mother:
“We met these funny creatures
With funny bodies
And funny eyes
And funny tails
And funny sounds
They called themselves Veld Mice.”

Then mother snake shouted:
“Did you eat them up?’

The little snakes said:
‘No, why should we eat them up?

Then mother snake answered:
“Don’t you know we live on mice,
We feed on them.”

The next day at the pool, the mice were there, the snakes
were there. But whenever the snakes came closer, the veld
mice ran away. At long last the snakes asked their friends:
“Why do vou run away?
Are you afraid of us?
Yesterday, we had such fun
Yesterday, we were such friends.”

The veld mice — at a safe distance now, shouted back to
the snakes:
“Yesterday, we did not know
that snakes were our enemies
Yesterday, our mother had not yet informed us.
We are Iimpuku
and you are Iinvoka.
Yesterday we did not know
that SNAKES are our ENEMIES.”

So saying the veld mice ran off into the African veld, peep,
peep, peeping their way to their mother and to safety …

Illustration by Jason Askew First published in RIXAKA