A retelling of THE BEGINNING OF THE ARMADILLOS, a Just So Rudyard Kipling story.
Once upon a time, in the heart of the Amazon rainforest, lived a hedgehog named Stickly-Prickly. He was covered in spikes, like a walking cactus! Stickly-Prickly shared his little corner of the jungle with his best pal, Slow-Solid the tortoise.
Living nearby was Painted Jaguar. He was bigger, stronger and wilder than a housecat. His fur was dotted with tiny black pawprint-like spots. Painted Jaguar was one hungry kitty, always looking for a snack. He’d try to gobble up anything he could catch!
Sometimes, he chased after deer or tried to snatch monkeys swinging in the trees. If he couldn’t catch those, he’d go for frogs and bugs instead. But on days when his tummy was really rumbling, he’d scurry off to his mom for help. You see, Painted Jaguar was still a bit of a newbie at finding his own food.
Mama Jaguar would then give him advice on how to catch and eat animals like hedgehogs and tortoises.
This is where our story gets interesting. What do you think will happen when the hungry Painted Jaguar meets our two friends, Stickly-Prickly and Slow-Solid? Let’s find out!
Mama Jaguar kept telling her son while swishing her long tail back and forth, “Listen carefully, sweetie. If you want to catch a Hedgehog, you need to drop it in the water. That way, it’ll uncurl from its spiky ball. And if you find a Tortoise, you have to use your paw to scoop it out of its shell.” She repeated this over and over to make sure he remembered.
The young Jaguar nodded, thinking he understood perfectly. But oh boy, was he in for a surprise! You see, catching clever animals isn’t easy.
One night, under the starry sky by the muddy Amazon River, Painted Jaguar happened upon Stickly-Prickly Hedgehog and Slow-Solid Tortoise. The two friends were hanging out beneath a big tree that had fallen over.
So, what did they do? Well, Stickly-Prickly did what hedgehogs do best—he curled up into a tight, spiky ball!
Slow-Solid had his own trick. He pulled his head and feet into his shell as far as possible. Imagine trying to hide in your favorite hoodie by pulling the hood over your face and tucking your hands into the sleeves. That’s what Slow-Solid did with his shell.
Now, our friends thought they were safe. But was this enough to outsmart the hungry Painted Jaguar?
The Painted Jaguar cleared his throat and said, “Listen up, you two! This is super important.” He tried to look serious, “My mom told me exactly what to do. She said if I find a Hedgehog, I should drop it in the water, and it’ll uncurl like magic. And if I find a Tortoise, I’m supposed to use my paw to scoop it right out of its shell.”
The Jaguar looked back and forth between Stickly-Prickly and Slow-Solid, scratching his head in confusion. “The thing is, I can’t tell which of you is which! Can one of you please raise your hand if you’re the Hedgehog?”
Stickly-Prickly, the clever Hedgehog, tried to confuse Jaguar so much that he wouldn’t know what to do. He looked up at the Jaguar with big, innocent eyes and asked, “Are you really, really sure that’s what your mom said?” He pretended to think hard for a moment, then continued, “Maybe you got it mixed up! What if she actually told you to uncoil a Tortoise by scooping it out of the water and to drop a Hedgehog onto a shell after pawing it?”
Slow-and-Solid, the Tortoise joined in on the trick, adding his twist to make things even more confusing for the poor Jaguar. He slowly blinked and asked, “Are you absolutely, positively sure that’s what your mom said?” Then, trying not to giggle, he suggested, “Maybe she actually told you to ‘water’ a Hedgehog by dropping it into your paw. And perhaps she said you should keep ‘shelling’ a Tortoise until it uncoils.”
The Painted Jaguar scratched his head, looking more confused than ever. He tried to remember what his mom had told him, but now everything was all mixed up in his head.
“Wait a minute,” he said, his tail swishing nervously. “I don’t think it was at all like that, but please, say it again more distinctly.”
Stickly-Prickly tried hard not to laugh as he came up with an even more ridiculous explanation. He said in a very serious voice, “Listen carefully now. When you scoop up water with your paw, you have to uncoil it using a Hedgehog.” Then he added, as if he was sharing a big secret, “Don’t forget that part. It’s super important!”
Slow-Solid, enjoying Stickly-Prickly’s game, said, “Oh, come on! It’s so simple. When you paw at your food, you’re supposed to drop it into a Tortoise using a scoop.” Then he looked at the Jaguar as if he couldn’t believe the big cat didn’t get it. “Why is this so hard for you to understand?”
By now, the Painted Jaguar felt like his brain was doing somersaults, trying to make sense of this important-sounding complete nonsense.
“You are making my spots ache,” said Painted Jaguar. “You know what? I only wanted to know which of you is Hedgehog and which is Tortoise. Is that really so hard to answer?”
Stickly-Prickly decided to play one last trick. “I’m not going to tell you,” he said with a mischievous grin. “But hey, if you want, you can try to scoop me out of my shell!”
The Jaguar’s whiskers twitched with excitement. “Aha!” he shouted, thinking he’d finally figured it out. “Now I know you’re the Tortoise!”
Feeling very proud of himself, the Jaguar reached out quickly with his soft paw. But at that exact moment, Stickly-Prickly curled up into a tight, spiky ball. The Jaguar’s paw was suddenly full of sharp prickles!
The surprise made the Jaguar jump back, accidentally knocking Stickly-Prickly into the dark woods. Now Stickly-Prickly was safe, where the Jaguar couldn’t see him.
The poor Jaguar put his sore paw in his mouth, trying to make it feel better. But that just made it even worse!
As soon as he could speak, he said, “Now I know he isn’t Tortoise. But then he scratched his head with his un-prickly paw—”How do I know that you are the Tortoise?”
Our Big Cat is starting to think more carefully now. Have you ever had a moment where you realized you made a mistake and then began to question everything else you thought you knew?
“But I am Tortoise,” said Slow-and-Solid. “Your mother was entirely right. She said you were to scoop me out of my shell with your paw. Go ahead, give it a try!”
“Hold on a second,” said Jaguar, “You didn’t say that a minute ago,” sucking the prickles out of his paddy-paw. “You told me my mom said something completely different!”
“Okay, let’s think about this,” said Slow-and-Solid. “Even if you say that I said that your mom said something different, does it really matter? Because if she said what you said, I said she said, then it’s the same as if I said what she said she said. Right?”
The Tortoise paused for a moment, then added with a sly smile, “And if you think she told you to uncoil me with a scoop instead of pawing me into drops with a shell, well, that’s not my fault, is it?”
“But you said you wanted to be scooped out of your shell with my paw,” said Painted Jaguar.
“If you think again, you’ll find that I didn’t say anything of the kind. I said that your mother said you were to scoop me out of my shell,” Slow-and-Solid explained.
“What will happen if I do?” asked the Jaguar cautiously.
“I don’t know because I’ve never been scooped out of my shell before, but I tell you truly, if you want to see me swim away, you’ve only got to drop me into the water.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Painted Jaguar. “You’ve mixed up everything my mother told me to do with all these crazy questions. I don’t know whether I’m on my head or my painted tail.”
He took a deep breath and continued, “And now you’re suddenly saying something that makes sense, but that just makes me more mixy than before!”
“My mother told me that I was to drop one of you two into the water, and as you seem so anxious to be dropped, I think you don’t want to be dropped. So jump into the turbid Amazon and be quick about it.”
“I warn you that your Mummy won’t be pleased! Don’t tell her I didn’t tell you,” said Slow-Solid.
The spotted cat was losing his patience. “If you say one more thing about what my mother said—” he started to growl. Before the Jaguar could finish the sentence, Slow-and-Solid quietly slipped into the murky, muddy Amazon, swam underwater and came out on the bank where Stickly-Prickly was waiting for him.
“That was a very narrow escape,” said Stickly-Prickly. “I don’t want to mess with that Painted Jaguar again. What did you tell him you were?”
Slow-and-Solid shook the water off his shell and replied, “I told him truthfully that I was a Tortoise, but he wouldn’t believe it, and he made me jump into the river to prove I was really a Tortoise. And guess what? I am! He must be so surprised.”
Then Slow-and-Solid tilted his head to one side. “Listen to him; he’s going to tell his mummy what happened.”
They could hear the Painted Jaguar roaring up and down the river bank until his Mummy came.
“Son, son!” said his mother ever so many times, graciously swaying her tail, “what have you been doing that you shouldn’t have done?”
He held up his sore paw and said, “I tried to scoop up something that told me it wanted to be scooped out of its shell. But now my paw is full of prickles!”
His mom shook her head and swished her tail. “Oh, son,” she said, sighing. “By the prickles in your paddy-paw, I see it must have been a Hedgehog. You should have dropped him into the water.”
The Jaguar’s ears drooped. “But I did that to the other animal! He said he was a Tortoise, and I didn’t believe him. It turns out it was quite true. He has dived under the muddy Amazon and hasn’t come up again. I haven’t anything at all to eat.”
Looking sad and hungry, the Jaguar added, “I think we should move somewhere else, Mummy. The animals on the Amazon are too clever for me!”‘
“Son, son!” said his mother “Now attend to me and remember what I say. A Hedgehog curls himself up into a ball, and his prickles stick out every which way at once. By this, you may know the Hedgehog.”
“I don’t like this old lady one little bit,” muttered Stickly-Prickly under the shadow of a large leaf. “I wonder what else she knows?”
“A Tortoise can’t curl himself up,” Mother Jaguar went on, “He only draws his head and legs into his shell. By this, you may know the tortoise.’’
“I don’t like how Jaguar’s mom keeps teaching him about us,” said Slow-and-Solid Tortoise. “Even Painted Jaguar can’t forget those directions.”
“It’s a great pity you can’t swim, Stickly-Prickly.”
“Don’t remind me,” said Stickly-Prickly. “Just think how much better it would be if you knew how to curl up. This is a mess! Listen to Painted Jaguar.”
They heard the Jaguar sitting by the muddy Amazon, pulling prickles out of his paws and singing to himself:
“Can’t curl, but can swim—
That’s Slow-Solid, yes him!
Curls up, but can’t swim—
Stickly-Prickly, that’s him!”
“He’ll remember that for a long time,” Stickly-Prickly grumbled. Then he had an idea. “Hey, Slow-and-Solid, help me out. I’m going to try learning to swim. It may be useful.”
‘Excellent!’ said Slow-and-Solid, and he held up Stickly-Prickly’s chin while his friend kicked in the waters of the turbid Amazon.
“You’re doing great!” Slow-and-Solid encouraged. “Now, can you help loosen my back shell a bit? I want to see if I can curl up like you. Who knows, it might be useful.”
Stickly-Prickly helped to loosen Tortoise’s shell so that by twisting and straining, Slow-and-Solid managed to curl up a tiny wee bit.
“Excellent!” said Stickly-Prickly, “but better not do anymore just now. It’s making you red in the face. Kindly lead me into the water once again, and I’ll practice that sidestroke, which you say is so easy.” And so Stickly-Prickly practiced, and Slow-Solid swam alongside.
“Excellent!” said Slow-and-Solid. “A little more practice will make you a regular whale. Now, if I may trouble you to unlace my back and front shell two holes more, I’ll try that fascinating bend you say is so easy. Won’t Painted Jaguar be surprised!”
“Excellent!” said Stickly-Prickly, dripping wet from the muddy Amazon. “I declare, I shouldn’t know you from one of my own family. Two holes, I think, you said? Try to look more curled up, and please, shush those grunts, or Painted Jaguar may hear us. When you’ve finished, I want to try that long dive, which you say is so easy. Won’t Painted Jaguar be surprised!”
And so Stickly-Prickly dived, and Slow-and-Solid dived alongside.
“Excellent!” said Slow-and-Solid. “A little more attention to holding your breath and you’ll be having tea parties at the bottom of the Amazon. Now I’ll try that exercise of putting my hind legs round my ears, which you say is so peculiarly comfortable. Won’t Painted Jaguar be surprised!”
“Excellent!” said Stickly-Prickly. “But it’s straining your shell a little. They are all overlapping now instead of lying side by side.”
“Oh, that’s the result of exercise,” said Slow-and-Solid. “I’ve noticed that your prickles seem to be melting into one another and that you’re growing to look rather more like a pinecone.”
“Am I?” said Stickly-Prickly. “That comes from my soaking in the water. Oh, won’t Painted Jaguar be surprised!”
As they practiced, Stickly-Prickly had an idea. “Hey, what if we could burrow into the riverbank faster than Painted Jaguar can say ‘dinner’? Or scurry away quicker than Painted Jaguar can blink?” Slow-and-Solid’s head bobbed excitedly. “We’d be unstoppable!”
They kept at their exercises, each helping the other try new moves, until morning came. When the sun rose over the treetops, they rested and dried themselves in the warm sunlight. They noticed something astonishing—they looked quite different from when they started their night of practice.
As Tortoise munched on his leaf breakfast, he said, “Stickly-Prickly, I am not what I was yesterday. I bet I could give Painted Jaguar a run for his spots now!”
“That was the very thing I was thinking just now,” replied Stickly-Prickly. “I think scales are a tremendous improvement on prickles—to say nothing of being able to swim. Oh, won’t Painted Jaguar be surprised! Let’s go and find him and show off our new tricks.”
By and by, they found Painted Jaguar. He was still licking his paddy-paw that had been hurt the night before.
“Good morning!” said Stickly-Prickly. “And how is your dear gracious Mummy this morning?” The Spotted Cat was so astonished that he fell backward over his painted tail three times.
Gathering himself, Painted Jaguar said “She is quite well, thank you, but you must forgive me if I do not at this precise moment recall your name.”
“That’s unkind of you,” said Stickly-Prickly, “seeing that this time yesterday, you tried to scoop me out of my shell with your paw.”
“But that’s impossible!” sputtered the Jaguar. ‘You didn’t have a shell. You were all prickly! Look at my poor paw if you don’t believe me!”
Slow-and-Solid chimed in, “And you told me to jump into the muddy Amazon and drown! Why are you so rude and forgetful today?”
Then they both curled themselves up and rolled round and round Painted Jaguar. His head was spinning. He couldn’t understand how these strange creatures knew about yesterday or why they looked so different!
Feeling totally mixed up, the Painted Jaguar ran off to find his mother.
“Mom!” he cried. “You won’t believe what I just saw! There are two new animals in the jungle today. The one you said couldn’t swim is now swimming like a fish, and the one you said couldn’t curl up is rolling around like a ball! And get this—instead of one being smooth and the other prickly, they’re both covered in scales now.”
Mother Jaguar waved her tail gently and said calmly, “Now, now, son. A Hedgehog is always a Hedgehog and can’t be anything else. And a Tortoise is always a Tortoise. That’s just how things are.”
“But Mummy, it isn’t a Hedgehog or a Tortoise. It’s a bit of both, and I don’t know what to call it.”
“Don’t be silly,” his mother replied. “Everything has a name. If you’re not sure what it is, why don’t you call it an ‘Armadillo’ for now? That sounds like a good name. But whatever it is, I think it’s best you leave it alone.”
And so, Painted Jaguar did exactly what his mother told him to do. He left Stickly-Prickly and Slow-Solid alone, which was probably wise!
And so, in our story, this is how the armadillo came to be.
But here’s the thing—from that day until now, everyone who lives near the muddy Amazon River has called creatures with hard shells made of lots of moving plates Armadillo.
Stickly-Prickly and Slow-Solid became new creatures when they mixed up all the rules about what Hedgehogs and Tortoises should be able to do and created something new and unique.
And that is how they outsmarted a Jaguar!
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