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004 - My Father Finds the River · My Fathers Dragon

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  Speaker 1: Chapter four of My Father's Dragon. This labor vox recording
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  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Recording by Gregory Holdsworth. My
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  Speaker 1: Father's Dragon by Rude styles Gannet, Chapter four, My father
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  Speaker 1: finds the river. The jungle began just beyond a narrow
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  Speaker 1: strip of beach, thick, dark, damp, scary jungle. My father
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  Speaker 1: hardly knew where to go, so he crawled under a
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  Speaker 1: wahoo bush to think and ate eight tangerines. The first
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  Speaker 1: thing to do, he decided, was to find the river,
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  Speaker 1: because the dragon was tied somewhere along its bank. Then
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  Speaker 1: he thought, if the river flows into the ocean, I
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  Speaker 1: ought to be able to find it quite easy if
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  Speaker 1: I just walk along the beach far enough. So my
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  Speaker 1: father walked until the sun rose, and he was quite
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  Speaker 1: far from the ocean rocks. It was dangerous to stay
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  Speaker 1: near them because they might be guarded in the daytime.
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  Speaker 1: He found a clump of tall grass and sat down.
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  Speaker 1: Then he took off his rubber boots and ate three
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  Speaker 1: more tangerines. He could have eaten twelve, but he hadn't
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  Speaker 1: seen any tangerines on this island, and he could not
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  Speaker 1: risk running out of something to eat. My father slept
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  Speaker 1: all that day and only woke up and late in
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  Speaker 1: the afternoon when he heard a funny little voice saying, queer, queer,
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  Speaker 1: what a dear little duck, I mean, dear, dear, what
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  Speaker 1: a queer little rock. My father saw a tiny paw
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  Speaker 1: rubbing itself on his knapsack. He lay very still, and
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  Speaker 1: the mouse, for it was a mouse, hurried away, muttering
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  Speaker 1: to itself, I must tell Tom Duddy, I mean I
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  Speaker 1: must tell somebody. My father waited minutes, then started down
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  Speaker 1: the beach because it was almost dark now and he
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  Speaker 1: was afraid the mouse really would tell somebody. He walked
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  Speaker 1: all that night and two scary things happened. First, he
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  Speaker 1: just had to sneeze, so he did, and somebody close
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  Speaker 1: by said, is that you monkey? My father said yes.
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  Speaker 1: Then the voice said you must have something on your back, monkey,
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  Speaker 1: and my father said yes because he did he had
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  Speaker 1: his knapsack on his back. What do you have on
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  Speaker 1: your back, monkey, asked the voice. My father didn't know
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  Speaker 1: what to say, because what would a monkey have on
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  Speaker 1: its back, and how would it sound telling someone about
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  Speaker 1: it if it did have something. Just then another voice said,
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  Speaker 1: I beg your taking your sick grandmother to the doctor's
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  Speaker 1: my father said yes and hurried on. Quite by accident.
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  Speaker 1: He found out later on that he had been talking
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  Speaker 1: to a pair of tortoises. The second thing that happened
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  Speaker 1: was that he nearly walked right between two wild boares
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  Speaker 1: who were talking in low, solemn whispers. When he first
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  Speaker 1: saw the dark shapes, he thought they were boulders. Just
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  Speaker 1: in time. Here one of them say, there are three
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  Speaker 1: signs of a recent invasion. First, fresh tangerine peels were
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  Speaker 1: found under the Wahu bush near the ocean rocks. Second,
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  Speaker 1: a mouse reported on extraordinary rocks some distance from the
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  Speaker 1: ocean rocks, which, upon further investigation, simply wasn't there. However,
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  Speaker 1: more fresh tangerine peels were found in the same spot,
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  Speaker 1: which is the third sign of invasion. Since tangerines do
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  Speaker 1: not grow on our island, somebody must have bought them
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  Speaker 1: across the ocean rocks from the other island, which may
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  Speaker 1: or may not have something to do with the appearing
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  Speaker 1: and or disappearance of the extraordinary rock reported by the mouse.
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  Speaker 1: After a long silence, the other boar said, you know,
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  Speaker 1: I think we're taking this too seriously. Those peals probably
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  Speaker 1: floated over here all by themselves, you know how unreliable
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  Speaker 1: my sar. Besides, if there had been an invasion, I
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  Speaker 1: would have seen it. Perhaps you're right, said the first boar,
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  Speaker 1: Shall we retire? Whereupon they both trundled back into the jungle. Well,
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  Speaker 1: that's on my father a lesson. And after that he
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  Speaker 1: had saved all his tangerine peals. He walked all night,
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  Speaker 1: and toward morning came to the river. Then his troubles
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  Speaker 1: really began. End of chapter four