I am the crocodile’s eldest grandson.
I stretch my length across the sandy beaches and the rocky shallows and the deep wide cool waters, all scale and armour. I open my mouth to yawn and the river shrinks back and hides. When I let my tears flow, the animals step back a little farther away and get ready to run. Nothing in the water can hurt me; nothing on the land can scare me. I am the crocodile’s eldest grandson: please give me your pity.
My grandfather was the first and the biggest and the strongest, and he was three times what I am now. He was the fiercest and strongest and fastest, and maybe even the smartest. His voice was golden and his claws were stronger than steel, he could outrun the gazelles and he could see a leaf fall from the treetops on the other side of the world.
With gifts like that, grandfather grew proud. And pride brought trouble, all the little troubles. Grandfather was smart and strong, but his enemies were weak and crafty. They stole away his gifts – took his speed when he wasn’t looking, nabbed his smarts while he napped, tricked him into giving his big claws away to the lions and the tigers and the bears.
He got angry and old and bitter and then he died, and my father was what he was then, just a bit smaller, a bit slower, a bit weaker. But he was still twice the crocodile I am. His voice was golden and his eyesight shamed the eagles and he was still fiercer than a thousand knives. And well, what do you think happened to that? His eyes were stolen away by a liar and a thief, and all the fierce in the world does you no good when you can’t see who did you wrong. He cried his tears then, his big crocodile tears. I still cry those tears, and I am doing it now, because although my father was hard done by, and he was twice what I am, I ask this: please give me your pity, and let me explain.
Down by the river all day I slept and dozed and dreamed, of the old days, when the world worked right and everything was my grandfather’s. Fleet feet, sharp eyes, quick wits, and the strength behind it. Now all that’s left are the songs I sing, quiet-now, when no-one’s watching but everyone’s listening. Grandfather sang them, father sang them, now do I, slow and soft, deep and strong, like the current scraping the pebbles across the riverbed. They’re important songs, they are, because they tell everybody listening how things should be, how things were back in my grandfather’s day.
All day I sleep and sing, all day yesterday, ‘till down to the river comes a monkey scrambling, all wild-eyed and bristle-furred. He’s in such a hurry he almost runs me over, and I stop my song and grab him up. Never liked monkeys, not me, not father, not grandfather, not since a monkey stole away his smarts and kept just enough to make them stupid.
“Let me go let me go LOOK OUT!” shrieks this monkey.
He’s in a terror, he is, but not of me. That’s strange, I think. “Speak up!” I say. “Look out for what?”
“There’s a monster coming,” he whines, “a terrible big monster, an ogre of noise and huge and snorting puffs of breath! It’s bigger than an elephant and twice as grumpy and it’s coming over here! I tried to lead it away until it got lost, but it was too clever and followed too close! Run!”
“Monsters don’t scare me,” I say, and I let him go. “Run away now and don’t come back, but I’m staying, and I’m singing. Go away.”
“You’ll get caught!” he warns, and then he ran away, making that monkey screech they do.
Well now, I never cared much for what monkeys thought, not after what they did to grandfather. So I went back to my singing, my long slow singing, of the old days and the bold days when the scales were stronger than skin and three times thicker all across the world. Then I hear a rustle rustle rustle and out of the bushes and down to the river comes a hare, tumbling head over heels, right up into my mouth so fast I nearly choke on his tail.
“Run run RUN!” he yells at me, scared stiffer than that monkey.
“Why now?” I ask. Can’t run anyways, not since a hare stole my grandfather’s speed and outran him with it. Don’t like them one bit, the meddlesome tricksters.
“There’s a monster, and it’s coming this way! It’s huge, and strong, and its teeth are shining like the sun! I tried to outrun it, but it chases faster than I can run! Let me go and run, run, run!”
“Monsters don’t scare me,” I say, and he runs out of my mouth he’s so scared.
“It’ll catch up!” he warns, and he ran away, screaming his furry head off.
I don’t like hares, not after what they did to grandfather, but it worried me a bit that this monster had them so frightened. Not the monster, you understand, but just that the hares were scared. That isn’t normal, and that’s bad, and that worried me. Not the monster. I’m too fierce for that. So I sang, and remembered, and forgot about it.
Halfway through the ballad of the old days comes a wham bam CRASH SMASH and a racket to raise the dead. I think it’s the monster for a moment, but out of the forest comes the spider, so small but making such a big racket that you’d think he was a hundred times his size. He’s in a tizzy, and runs up to me hopping up and down.
“It’s here! It’s here! It’s here! The monster is here! Hide in the river, hide underwater, bury yourself in the pebbles and the dirt or it’ll see you!”
Now I was just about sick of hearing about this monster, especially from a spider, the trickiest creature in the whole world, the ones that talked my grandfather into giving away his claws and getting back little stubs, the eight-legged little nuisances that stole away my father’s eyes to trade to the eagles for the promise to never ever be eaten by them. Nothing I hate more than a spider, and nothing I hated more right then than a spider telling me to run away and hide.
“I am the crocodile’s eldest grandson,” I tell that spider, and I feel the rumble rise in my throat as I get up and stand tall, belly off the ground. “My scales are the strongest armour in the world, where my teeth show the world shrinks, and nothing scares me, no matter what. I have had it with you and your chattering teeth and your wailing all about monsters. Show me your monster and I’ll bash its head in and have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner for a month straight.”
“Oh no, you couldn’t do that!” protests the spider. “It’s too scary. Better hide instead.”
I snapped my teeth at the spider and walked up the riverbank, all a-bristle and in the worst mood I’d had in months, maybe years. All I wanted to do was finish up my song and all day I’d had nothing but monsters, monsters, monsters. I’d show them a monster, those tricksters, those little thieves. Nothing in the water can hurt me; nothing on the land can scare me. And then off in the distance, thundering closer with every second, I saw that monster.
It was tall – as tall as an elephant. It was fast – faster than a gazelle. Its eyes were blazing yellow lights, its teeth a shining metal mask that couldn’t stop grinning. And it made a roaring, rattling sound that made my teeth shiver in their sockets.
But I still stood there in the dirt and the dust and stood tall, and I called my battle song at it. “I am the crocodile’s eldest grandson,” I sang, “and I’m not scared of you!”
And then it was there, and so was I, and wham, bang, smash, crash, the fight was on and then it was over, with me knocked flat to the ground, spun on my back, with a bruise all over and my legs in the air: stuck.
And while I was stuck there, by the side of that dusty dirt road, who do you think came walking back up to me, laughing, but all three of those tricksters, guffawing and chuckling and giggling ‘till their eyes near fell out and they could barely pull themselves together enough to pick up my golden voice from where it had landed, on the other side of that dusty dirt road. “I think we’ll swap it with the birds,” says spider, I heard him. “I can get us a good deal, I bet.”
It took me three days to tip myself back over and crawl back down here to the riverbank. My bruises are all gone, my aches are all done, my scales are shining again and as I bask here in my strength and my tears I stay quiet, because I have forgotten all my old songs.
I am the crocodile’s eldest grandson, and I ask of you, please: give me your pity.