Tigger Too's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Tigger Too was the smallest cub in the jungle, and today he was carrying another cub who was bigger than him. The stranger cub had a torn front paw and a limp tail. Tigger Too had found him whimpering under a fallen log, alone, with no scent of family nearby. Tigger Too did not know this cub. The cub belonged to a family that lived on the far side of the river, a family his own kin never spoke to. He picked the cub up anyway, gripped the loose skin at the neck, and started walking toward the human village. He wanted to be a guardian of this jungle one day, the youngest ever, and guardians did not leave hurt cubs under logs. The walk took most of the afternoon. The cub was heavy. Tigger Too set him down twice, licked the torn paw clean, then lifted him again. He thought about Kova, the largest guardian, who watched him from the high rocks and said nothing but meant plenty. Kova believed small meant weak. Tigger Too's jaw ached. His legs shook. He kept walking. At the edge of the trees he saw the building he was looking for: a small green clinic with flower boxes under the windows and a blue paw painted on the sign. He had heard the older animals speak of the woman inside. She took wild ones. She turned no one away. He nudged the door open with his head. A woman in blue scrubs looked up from a counter. Her hair was tied back. She did not flinch at two tiger cubs in her doorway. She knelt, and her eyes went straight to the torn paw. "Set him down," she said. Tigger Too laid the cub on the floor. "Clean tear. Bone's fine. He'll keep the paw." She lifted the cub onto a low table and reached for a roll of white bandage. Tigger Too sat back on the tile. His legs finally stopped shaking. Then Valerie glanced at him, then at the cub, then at a paper pinned to her wall with red ink across the top. Her mouth went tight. "I can treat him," she said. "But I can't file him. Not without losing this place in three weeks." She looked at Tigger Too like he might understand, and he did understand one part: he had carried the cub here, the cub would live, and now the woman who saved him had a new problem, and the cub still had no family to go back to.