Shero to the Rescue!

Editor's Notes

1. Shero sneaks up to get a closer look. She can’t understand what they’re doing either.
2. So she scampers off to look for her friends.
3. She headed straight to Gho uncle’s place. As a desert monitor lizard, Gho was known to roam the grassland and also the nearby salt desert. Maybe he knew who these people are.That’s Gho uncle the monitor lizard, he keeps flicking his tongue out to taste the air. Lizards like snakes use their tongue to follow scent particles in the air.
4. Gho says he’d seen the people too and he was going to visit Saslu to talk about it.So they both went to look for Saslu The Indian Hare, yes hare, not a rabbit. They saw a couple of leaf shaped objects moving among the bushes.
5. The leaves turned out to be Saslu’s large ears. Saslu had heard something about a pipe leading off into a nearby lake.
6. As the three animals talked, a bird circled above them.
7. It was Bagla the cattle egret.
8. Bagla says he saw huge yellow creature with big claws that made a roaring noise.
9. Bagla suggests that they go to meet his good friend, Pado the buffalo.Bagla and Pado have a symbiotic relationship. Bagla gets a meal by picking off the flies, and Pado is free from the pesky flies. 
10. Pado takes everyone to the Maldharis. The Maldharis were cattle herdsman who also lived in the grassland. The animals hoped the Maldharis would know something about the mysterious people in the grassland, since they were humans too.
11. They met Sulemankaka, a Maldhari man. Sulemankaka was on his lunchbreak. He was surprised to see Pado come back so early from grazing. He was even more surprised to see little Shero riding on Pado’s head. ‘Why are you back so early? Normally you graze outside till I have to pull you back by your ears!’
12. Pado quickly tells Sulemankaka about the people in the grassland and the roaring yellow clawed animal they had seen. Sulemankaka laughed and said ‘That is no animal, its a human made machine to dig up land.’Then he grew serious. He said “Only yesterday I heard that the Government has a plan to build a factory on this land and throw the waste into the lake. They even want to do mining in the salt desert to get salt and stones. They have already set up an office on the other side of the grassland. We will all be thrown out if the factory gets built. We have all lives and used these areas for centuries with no harm to anyone.”
13. Sulemankaka grew even more serious. ‘They can’t just do whatever they want here! We must do something or we will lose our homes … but what?’
14. Shero and her friends were stunned to hear this, they knew they had to do something. But they didn’t know what to do either.
15. So they didn’t say anything to Sulemankaka.
16. That evening there was an emergency conference of the animals. Many animals were present. There was Pado, with Bagla on his head, Saslu and Gho. They were were joined by Varu the wolf and her pups, Ghudkar the wild ass and his two friends, Oon the camel, Shahudi, the porcupine and Oondardo the desert Gerbil. A Gerbil is a small mouse like creature.
17. Shero, a bit nervously addressed the conference “Gho uncle, Saslubhai, Padoji, Oontkaka, Ghurkadji, Varubaba, Shahudiben and Oondardo you know how important the grassland is for you! And Baglaben what will happen to the fish if they pollute your lake .. And think of the fish! They will all die. How will we welcome our migratory bird friends who spend the winter here. And our friends in the desert, they too will lose their home if their sand is mined. If the acacia trees and ber bushes are cut, our bird friends will have nowhere to perch on, nothing to eat!’’
18. “We will lose everything if we don’t act fast!”
19. Shahudiben had dozed off while Shero was in the middle of her speech.Q-Why is Shahudi the porcupine so sleepy in the evening?A-Porcupines are nocturnal animals which means they are active at night and sleep through the day. Evening would therefore be very early morning for Shahudiben.
20. Shero calls out to Shahudiben to wake up. Shahudiben wakes up startled and shoots out a few sharp quills.
21. Shero picks up one of the quills and smiles. ‘Hmmm we could use these…’ she thinks.
22. But as she was wondering what they could do with the quills …
23. Shero’s mother had come out looking for her because it was very late in the evening. She was very angry that Shero was playing with Porcupine quills and talking to so many big, dangerous animals like Varubaba.
24. The other animals continued to plan while Shero was taken home by her mother.
25. That night, Shero could hardly sleep. She didn’t know what the rest of her friends were planning. She wanted so badly to be a part of it, she felt upset that she was being treated like a baby.
26. The next morning, Shero scampered out to see what was happening. She could see Oondardo and Shahudi in the distance.
27. They were laughing very hard at something.
28. They were laughing very hard at something.
29. Shahudi’s sharp quills had punctured the tires of the bulldozer.
30. The men were puzzled as to how the quills got there. Suddenly the vehicle started sinking into the ground. They could not believe their eyes as perfectly solid ground started caving in. Soon only the jaws were sticking out.
31. When the dust settled they saw a horde of mice (that’s what the men thought, but actually they were Gerbils) emerge from the ground under the bulldozer. A team of a hundred of them had dug up the soil with their tiny paws.
32. The men called up their manager and told him all what happened. He couldn’t believe his ears so he decided to drive down to the factory site to see for himself.
33. But he was stopped on the way by a swarm of butterflies and dragonflies hovering above the road. Behind them stood a crowd of animals.
34. Varubaba had spread the word among the various wolf packs. How does a wolf howl? Yes that is the sound Varubaba and the pack made.
35. Bagla had told the birds and they were carrying banners.
36. Shahudi had alerted the other porcupines. Has anyone heard what a porcupine sounds like?
37. The procession reached Bhuj town. News reporters were surprised to see so many camels trooping into the city.
38. The collector was signing papers in his room when he heard the slogans being shouted outside his window.
39. Sulemankaka meets with him and shows him the plans for the factory.
40. The District Collector looks at the plans, and then crumples them up.
41. He tells Sulemankaka that the plans to build the factory in have been shelved.
42. All the animals rejoice. Each of you must pick an animal from the story that you like. Now at the count of three everyone ha