Leuk the Hare and Bouki the Hyena

In the dry scrublands beyond the baobab grove, there lived a hare named Leuk, small and quick-eyed, and a hyena named Bouki, large and always, always hungry. Bouki had spent his whole life certain that his size and his sharp teeth made him cleverer than any creature smaller than himself, and this certainty had cost him more meals than he could count.

One year, a terrible drought settled over the land, and food grew scarce even for the hyena, who was used to finding scraps everywhere. Word spread through the scrubland that a wealthy farmer on the edge of the village had planted a field of sweet groundnuts, the best anyone had tasted in seasons, and had built a fence so high that no animal could leap it.

Bouki, drooling at the thought of the groundnuts, went to find Leuk. 'Small cousin,' he said, forcing a friendly tone he did not truly feel, 'I have heard you are clever with plans. Help me get into the farmer's field, and I promise to share the groundnuts with you equally.'

Leuk, who had heard Bouki make and break such promises many times before, considered carefully. 'I will help you, Bouki, but only if you agree to follow my instructions exactly, without changing anything, no matter how hungry you become.'

'I promise,' said Bouki, already imagining the taste of groundnuts.

Leuk led Bouki to a narrow gap beneath the fence, just wide enough for a hungry, thin creature to squeeze through. 'Here is the plan,' Leuk said. 'You must not eat inside the field tonight — not one groundnut. Instead, gather only enough to fit in your mouth and bring it back out to me, so we can divide it fairly outside where the farmer will not notice missing plants near the fence. If you eat while you are still thin enough to fit through the gap, you will grow too fat to escape, and the farmer will catch you at dawn.'

Bouki nodded eagerly, squeezed through the gap, and found himself standing among rows of the sweetest groundnuts he had ever smelled. He gathered a small mouthful as instructed and turned to leave — but the smell was too much for him. He told himself just one bite before returning, then just one more, then another, each one convincing him it would be the last, until the moon had crossed half the sky and Bouki's belly had grown round and heavy with groundnuts he had promised to save for outside.

When dawn began to lighten the horizon, Bouki finally remembered his promise and waddled, full and satisfied, toward the gap in the fence. He pushed his head through easily enough, but his swollen belly caught fast against the wood, and no matter how he wriggled and grunted, he could not pull himself free.

Leuk, waiting patiently on the other side exactly as he had promised, watched Bouki struggle with an expression that was more sad than amused. 'I told you not to eat inside the field, cousin.'

'Help me, Leuk! The farmer will wake soon!'

'I cannot make your belly smaller, Bouki, only smaller choices could have done that, and you did not choose them.' Leuk paused, then added, more gently, 'I will delay the farmer as long as I can with a trick of my own, but you must promise me this time — truly promise — that hunger will not make your promises for you again.'

Leuk hurried to the farmhouse and began loudly imitating the panicked bleating of a lost goat near the farmer's gate, drawing the sleepy farmer and his dog away from the groundnut field just long enough for Bouki, with painful effort and the loss of a good deal of dignity, to squeeze himself free and limp back into the scrubland, groundnuts and all lost to the dust in his frantic escape.

Bouki sat in the shade afterward, sore and empty-handed despite his full night of eating, while Leuk shared a small handful of groundnuts he had gathered separately and honestly from a wild patch near the fence's edge.

'How is it,' Bouki grumbled, 'that you always seem to eat well, and I always seem to eat myself into trouble?'

'Because you eat for the hunger you feel right now,' said Leuk, 'and I eat for the hunger I will feel tomorrow. Patience is simply hunger that has learned to wait.'

Bouki grumbled at this, as he always did, and swore that next time would be different. But the animals of the scrubland say that Bouki has been swearing this same oath for as many seasons as the baobab has rings, and that Leuk, small and patient, has never once gone home with an empty stomach or a stuck belly.