2. The Lion and the Mouse
One day, when the lion was asleep, a small mouse carelessly ran
over the big lion’s nose. This startled the lion and woke him up.
“Roar!!!!” with an angry roar, the lion grasped the mouse with his
sharp claws.
“Please, please, Your Majesty, I didn’t mean it! Please spare my
life!” begged the frightened mouse. “Set me free and maybe someday
I can be of some help to you.”
The lion laughed at the idea of the tiny little mouse helping him
and said, “Get on yo ur feet and run, I’m letting you go, but I can’t see
how you could ever be of any use to a great lion like me!”
Soon after this, the lion fell into a pit and was trapped in a big
net! Shocked and angry, he twisted, scratched, and chewed the net, but
the mo re he struggled to escape, the tighter he was trapped. At last he
was caught so tightly in the net that he couldn’t move at all!
The lion roared at the top of his voice. His sad and desperate cry
surprised even the tiny mouse, who was sitting in his small home
underground. “That was from His Majesty!” said the little mouse.
Quickly the mouse ran out of his hole and found the trapped lion. He
looked down from the top of the pit and said, “Your Majesty, don’t panic. I’m
here to rescue you!” “Thank y ou, but you are too tiny to be of any help.” the
lion shook his head with a sigh.
The little mouse ignored what the lion had just said and just jumped
down into the pit and began to chew the cords with his small sharp teeth. His
teeth were small but they w ere as sharp as razors. In a few minutes, the mouse
chewed a big hole in the net. The great lion was finally saved by the tiny little
mouse!
The lion said, “Thank you, thank you, thank you very much for saving
my life! I’m sorry that I was so proud of myself. I thought you were too small
to be useful, but I see that you are indeed a good and useful friend!”