Page 92 - English Expedition Class 2

14 Rikki-Tikki-Tavi

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Did you know that the mongoose and the snake are considered to be enemies? Do you know
of more animal pairs that are seen as enemies of each other?

The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling is a book of stories with animals as main characters.
Have you read any story from the book? Share it with the class. This is the story of a curious
Indian mongoose named Rikki-tikki-tavi who gets adopted by a nice family and meets a
dangerous cobra.

Rikki-tikki-tavi was a mongoose. One day, a flood washed him out of the burrow 2

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where he lived and carried him down a roadside ditch . He found a little wisp of grass
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floating there and clung to it till he lost his senses .
When he woke up, he was lying under the hot sun
in the middle of a garden path and a small boy was
saying, ‘Here’s a dead mongoose. Let’s have a funeral.’
‘No,’ said his mother, ‘let’s take him in and dry
him. Maybe he isn’t dead.’
They took him into the house. The little boy’s

father picked him up between his finger and thumb
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and said he was not dead but half choked . So they
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wrapped him in cotton wool and warmed him over
a little fire. Then he opened his eyes and sneezed.
The curious mongoose looked at the cotton wool
and realized that it was not food. So he ran all round
the dining table, scratched himself and jumped on
the small boy’s shoulder.

‘Don’t be frightened, Teddy,’ said his father. ‘That’s
his way of making friends.’
The next morning, Rikki-tikki went out into the

garden outside the bungalow.

1 mongoose: a mammal that kills snakes, rats, etc. 5 lost his senses: became unconscious
2 burrow: a hole in the ground dug by an animal to live in 6 choked: unable to breathe
3 roadside ditch: a drain alongside a road 7 cotton wool: soft wool
4 wisp: a small bunch
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