I Won't Sneeze

An Indonesian Folk Tale

- Marilyn Bolchunos

ONCE UPON A time Mouse Deer was bounding long a forest path, enjoying a fine day. He stopped short. He smelled something.

A warm rice cake was lying beside the path, where someone must have dropped it. Rice cake was Mouse Deer’s favorite food, and he decided it was put there just for him.

He was walking along, carrying the big cake in his mouth, not looking where he was going, when suddenly he fell into a pit.

Now mouse deer are very small. And though he tried and tried to jump out, Mouse Deer could not do it. Finally he lay down, finished his rice cake, and began thinking. I will never get out of here unless I use my head, he thought. I must think of something.

Presently Wild Pig looked into the hole. “Mouse Deer,” he said, “what are you doing down there?”

“I’m hiding in this holy place,” said Mouse Deer. “Haven’t you heard? The world is coming to an end today, and only those in holy places will be safe.”

“Perhaps I’d better come down there with you,” said Wild Pig.

“No, no,” said Mouse Deer, “you might sneeze. If you sneeze, it will not be clean down here and will no longer be a holy place.”