At dawn a flock of doves spotted rice scattered across a field and swooped down — and WHAP, a hunter's net! But the chief called out, "Don't panic! One… two… three — FLY!" A hundred wings beat as one, and the whole flock lifted into the sky — net and all!
The netted flock came down right at the mouse's burrow. "Mouse! Friend! Help us!" Out he scurried and set to work — nibble, nibble — until the very last dove pulled free. A crow watched from a branch above. If only I had a friend like that.
"Mouse — will you be my friend?" called the crow. The mouse shrank back. "Oh no — crows eat mice!" But the crow came back every day and shared his food, and little by little the fear melted away. Then one day, on the crow's back, the mouse flew off to meet the tortoise.
One evening a deer came bounding in — heart pounding, legs all a-tremble. "A hunter was after me… and now I'm lost!" The tortoise gave a gentle smile. "Stay with us — from today, there are four of us."
One evening the deer didn't come. They went searching, and there by the tall reeds they found him — tangled in a hunter's rope trap! Down came the mouse on the crow's back — nibble, nibble — and the rope gave way! But right then, far off — thud… thud… the hunter's footsteps.
Everyone fled — everyone but the tortoise. On his slow little legs, he too had come to save his friend, and now he couldn't get away. The hunter scooped him into a sack and tramped off. From the bushes, the three others watched, hearts like stones.
The mouse whispered a plan. "The deer lies down in the road and plays dead — and the crow hops about pretending to peck at him!" And that is just what they did. The hunter dropped his sack and dashed for it — up sprang the deer, the mouse chewed the sack open, and the tortoise slid — plop! — into the pond.
That night the moon lay bright on the pond and fireflies twinkled all around — and there sat the four friends in their ring, not one of them missing. "On our own, not one of us would have made it through today." "And together? Together, no trap in the world can hold us!"