Festus flogged his skin-and-bone daughters for stealing buttered milk that was reserved for the ballooned-tummy dogs. Then he checked his snare for any long-tailed mouse. The hunter wiped his tears after spotting a pipe-long nose animal caught by the twisted wires. 

“I’ll braai the sizzling liver,” he whispered, choking on his saliva. “Your wife will leave if you don’t find meat,” sang a spoonbill bird between the branches. “Give me a second chance,” said the panting pangolin. “Don’t, don’t!” said a woodpecker, knocking a termite-infested tree. The hunter squinted at the pangolin’s minced leg. 

First, he sprinkled dried leaves over the broken leg and dressed it with leaves. Then he squatted on his heels, as the scaly anteater greedily swallowed the white ants. Minutes later, his wife gave birth to a son. Then his red cow calved triplets and the calves suckled the milk-spurting teats. Instantly, the farting clouds floated above his thatch-roofed huts and it begins to rain, while villagers blocked their eyes from the blinking lightning. Suddenly the marshy grass popped around his bush-fenced kraal and his cow munched the manna-like lawn. 

Soon he poured the creamy milk for his children. Unfortunately, the gossip-carrying wind blew the news of his fortune towards the king. “Why are the ancestors favouring you?” asked the servants, pointing poison-tip arrows at Festus’s forehead. This time, the bucketing rain formed a pool between his hut and the kraal. The villagers pressed their skewed eyes into the reflecting pool and counted six calves instead of three. Upon hearing this, the king tossed his golden crown into the flickering fire and ripped his snakeskin’s clothes. 

“What magic do you possess?” quizzed his majesty, strangling Festus’s neck. “Spare my life,” said Festus, coughing balls of bloodied saliva. The king unclenched his plier-like fists. “I freed a pangolin,” he confessed. “Where’s it?” roared his Majesty. 

“Next to the triplet trees,” the commoner said, winking. The king grabbed a gold-plated shovel and rode on his charcoal-black pony. “I deserve a pangolin’s trophy!” yelled the king. Soon the rock-crushing shovels dug a 12-feet manhole and the king slipped into the burrow. 

That day, Festus crafted a real-size pangolin from rusty tins and built a pangolin’s den. Later, the patrolling squad rescued a she-pangolin from the poachers and brought it to the barbed-wire farm. In the end, three baby pangolins were born in captivity.