Part 1: A Curse On You All

Chapter 6

"A Game of Hide and Seek"

While La and her humanoid hyena army set forth their plans for power and domination, Tarzan raced back to the treehouse where he told Jane and Archimedes about Basuli's wedding to his betrothed in the Wazari village. It had been a very long time since Jane and Archimedes were wedding guests and the only wedding that they all could remember was Jane's own wedding to Tarzan. The Wazaris were welcoming to them for their wedding and now it seemed like Tarzan and Jane were to return the favor to the Wazaris, although they were unaware of the brooding plans that La was conjuring up.

"Oh, Tarzan, this is going to be absolutely splendid," gasped Jane, who was spinning around the treehouse with excitement. "I haven't been to a wedding since we left England when my cousin David married that wretch of a girl."

"What's a wretch?" Tarzan asked confusingly. This made Jane stop in her tracks for a word like that was considered improper in her culture.

"Tarzan," she gasped upon hearing that word. "Where are your manners? You know better than to say something like that."

"I don't," replied Tarzan sheepishly. "Because I have never heard of it."

Nevertheless, Jane, being the fussy Englishwoman that she was, began to fret over how to prepare for something like this. There was still a lot to be done as she still had to find a wedding gift, not to mention she had to find a dress to wear to the wedding.

"There's so much time and so little to do," she fretted to herself. "I need to find a wedding present and what does one wear to a Wazari wedding?"

Tarzan and Archimedes looked at each other with confused glances as they were now going to be subjected to what Englishwomen go crazy over. But while Archimedes was used to something like this, Tarzan was not very familiar to Jane's fussy habits. After all, they had not had anything major like this since their own wedding not too long ago.

"Jane," said Archimedes, trying to keep Tarzan from being more confused. "Why don't we go down to Dumont's and we will see what we can give the Wazaris?"

"Indeed," replied Jane. "Maybe I can look for a dress or two from Paris."

"You have enough," remarked Archimedes, not wanting his daughter to overstock the treehouse with women's clothes. As they left, he then turned to Tarzan since he was staying behind.

"We won't be long, Tarzan," he said as they went down to the boat. "Please make yourself at home while we are gone."

"I will," replied Tarzan, smiling as they left, but of course, he was king of the jungle after all and he had a duty to fulfill. So, he left the treehouse as Timon watched from another room. Although he was still in a body cast and was still lying on a small bed, he had started to improve on a day by day basis.

"Oy, at least I'm starting to get better," he thought to himself. "I can't stand it being in this so called 'cast.' Pumbaa's out gallivanting off to somewhere far away and here am I still unable to move. Oh, well, I hope he's finding some bugs with Terk and Tantor."

Meanwhile, Pumbaa was with Terk and Tantor playing a game of hide and seek. Tantor and Pumbaa were trying to find a decent spot to hide while Terk was doing the counting. Of course, being inhabitants of the jungle, none of them were good with counting and Terk was obviously no expection in any case of the word.

"75, 63, 29," she counted as Tantor was beginning to panic. Just then, he saw what appeared to be the perfect hiding place which was in a large bush.

"The perfect hiding place," he gasped as Pumbaa ran not too far behind. "She'll never find us in here, Pumbaa."

"Easy for you to say," gasped Pumbaa, running out of breath from all the running that he was doing. Pumbaa was first and foremost a pig and that running was not really his strong suit.

"52, 98, 100," finished Terk, turning her attention to finding her friends. "Ready or not, here I come."

So, Terk began to find her friends and of course, since Tantor was bigger than either her or Pumbaa, it was not that hard at all to find them in their hiding places. But, Tantor was not playing the game properly and Terk found his big rear behind while hiding in what he thought was the perfect hiding place.

"When's he going to learn to hide so I can do some seeking?" groaned Terk, upon seeing Tantor's rear end. "Oh, well, perhaps I can find where his other friend is."

So, Terk continued her hunt completely ignoring Tantor's obvious hiding place and faking the possible location fact that Tantor and Pumbaa were still hiding.

"Oh, Tantor, Pumbaa," she said, walking past Tantor. "Wherever you two are, I'm going to find you both."

Tantor chuckled quietly to himself as Pumbaa, who had managed to hide himself in the bushes quite clearly, was now beginning to feel quite uncomfortable in this matter.

"No, you're not," chuckled Tantor, but Pumbaa had other ideas.

"Uh, Tantor?" whispered Pumbaa. "I have something to say."

"What is it?" asked Tantor, completely oblivious to the fact that Pumbaa was about to pass another round of gas.

"I think I have to blow some steam," groaned Pumbaa and raising his tail, once again let out a loud noise that Terk knew was familiar, but ignored it because the gas was not as loud as the last time she heard it.

"You can run, but you can't hide," she said, peeking through a fallen log. Just then, she let out a hushed gasped when she saw three men armed with rifles walking her way.

"Hunters," gasped Terk, upon seeing the men walking towards her and the others. Dashing into the bushes, she jumped onto Pumbaa and flattened him to the ground while Tantor was still being oblivious to what was happening around him.

"You found me," he said happily, but Terk was not in the mood for being happy. "Does this mean that it's your turn to hide?"

But, Pumbaa could see as he got back to his feet that Terk was not in the mood for playing another round of hide and seek.

"I don't think Terk wants to play anymore," groaned Pumbaa.

"You're darn tooting that I don't want to play anymore," whimpered Terk. "We'd better both hide, come on!"

She grabbed Tantor's trunk and although Pumbaa almost got trampled by the large elephant, the three of them managed to run away as far as they could.

Meanwhile, Jane and Archimedes had returned from the trading post and managed to purchase a wedding present for Basuli and his new bride as well as Jane buying a purple parasol to go with the dress she wanted to wear to the wedding. Of course, Tarzan could see that Jane was still being giddy over the wedding.

"You seem to really be excited over this, Jane," said Tarzan as he looked at the gift for Basuli and his bride, which was a waffle iron. "Do you think they will like it?"

"I hope they do," replied Jane. "It's not there custom, but it's the best that Monsieur Dumont has on such short notice."

She then showed Tarzan the purple parasol that she had also bought with the other items. Tarzan could see that it was similar to the yellow parasol that Jane wore with her yellow dress and thought it was the same one.

"It looks just like your other one," said Tarzan upon inspecting it. "But, it's a different color."

"I know that it is a different color," she replied. "But I want it to go with my outfit for the wedding. I'm wearing the blue dress that I got from Monseiur Dumont when he first got here."

"I see," said Tarzan. Jane placed the parasol down on the table and then took the other items she had bought into their bedroom.

"Don't worry, Tarzan," whispered Archimedes. "Jane's the only one who wants to look her best. We are at a Wazari wedding. We'll just go as we are."

Just then, Tarzan heard the frantic trumpeting of Tantor and the others and ran out to the deck of the treehouse see what was happening.

"What's happening?" cried Tarzan down to the three frantic animals.

"Hunters," cried Terk. "There are lots of them."

"Yeah," added Tantor. "And they have big scary weapons."

"Show me," scowled Tarzan and he left Archimedes behind in the treehouse and followed the others to the source of the disturbance. Jane soon emerged from the bedroom and could see that Tarzan was running off into the distance.

"What's going on, daddy?" she asked. "What's all the hullabaloo about?"

Archimedes didn't answer his daughter's questions, but stared out into the jungle as Tarzan followed his friends to the source of the disturbance at hand.

Meanwhile, the hunters were walking around and from the way they were behaving, they seemed to not have hunting on their minds. In fact, they were showing it clearly in their language.

"Nobody told me that it was going to be this humid," said a hunter who was skinny and had a gray moustache and wiping away the sweat on his head.

"Or mosquitos that are the size of donkeys," said another hunter who was robust and had red hair and a moustache and slapped his hand on his arm. They were soon joined by a third hunter was much younger than the two other hunters and had dark blond hair.

Meanwhile, Tarzan was swinging as fast as he can towards the three hunters. He was already on the lookout for Queen La and the humanoid hyenas, but now he had another problem to take care of.

"There they are!" cried Terk and Tarzan swung towards the hunters, snatching the guns right out of their hands. He then turned towards the red haired hunter and crept over towards him like an angry gorilla.

"No hunting in my jungle," growled Tarzan and he tried to grab the gun away from the hunter. The hunter put up a fight, but then Tarzan managed to grab the gun at the last minute and brought it up to the trees. He tried to snap it in half, but then suddenly, the gun bent right back up and each time Tarzan tried to break it, the more it went back to the way it once was.

Just then, another robust man wearing a red beret came running towards Tarzan.

"What are you doing to my actors?" he cried and Tarzan being the ape man that he was grabbed hold of the branch that he was on and hung upside down.

"Actors?" asked Tarzan confusingly and stared at the four men with a look of confusion deep in his eyes.