Continuing the story dedication to my supportive spouse.

Transition Plan Chapter 57 – In His Majesty's Service Part 6

Tarzan's concern was correct. It was too late for modesty for Jack, although he hadn't planned on being knocked unconscious in that condition out of the trees by the French girl. Equally unplanned was Jeanne's first time to see a real boy unclad. She'd only seen Michelangelo's statue of a youthful David in the Louvre last summer on a family vacation, and after seeing the statue and others like it, Jeanne's intense curiosity peppered her father with an array of awkward questions about boys and men, much to Josephine's general amusement.

But now, Jeanne had no time to be frightened or embarrassed or feel awkward or even run away. Her concern over knocking this wild boy out of the leafy jungle canopy overcame her shock at seeing him, and his need for urgent attention temporarily overcame her anger at his teasing of her along the trail. Jeanne had not seen a single boy or girl her age in the months since they fled Casablanca, and was instantly drawn to Jack. She immediately felt guilty about hurting him, and wanted to help. A trickle of blood oozed out of his temple where she'd hit him hard with the slingshot. An unexpected thought came to her that he was a lot more handsome than any statue. At almost nine years old, Jeanne had started to like boys, but it hurt her feelings that none of them liked her back, and now she had perhaps fatally injured a new, very strange boy.

Naima was hiding in the woods unseen by both children, and had no idea what to do next, but had fought back the urge to take down the civilized human because of her attack on Tarzan's son. This juvenile human female had injured Jack, but not seriously, and she seemed regretful that she had. Human children were the most confusing of all creatures, especially outlander children. They were smart and stupid at the same time, prone to mistakes like this with dangerous objects, often unable to control their bodies, causing all manner of unintended consequences, which made them more deadly than the adults. For now the watchful caracal would let this play out.

Jeanne warily approached the motionless boy, because she was desperate, being lost and alone, but she was frightened as well. Although the boy was unconscious, he was armed with a bow and arrow and knife. The fact that he carried weapons, even primitive ones, intimidated her. He could be an enemy. Everyone they encountered, it seemed, was an enemy.

Her compassion momentarily prevailed over fear and anger, however, suppressing her barely quelled hysteria, as she coaxed and pleaded with the small intruder, "Oh my goodness, jungle boy. I am so sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. I hope I didn't kill you. Please, oh please wake up, boy."

Unashamed because of necessity, Jeanne examined him closely from top to bottom. She tried to remember what her mother did to look for bodily harm as a former nurse. He had no other visible physical damage. She bravely grabbed him by his shoulders and tried to jostle him carefully to awaken him. At almost nine years old, his muscles, because of his strenuous jungle life, were rippled and rock hard, despite being unconscious, though he was not overdeveloped. This was a pleasant surprise to her. She discovered that the boy was breathing, and that calmed her a bit. She couldn't avoid noticing that he was very good-looking, especially with his long auburn hair in dreadlocks as well as his solid frame. The French boys she knew, sons of the other officers, mostly had thin or somewhat athletic stature, but were built nothing like this boy. His deep tan was a lot like her olive skin which was even more appealing to her. She was often treated with prejudice by other children because of her dark complexion. It was clear to her that the rain forest was his home, but she didn't connect this boy with the Count's family, because her thoughts and feelings were a still a complete jumble since the night of the attack.

"You're really cute, jungle boy, but so stupid around girls like every boy. You could have just said 'hello' to us instead of hiding in the trees," she sighed in simultaneous excitement and exasperation.

She grabbed her canteen, poured water on a strip of cloth in her pocket, dabbed his forehead and temple, and cleaned the small gash she'd caused.

Soothed by her care, Jack opened his eyes groggily and looked directly at her, although he saw about three spinning, fuzzy images of the girl. She gasped and pulled back. His deep green eyes, though unfocused, struck her to her core. She was now totally confused about her feelings. She was utterly taken by Jack, yet she read malice into being stalked by this armed boy, having suffered nothing but violence and hardship for months. The sweet little girl inside of her was totally on the defensive every waking moment since the artillery attack on Casablanca. He could be a German spy sent to watch them or even attack them, but with his striking hairstyle and dark color, it was hard to tell any nationality because of his uncivilized physical traits. She knew he was fascinatingly different, and a part of her really was smitten with that. But the other part of her was terrorized about any new stranger, even a boy nearly her age.

Jeanne didn't know what to do after reviving him. He was appealing, but he'd tracked her and the others in the trees for hours. He'd taunted her, although he gave her a delicious treat too. She didn't know what to think. She really wanted to trust him and wanted to believe he was a friend, but so much had gone wrong these past few months that she couldn't. He had weapons. So she panicked as he continued to recover, and backed away further with her slingshot drawn and loaded again.

Jack tried to get up unsteadily, wavered, and rebalanced himself. Steeling herself in defense, she pursed her lips, aimed her slingshot at him, and warned en francais, "Stay away from me, jungle boy."

Jack was still disoriented enough that he answered her in Mangani, which sounded like complete animal gibberish to Jeanne. She could not believe he was speaking a simian language. But he slowly regained his senses, and remembered to speak French.

While their conversation was going on with a new threat to Jack, Naima was on alert again, knowing he was still recovering and was impaired. Naima thought of a strategy to knock him down out of the line of fire of the girl's unknown weapon before she turned her wrath on the female human child. Naima poised to strike, but hoped that Jack would talk the girl into becoming calm. He had his father's and mother's gift for that. Killing juvenile humans, even threatening ones, was not something Naima wanted to do. It would only bring angry adults back with guns for revenge. But if it meant the difference between life or death for Jack, Naima would do what was necessary, no matter what the consequences.

Jack felt a sharp pain on the side of his head. He was still somewhat in a fog, not thinking clearly at all and too dizzy to get up, which also made him bilious. He tried to explain what happened, but his speech was so disjointed that it barely made sense to her, "Huh? What? … I feel so strange… Ohhh, my. I'm… uh… very sorry, Mademoiselle. I… I was in the trees just watching you hike. I've never seen French soldiers. I was… um… curious. I'm s-s-sorry that I made you angry. I was… was… oh, my… just playing. Believe me… It was sort of like 'hide and seek'."

Despite his jumbled words, his accent and pronunciation was almost perfect, thanks to his tutelage by Captain D'Arnot, which was jarring to Jeanne. It was such a paradox for this ape child to be suddenly speaking French to her.

He attempted a weak smile. Jeanne blinked when he mentioned a familiar child's game that ordinarily she liked to play with her friends, but never with boys. It caught her off guard. She wondered how a human ape could know about French games.

He touched his throbbing, still-bloody temple, realizing what had happened, and he carefully assumed an ape's curious, but cautious, pose on his haunches and knuckles, with a slightly tilted head. He was a perfect picture of his father at that age in that stance, but with his mother's hair color and nose shape. Jack really did cut a striking image, having the best combination of both parents' features.

Jeanne blinked in disbelief. This boy looked exactly like the gorillas she'd seen in the Paris Zoo, though he was human. She knew nothing about ape behaviors, or what was Jack's innocent inquisitiveness, as opposed to preparing to attack, so she clenched her teeth and stretched the slingshot further back, taking better aim, "I'm only warning you one more time, jungle boy. Stay back."

Jack realized this girl had no understanding of his gorilla ways, and so he tried to stand erect like a normal human in a more obvious way of being friendly. He was still very woozy, and stumbled awkwardly.

His faltering steps caused sudden alarm in Jeanne, and she thought the boy was starting to attack, so she yelled sharply, and then readied her slingshot to fire. She swallowed back her fear while remembering exactly what her father said and did in practice with his troops when he let her watch, "Freeze! Move slowly. Put your weapons on the ground. Carefully… Let me see your hands, jungle boy."

Despite being her target, Jack was impressed. This girl knew exactly what she was doing, clearly learning it from her warrior father. To try to calm the situation, Jack let a slight smile appear. That was a mistake. He underestimated her fear and defensiveness. She fired a rock at his feet. It painfully nicked the side of his leg on the ricochet, and kicked up a cloud of dust. He winced, coughed, and choked, erasing his smile. When the dust cleared, her slingshot was reloaded, with a bigger, jagged rock that she had aimed right at his forehead. Her narrowed, angry hazel eyes were intense. Jack swallowed hard. He knew his reflexes were still too slow to dodge any attack. This girl meant business.

Jeanne ground her teeth and snapped, "This is not funny, jungle boy. I'm not kidding. I shot you before, I can do it again. I said put your weapons down now!"

Jack inwardly thought that once again he would never figure out how to be friends with European girls. Even the pretty ones. Especially this pretty one.

"This is just one more big failure," he thought and sighed.

He slowly removed his weapons and put his quiver, bow, knife, and sheath gently before her and carefully backed away, with his hands in the air.

Naima was extremely worried now. Jack had surrendered his weapons to the girl. She wondered how this would help, but continued to let him work this through his way. The small female did seem calmer with Jack unarmed.

"Good!" Jeanne said and smiled confidently, more for her own assurance than to intimidate him, but added, "Are you sure you don't have any hidden weapons?"

Jack was as naked and helpless as any human could ever be, standing only ten feet in front of her, so he shook his head slightly, held out his arms and palms submissively, and asked, "Mademoiselle, si vous plait, do I look like I could hide anything from you right now?

She realized the absurdity of what she demanded under the circumstances, and actually laughed at his dry humor in such a tense situation, but quickly stifled herself and stammered, "Oh… um… yes, I guess not."

Watching her blush get redder, Jack felt like he had made his first connection with her.

Unfortunately, her suspicions returned quickly and she grilled him, "If you were just watching us, then how come you are armed? 'Waiting for a chance to attack us?"

It was time to correct this situation. Jack gave Jeanne a serious look that she thought was going to burn completely through her in his truthfulness and conviction, "Mademoiselle. I would never do that. I was only watching you and just wanted to meet you. Every animal in the forest has the right to defend itself. That's why I carry my bow and knife. My mom taught me to use my bow and my dad taught me the knife."

"To defend yourself? Your mother taught you? A jungle mother?" she asked rhetorically in growing utter astonishment. She relaxed her draw on the slingshot slightly and aimed away from his head.

Now fully conscious and unclouded, Jack took her moment of confusion as his only chance to defuse this situation. He had to tell her everything quickly to prevent her further panicking and doing something rash that both would regret later. He understood that she was extremely frightened and overreacting to being stranded alone and deserted by her parents and the soldiers. That happened to him at the enormous Paddington Station in London when, for a few minutes, both his parents got separated from him in the crowd when he was five and Lily was an infant. They were all panicked then.

He very carefully bowed as deeply as any English gentleman or wealthy bourgeois Frenchmen would do in front of a beautiful woman, smiled a bit, and then offered his hand for her to shake, "Excusez-moi Mademoiselle. Please forgive my human manners. You don't know the jungle. This is my world. I am Jonathan Robert Clayton the Fourth, only son of the 16th Count of Greystoke. But everyone calls me Jack."

Jack was relieved to finally be able to reveal his true identity to the girl, eliminating any ambiguity about who and what he was since reviving, but was nervous about what happened next, since he was certain he'd blown it with her from the very start. He was trying to make the best of this continued very compromising situation. This was certainly not the way he wanted to meet her. However, her beauty made his heartbeat race and he was short of breath. She was much prettier up close. He was very grateful that she had not screamed and run away. Not yet, at least. He hoped that he would not say nor do anything dumb to make her run away, or attack him again. Despite all her threats and anger, Jack wanted to be closer to this girl, and could not explain why.

Jeanne was stunned at this wild child's revelation. Standing before her with a friendly smile, an outstretched hand, and literally nothing else, was the handsome son of the very man her father was seeking to find as a war ally and for safe refuge for her and her mother. All her fears and trepidation melted away instantly. Her suppressed feelings of interest in this boy flooded to the surface, as well as a deep blush. She dropped her slingshot like she was ashamed to have it in her hand.

She was mortified that she had caused a terrible misunderstanding. She prayed she had not ruined her only chance to get to know Jack better, or worse, caused him or his father to refuse to help the soldiers and her family because of her attack.

...

Naima could see the armed confrontation between the two young humans subside. She relaxed and reclined like a common house cat, with one paw tucked under her as she calmly licked the other one. Her mate came up to her, with one of their fourth litter of kits trotting along beside him silently to learn stalking, and whispered in their language, "Trouble for Korak?"

"Naw. That's over," Naima whispered back in amusement.

If the male caracal could have grinned he would have, "They were arguing but now he's just talking to the female. And I can really smell their attraction to each other. Seems to me their trouble is just starting."

Naima batted her mate playfully at his teasing, and observed, "That's what human mates do, beloved. They argue and talk all the time. Just look at Tarzan and Jane."

He licked behind her ear and she started to purr, and he observed, "These two are not mates. They're just older kits who just met."

Naima relaxed in blissful satisfaction while leaning into her mate's primping. The caracal pair watched the young male and female humans reach forward to complete Jack's handshake in the clearing. Naima announced with certainty, "They will be mates, dear."

….

Authors Note: Well, that was not exactly your typical first meeting between children, but nothing in the jungle is ever normal, especially the things that happen between Jeanne and Jack. I hope you liked that, and are looking forward to what occurs next. I tried to be true to the ERB characterization of Jeanne as strong-willed and adventurous. My version of their story also parallels the theme of the original – it's as much about Jeanne's transformation in Africa as about Jack - even though I shaved a decade off both their canon first encounter ages to fit the real historical timelines, something that Burroughs conveniently forgot in his novels, and that the children are – so far - being raised by their real parents in strong families, in keeping with Disney's interpretation of Tarzan. (OK, canon ERB Tarzan fans… you know what happens to Jeanne, but you just don't know how or when and the way it will all fit together in this story, so please read on…). And for those of you who may be concerned that this pair of 'almost nine year olds' may be a bit too articulate and mature, you've never met my very intelligent 8-10 year old nephews and nieces and second generation cousins, from which most of Jeanne and Jack's personalities are drawn.