There was a wild jungle. No person had ever entered it. From forever it had been home to animals only.

On this particular day all the animals from the jungle sat on top of the low wall of stone which was a section of the stone circle around their jungle. They stared in disappointment and fear at what they saw.

There, in a clearing outside their jungle, not far away, were many construction and demolition vehicles driven by people. Some people were arriving. Others already there were slowly maneuvering their massive vehicles to park.

"There!" said Owl triumphantly to the rest of them. "None of you believed me! Now you see it for yourselves. For days and nights and nights and days I have been warning everybody about what I was being told by a voice in my dreams. You sneered and laughed at me. Some of you even accused me of having unhappy dreams because I slept during the daytime only."

"I did not sneer or laugh!" piped up Tortoise. "I just did not believe that anyone would want our forest. There's nothing here but trees and a few small rivers."

"Land!" said owl. "There's land. That's all it takes to bring people here. They will rip the land away from under us without a care about what will happen to us. They will think nothing about cutting down all the trees to build their homes and factories of bricks and stones and iron. Ugh! Ee-yoo!" Most of the animals ughed and eeyooed, too, with Owl.

All the animals stared in sadness and in horror at the vehicles a short distance away, and at the people driving them, getting in and out of them and shouting instructions to one another.

A few seconds of tense silence passed among the animals.

"Do we all just leave, Owl?" asked tiny Sparrow.

Owl replied, "In my dreams the voice gave us two options. Leave now before the machines come here and start tearing down the trees and digging up the ground. Or fight."

"Fight?" asked Squirrel, shivering at the thought. "We can't fight people. They have guns and traps and pesticides.”

“And vehicles and aircraft" added Rabbit, shivering, too.

"And fire", added Raccoon in a frightened voice. "We have to run before they get here!"

"There is no shame in running away", said Owl. “I was told some of us must start running now because we move slowly. The Ants, Koala Bears, Snails, Squirrels, Tortoises, are to start moving to the centre of the jungle right away. If those of us who remain to fight, lose, the rest of you will have enough time to get away out the other end of the jungle and over the stone wall."

"We will stay and fight", said the Ants, in chorus.

"Uh, that's brave of you", said Owl "but since Ants move slowly it would be best if you Ants left with the Snails and Tortoises.”

"Uh-uh", said the Ants. "We Ants have already come up with a plan of attack. We worked it out with the Birds. We are going to need you to lead the attack, Owl."

"It will be an honour", said Owl. "What is the plan?"

"I'll tell it!" chirped Sparrow. "Go ahead, Sparrow" said the Ants.

"It has to be done at night. Otherwise the people will know it's us. If they find out it is us, we won't stand a chance against them."

"Good thinking", said Owl. "That's where I come in, huh, with my night vision?" "Yes", said the Ants.

Sparrow continued, "Each Ant will carry a grain of sand and the Birds will carry the Ants to that clearing. The Ants will drop the grains onto the vehicles, and into the water and food supplies of the people. When the people wake up in the morning, none of us will be around. They won't even suspect it's us."

"Excellent!" said Owl. "A few days of that and they might just leave our jungle alone."

Every night for the next few nights the Owls led hundreds of Birds who carried hundreds of Ants who carried hundreds of grains of sand, and dropped them on the people’s vehicles. Each Bird did this dozens of times each night. It was done so silently and efficiently under the leadership of the Owls that the people didn't have a clue what was happening.

Every morning when the people awoke, everything was covered in sand.

At first the people suspected ants; but they found no ants around. They knew if ants were the culprits some ants would be found around because ants could not move fast enough to get away after carrying so much sand.

Then the people suspected the birds, but no birds were to be seen. How would birds carry so much sand? Birds have claws. Birds don't have pockets.

Every day the people would spend all their time sweeping and shovelling off the sand, and throwing away food and water that the grains of sand had spoilt. Those vehicles that had grains of sand in their fuel tanks were of no use anymore, and had to be removed. New ones were driven in.

All this took up all the people's time. The people coughed and sneezed a lot, and scratched, too, because the sand was forever getting into their noses and mouths and eyes and ears, and up against their bodies under their clothing. There was so much sand around everywhere, the people had no time to think about moving to the jungle to destroy it.

On the tenth day when the people awoke and saw that they would have to spend another day sweeping and shovelling sand, throwing out spoilt food and water, and coughing and sneezing and scratching, they gave up. They left. They took their vehicles with them.

The animals of the jungle were ecstatically happy. All of them went over to the clearing where the humans had been. They celebrated their victory. They danced and sang and had a picnic.

It was Hedgehog who said "Humans don't give up that easily, you know. They will be back. They won't use this clearing next time. They will bring all their equipment by helicopters. The helicopters will bring in the bulldozers and the chainsaws and all the other heavy machinery right into the jungle itself. They will start destroying the jungle from the inside."

The animals stopped celebrating and looked at Owl in horror and depression and sadness. "All this fighting and winning was for nothing!" cried Snail.

"No!" said Owl. "It was not for nothing. The voice in my dreams said if we fought back and won something wonderful would happen."
"Like what?" demanded Skunk. “Yeah, wonderful like what?" Chimed in Porcupine.

"Well, uh, the voice didn't say", said Owl, a bit worried herself. "Let's all go back to our jungle and wait to see."

All agreed. When they turned to go back to the jungle it wasn't there!

All they could see was the low stone wall that encircled the jungle. Where the jungle had been was a huge black hole in the ground. Black clouds of smoke were billowing out of the huge black hole.

Most of the animals began to cry. Others that did not cry were too shocked to make a sound. None of the animals moved.

"Oh, no!" cried Owl. It flew towards the stone circle and over it.

Then it turned and flew back to them. "It's not gone!" shouted Owl. "Our jungle is still there! It only looks like there's a smoking hole there! The jungle is still there!"

The animals did not believe Owl. Someone yelled "What are you talking about, Owl? We can see the hole. Why can't we see the jungle if it's still there?"

"Don't you see?" said Owl. "This is the wonderful thing that has happened because we fought and did not run away. To people it will seem to be a huge empty black hole. They won't want to come near it. But to us it will be our jungle home. As good as it always has been to us."

The animals didn't fully believe Owl until they climbed onto the stone rim. When they reached the top of the rim they saw their jungle. They went into it, and lived in their jungle forever.

The people never came back because when they flew over in helicopters and other aircraft, all they saw was a very wide and deep and ugly hole out of which drifted hot clouds of angry and belligerent smoke and howling strong winds!