Elmer outwits the tigers with chewing gum

Elmer Elevator’s encounter with the Seven Tigers turns a direct threat of being eaten into an escape built on a carefully timed deception. Surrounded in a clearing, he cannot overpower his attackers; instead, he uses the island’s scarcity of chewing gum to redirect their hunger into a competition among themselves. The tactic works because the Seven Tigers become so intent on producing more gum that they forget their intended meal.

The Threat in the Clearing

After hearing whispering noises as he moved deeper into the jungle, Elmer Elevator believed something was following him. The sounds seemed to come from both sides and behind, and, when he tried to run, roots tripped him while the noises drew nearer. He thought he heard laughter. Emerging into a clearing, he ran to its center so that he could see anything that might attack him. Instead, fourteen green eyes appeared around the clearing and resolved into the Seven Tigers, who walked around him in a large circle, looking increasingly hungry before sitting down to speak.

The Seven Tigers made their claim to the place explicit: they regarded Elmer as a trespasser in their jungle. Their remarks moved from territorial accusation to the prospect of eating him. One warned that no explorer had ever left the island alive; another noted that he was their first little boy and wondered whether he would be especially tender. They rejected the idea that regular meal-times might delay them, saying they ate whenever they were hungry. By the time all seven announced that they could begin immediately, they had moved closer to him.

Elmer remembered what Old Alley Cat had told him and knew the claim that no explorer had ever left the island alive was not true. He chose not to contradict the hungry Seven Tigers. That restraint matters: he carries knowledge that could expose their boast, but correcting it would not improve his position. With the attackers closing in, survival depends on changing what they are doing, not on winning an argument.

Chewing Gum as an Escape Strategy

Elmer quickly opened his knapsack and took out chewing gum. Old Alley Cat had told him that the Seven Tigers were especially fond of it, and that it was very scarce on the island. He threw one piece to each tiger. The offer did not immediately displace their appetite for him: they growled that, although they liked chewing gum, they were sure they would like him even better, and moved so close that he could feel them breathing on his face.

He then attached a further inducement to the gum. Elmer claimed that it was special: if they chewed it long enough, it would turn green, and if planted, it would grow more chewing gum. He urged them to start chewing sooner so that they could have more sooner. The promise offers the Seven Tigers a future supply of the scarce treat, converting each small piece from a snack into the supposed beginning of abundance. Its force lies not in proving that the claim is true but in giving each tiger a reason to act at once.

The Seven Tigers accepted the claim and began unwrapping and chewing their pieces as hard as they could. Each wanted to be the first to plant the gum. Their attention shifted from Elmer to one another: at intervals, one looked into another’s mouth to check whether the gum was ready, only to find it was not. The checking became a contest over who might get ahead. While they watched each other chew, they forgot about Elmer. The distraction thus comes from the group’s own eagerness; Elmer supplies the lure, but the Seven Tigers keep the diversion going by policing one another’s progress.

The Deception in the Island’s Larger Story

The encounter belongs to an island already preoccupied with signs of an outsider. Earlier, Mouse reported an extraordinary rock, and Wild Boars discussed fresh Tangerine peels found near the Ocean Rocks and again where the rock was reported. They reasoned that Tangerines did not grow on their island and might have been brought across the Ocean Rocks, perhaps connected with the rock’s appearance and disappearance. One Wild Boar questioned whether the evidence deserved such seriousness, citing the possibility that the peels had floated over and that Mouse was unreliable. Their exchange makes the island’s talk of invasion comic and uncertain, while the Seven Tigers’ accusation gives that suspicion a more immediate danger for Elmer.

The gum episode reverses the balance of power without resolving the animals’ broader hostility. At first, the Seven Tigers control the clearing, surround Elmer, and determine that he is their prospective food. The gum draws their attention away from him, but only temporarily: the evidence establishes that they forget him, not that they change their view of him or accept his presence. Elmer’s advantage is therefore a brief opening created by attention, not a reconciliation.

Escape and Consequence

The escape also forms one link in Elmer’s larger journey to rescue Baby Dragon. Later, as Elmer and Baby Dragon pass over the Ocean Rocks, a small excited voice cries that they need their dragon; Elmer and Baby Dragon know that nothing will make them return to Wild Island. The episode with the Seven Tigers is one of the dangers Elmer leaves behind as he gets away from the island. Its particular solution—scarce gum, a promise of more, and the tigers’ mutual checking—shows how an object in his knapsack can turn a seemingly hopeless physical confrontation into an opportunity to move on.