Bambi insisted. “Go on then, tell us!”
Gobo went over to Faline and became serious. “Is mother still alive?” he asked timidly and quietly.
“Yes!” Faline cheerfully declared. “She’s alive ... I haven’t seen her for a long time though.”
“I want to go and see her, straight away!” said Gobo. “Are you coming with me?”
And off they went.
All along the way they were silent. Bambi and Faline could feel Gobo’s impatient yearning to see his mother, and that’s why neither of them said anything. Gobo strode hurriedly forward and said nothing. They did nothing to stop him.
Except that now and then, when he blindly ran through a place where the paths crossed, always running straight ahead, or when in sudden haste he rushed into another direction they would quietly call to him. “This way!” Bambi would whisper. Or Faline would say, “No ... it goes round here now ...”
A couple times they had to go across broad clearings. They noticed that Gobo never stopped at the edge of the trees, never even glanced around to see that it was safe before he went out into the open. He would simply run out there with no caution at all. Bambi and Faline looked at each other in amazement whenever that happened, but they said nothing and hesitantly followed Gobo.
They had to wander about in this way, searching and going up and down, for a long time.
Gobo suddenly recognized the paths he had used in his childhood. He looked at them in wonder, and it did not occur to him that Bambi and Faline had led him to them. He looked round at them and declared, “What do you think of that? Look how good I was at finding my way here!”