Simba was walking restlessly along a well worn path through the jungle, his feet making no sound as they padded along the trail. He paused, glancing down at the far end where it ended, the trees beginning to thin out at the limit of his vision. A slight smile rose as he set about carefully marking the unseen boundary between the savannah and the forest. Grouchy old booger, he thought. Come in HERE and I’LL show you a thing or two. He longed to trot down to the end of the path and roll under that delightful sky once again, but dared not; he was still not fully grown, and he was well aware of the difference between boldness and foolishness.
As he turned to leave, the sharp crack of a tree limb above reached him, and he ducked sidewise, expecting to see the colorful splash of a rotten fruit strike near him. Stupid monkeys, he thought irritably. He was smart enough not to look straight up. There had been times before when he had caught a ripe fruit right in the face.
Instead of a fruit, however, an antelope fell out of the tree and plopped on the ground right in front of him. As he stared, shocked, a voice floated down from above.
“Damn! Of all the times to drop something!”
It was a female voice, a melodious catlike voice but not a lioness. Moments later, a large leopardess came bounding down the trunk with the intensity of a vertical run. She pounced on the antelope and said, “Mine! Buzz off!”
Taken aback, Simba looked up in the tree and back at her. “You got that all the way up there?”
The leopardess glared at him. “What of it?”
“Well, I just thought....” He looked at her and at the antelope. “Did you have help?”
She half smiled. “No. I did it by myself. Haven’t you ever seen a leopard do that before?”
“I’ve never seen a leopard before.” He looked at her appraisingly. “Those spots are so--so neat!”
She purred. “I’ve seen you here before, and I’ve always wanted to ask. How did a lion like you get in a forest like this?”
“Long story,” Simba said with a shrug.
“You hang out with those two?”
Simba knew immediately whom she was referring to. “Well, uh, yeah. What of it?”
“Oh nothing. I just thought I’ve never seen you with another lion before. But there are a lot of strange things in this forest. Like that pair of hyenas.”
“Gur’bruk and Kambra?”
“You know them? They healed my shoulder once.”
“What do you know! They saved my life once.”
“Small world, isn’t it?” With a quick snatch of her powerful jaws, the antelope was on its way up the tree. In five or six bounds of her powerful legs, the prey was cached away in the branches.
“Whoa! I’d give anything to know how to do that!”
She came bounding down again. It was always disconcerting to Simba when she did that.
“Let me get this straight. You’re grown and you don’t know how to hunt?”
“Yeah.” Simba looked away.
“Didn’t your mother teach you anything?”
Simba looked at the ground. His ears and tail drooped. “She didn’t get a chance. My dad gave me a few pouncing lessons.”
“And?”
“He died when I was very little.”
“I’m sorry. So have you scavenged all this time?”
“No, ma’am. I’ve eaten bugs.”
“Bugs??”
“These guys helped me. I don’t know what I would have done without them.”
It brought out some of the motherly feelings in her. The corners of her mouth twitched. “I lost a cub once. I had a lot of things I wanted to tell her, and they’ve been bottled up inside me. Look, if you wait till I chow down, I’ll give you a couple of lessons, OK?”
“Neat!”