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Bertie and the Lion

One morning, a week or so later, Bertie was woken by a chorus of urgent neighing. He jumped out of his bed and ran to the window. A herd of zebras was scattering away from the waterhole, chased by a couple of hyenas. Then he saw more hyenas, three of them, standing stock still, noses pointing, eyes fixed on the waterhole. It was only now that Bertie saw the lion cub. But this one wasn’t white at all. He was covered in mud, with his back to the waterhole, and he was waving a pathetic paw at the hyenas who were beginning to circle. The lion cub had nowhere to run to, and the hyenas were sidling ever closer.

Bertie was downstairs in a flash, leaping off the veranda and racing barefoot across the compound, shouting at the top of his voice. He threw open the gate and charged down the hill towards the waterhole, yelling and screaming and waving his arms like a wild thing. Startled at this sudden intrusion, the hyenas turned tail and ran, but not far. Once within range Bertie hurled a broadside of pebbles at them, and they ran off again, but again not far. Then he was at the waterhole and between the lion cub and the hyenas, shouting at them to go away. They didn’t. They stood and watched, uncertain for a while. Then they began to circle again, closer, closer…

That was when the shot rang out. The hyenas bolted into the long grass, and were gone. When Bertie turned round he saw his mother in her nightgown, rifle in hand, running towards him down the hill. He had never seen her run before. Between them they gathered up the mud-matted cub and brought him home. He was too weak to struggle, though he tried. As soon as they had given him some warm milk, they dunked him in the bath to wash him. As the first of the mud came off, Bertie saw he was white underneath.

“You see!” he cried triumphantly. “He is white! He is. I told you, didn’t I? He’s my white lion!” His mother still could not bring herself to believe it. Five baths later, she had to.

They sat him down by the stove in a washing basket and fed him again, all the milk he could drink, and he drank the lot. Then he lay down and slept.

He was still asleep when Bertie’s father got back at lunch time. They told him how it had all happened.

“Please, Father. I want to keep him,” Bertie said.

“And so do I,” said his mother. “We both do.” And she spoke as Bertie had never heard her speak before, her voice strong, determined.

Bertie’s father didn’t seem to know quite how to reply. He just said: “We’ll talk about it later,” and then he walked out.

They did talk about it later when Bertie was supposed to be in bed. He wasn’t, though. He heard them arguing. He was outside the sitting-room door, watching, listening. His father was pacing up and down.

“He’ll grow up, you know,” he was saying. “You can’t keep a grown lion, you know that.”

“And you know we can’t just throw him to the hyenas,” replied his mother. “He needs us, and maybe we need him. He’ll be someone for Bertie to play with for a while.” And then she added sadly: “After all, it’s not as if he’s going to have any brothers and sisters, is it?”

At this, Bertie’s father went over to her and kissed her gently on the forehead. It was the only time Bertie had ever seen him kiss her.

“All right then,” he said. “All right. You can keep your lion.”

So the white lion cub came to live amongst them in the farmhouse. He slept at the end of Bertie’s bed. Wherever Bertie went, the lion cub went too – even to the bathroom, where he would watch Bertie have his bath and lick his legs dry afterwards. They were never apart. It was Bertie who saw to the feeding – milk four times a day from one of his father’s beer bottles – until later on when the lion cub lapped from a soup bowl. There was impala meat whenever he wanted it, and as he grew – and he grew fast – he wanted more and more of it.

For the first time in his life Bertie was totally happy. The lion cub was all the brothers and sisters he could ever want, all the friends he could ever need. The two of them would sit side by side on the sofa out on the veranda and watch the great red sun go down over Africa, and Bertie would read him Peter and the Wolf, and at the end he would always promise him that he would never let him go off to a zoo and live behind bars like the wolf in the story And the lion cub would look up at Bertie with his trusting amber eyes.

“Why don’t you give him a name?” his mother asked one day.

“Because he doesn’t need one,” replied Bertie. “He’s a lion, not a person. Lions don’t need names.”

Bertie’s mother was always wonderfully patient with the lion, no matter how much mess he made, how many cushions he pounced on and ripped apart, no matter how much crockery he smashed. None of it seemed to upset her. And strangely, she was hardly ever ill these days. There was a spring to her step, and her laughter pealed around the house. His father was less happy about it. “Lions,” he’d mutter on, “should not live in houses. You should keep him outside in the compound.” But they never did. For both mother and son, the lion had brought new life to their days, life and laughter.