7

“There’s something very special about loving a four-legged friend,” said Juan, sitting down beside Mona to feed the goat the rest of the cabbage and lettuce leaves.

The goat rubbed his nose against the old man’s hand.

“Sorry, Fred,” said Juan. “Of course, three-legged friends are the best of all.”

Mona laughed.

“I’d be happy to come and help look after him, if you move in,” Juan added.

“I think Fred would like that,” said Mona.

Suddenly, she felt a tiny seed of an idea start to grow at the back of her mind. It was so small she wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but she knew that if she waited, it would sprout into something good.

Kiki kept on growing. Her milky-blue eyes were turning golden brown. By the time she was six weeks old, she was as big as a grown-up house cat.

But she was still a baby. She slept all night in her box in the kitchen. When Mona picked the cub up in the morning, she was always sound asleep, warm and floppy.

“Hello, sleepyhead,” Mona teased, rubbing her face against the lion’s. She carried her out to the litter tray in the garden. The cub squatted to do what she was supposed to, then stumbled back so sleepily that Mona laughed and picked her up again.

“Are you awake enough for breakfast?” Mona asked. She settled herself into a chair with the cub on her lap as her grandmother handed her a warm baby bottle.

Kiki smelled the milk and squawked excitedly. Her voice still sounded more like a frog than a lion. She grabbed for the bottle with both paws, patting it happily as she sucked. It didn’t take long to feed her now.

Buck, the sort-of border collie, taught her to play wild tag and wrestling games. Kiki liked that even more than ball games with Mona, because Buck let her climb all over him and somersault off his back.

Heidi played tag with them too, but she sometimes had to butt the dog and lion to remind them that she didn’t like wrestling.

Uncle Matthew called when Kiki was nearly seven weeks old. “How’s the cub?” he asked.

“She’s beautiful!” exclaimed Mona.

“Are you training her?” he asked.

“She always comes when she’s called,” Mona said proudly.

“She’ll be the best-trained circus lioness ever!” said Uncle Matthew.

Mona felt as if she’d fallen into a pit of ice. She thought maybe her ears were frozen, because it took a long time for her to hear the words and understand them.

But when she did, the ice turned to fire.

“Kiki is never going to be a circus lion!” Mona slammed the phone down hard, hanging up on her favorite uncle. She remembered Kiki’s father sitting on his stool, roaring at the lion trainer, and she felt that roar inside her, a red rage bursting to get out.

Instead she scooped the cub into her arms, holding her as tight as she could.

But Kiki wasn’t in a cuddling mood; she’d been playing tag with Buck, and she wanted to get back into the game. She rubbed her nose politely against Mona’s face and then scrabbled to get down. Her back claws scratched Mona’s left arm as she jumped.

It was a big scratch, and it bled a lot.

The pain muddled into the pool of anger, sadness, and fear until Mona couldn’t hold it any longer. She burst out howling.

Her grandmother came running. Her face turned white when she saw the blood on Mona’s arm and T-shirt.

“She didn’t mean to!” Mona hiccupped, trying to wipe her tears away and smearing blood all over her face.

“I know. The problem is that she’s a lion and doesn’t know how strong she is.” Grammie cleaned the scratch with purple lotion before covering it with a bandage. “What did Uncle Matthew have to say?”

“He wants Kiki to go back to the circus when she’s big.”

“No way,” Grammie said simply.

Mona felt as if an elephant had been lifted off her shoulders.

“But he’s not completely wrong,” said Grammie. “You know you can’t take her home with you. And even if your parents changed their minds about a pet, Kiki’s just shown why she can’t live with you forever.”