9

Uncle Matthew called again.

“Kiki’s not going to be in the circus!” Mona said.

“None of the cubs are,” said her uncle. “The lion trainer’s going to retire when these lions are too old to perform. Kiki’s sisters are going to a zoo.”

“A zoo!” Mona exclaimed.

“The lion enclosure is fantastic. They’ll love it!”

“Maybe,” said Mona.

“You should send Kiki there too,” said Uncle Matthew. “She’d be better off living with other lions instead of people and dogs—and goats.”

“Kiki loves us!” Mona shouted. “She’s not going to the zoo!”

She said good-bye quickly, before Uncle Matthew could say anything else.

The cub was watching her anxiously. She didn’t like Mona to shout.

“Sorry, Kiki,” said Mona, rubbing behind the golden ears.

Kiki purred and rolled onto her back to have her tummy rubbed, gazing up at her girl through dreamy half-closed eyes. A wriggly worm of happiness twisted inside Mona, swallowing the hard nut of fear. She thought she would never love anything as much as she did this little lion.

Even though there were no other lions for Kiki to copy, the more she grew, the more she loved chasing and pouncing games, as if she was learning to hunt. She jumped on the vacuum cleaner when Grammie was cleaning. She dragged huge bones around the house and garden, guarding them from the dogs. She chased balls with anyone who’d throw or kick one for her.

Her favorite game was grabbing Goldie’s tail with her front paws and walking around behind him on her hind legs. When the golden retriever was bored with the game, he just sat down on her. When he got up again, Kiki always left him alone for a while.

Her second favorite game was jumping out at Mona and her grandparents from behind the sofa. Once she leapt on Mona’s back so hard that she knocked the girl down. No one else saw, and Mona didn’t tell.

Now Kiki was in the backyard stalking Sarah’s little brother. He was one of her favorite people to play with. He was waiting at the bottom of the back steps, and Kiki knew he hadn’t seen her, because he was staring at the door. She crept silently through the flower bed, flattening marigolds and petunias—and with a mighty leap, pounced on his back.

Sarah’s little brother crashed facedown onto the steps.

His chin gushed blood. He screamed so loudly that Kiki fled to the fattest hiding bush at the farthest end of the yard.

She stayed there while Mona, Sarah, and Grammie came running. She stayed there while Sarah’s mom ran from next door and carried the little boy to the car. When Mona came to coax her out, Kiki purred and rubbed against her to say sorry.

But when Sarah’s little brother got home from the emergency room with two stitches in his chin, their mom said that he and Sarah weren’t allowed to go over to the McNeils’ house anymore.

Suddenly Mona couldn’t pretend any longer that her mother and father would let her take a lion home. It was like wishing she could grow wings and fly. It was impossible.

“Can Kiki stay with you when I go home?” she asked her grandmother.

“I wish she could,” Grammie said, hugging Mona. “I wish she could stay little and cute and happy living here like a kitty-cat. I wish you could stay here forever too! But life doesn’t work like that. Kiki will get bigger, and you’ll go back to your parents.”

“But I’ll come to visit! She’d still remember me!”

“It’s not just about whether we can go on living with Kiki. Matthew’s right that staying with us isn’t fair to her. She’s a lion, not a pretend dog or goat. We all need to find out what we should do in our lives: Kiki’s job is to find out how to be a lion.”

Mona buried her head under her pillow. She didn’t want to hear any more.

That night Mona dreamed of a land with golden hills rolling down to a wide blue lake. Zebras and antelope grazed, giraffes nibbled tall branches, hippopotamuses splashed in the water, and elephants trumpeted.

But most of all, there were lions. Magnificent, roaring, king-of-the-beast lions dozed under trees, sleek lionesses stalked through long grass, and playful cubs wrestled over logs. Mona was in the middle of them, rolling, growling, and chasing with the tumble of young lions.

She looked down at her paws and realized she was a lion too. She was Kiki, wild and free, in a place where she belonged.

Mona woke up feeling happy and didn’t know why. Nothing had changed since she’d cried under her pillow in the dark.

But when she went out to the kitchen and bent to greet her sleeping cub, she remembered her dream.

“You were in Africa, Kiki!” she whispered.

The cub’s ears twitched as Mona told her about the hills, the animals, and the blue water hole. She seemed to like it so much that when Grammie came in, Mona told her about the dream too.

“We should find out how she can do it,” said Grammie.

Mona wondered if her grandmother had gone crazy. “It was just a dream!”

“Sometimes we have to follow our dreams,” said Grammie.