The Lion Cub

by Julie Mayhew

The ranger shoots. The mother lion falls down. Its cub cries. It stands by the long grass, clawing the earth. It looks like our cat back home. Small. Paddling the lap of my dressing gown. Our cat drools. It closes its eyes to show me it's happy. This cub is wide-wide-eyed. The ranger looks at the cub, makes a decision in his head, then points his gun.

"Don't let the child see," he says and the women who had sat in front of me on the jeep pulls me close. Her vest smells of sunscreen and sweat. She strokes my hair and says, "don't look, darling," in an accent that sounds German but is actually from Belgium. I hadn't realised the ranger was talking about me. I couldn't close my eyes, even if I tried.

She'd annoyed me on the ride, the Belgian woman. She'd asked too many questions, silly ones, and when we'd stopped for a sundowner drink she'd complained about the monkeys that danced on her roof last night. "So noisy!" When she said 'noisy' it sounded like 'nosy'.

The Belgian woman went behind the bushes first. The ranger threw stones into the leaves to check there was nothing hiding. One of the men growled, trying to scare her as she'd walked down the slope. As she disappeared behind the branches, we'd all laughed. When she climbed back up the grass bank she was still doing up her shorts. Now I think, why couldn't it have been her?

The lioness looks as though it's sleeping. But it is sunset. When lions wake up. Its mouth has fallen open. We can see its teeth. The red around its mouth is like smudged lipstick. Earlier on the drive, the ranger told us that lions' teeth are strong enough to kill but are useless for chewing. It swallows food in whole chunks.

Dad runs down to the bush as soon as the lioness is still. "Wait!" The ranger yells. He stops pointing his rifle at the cub and aims at the lioness. Just to be sure. He trails behind Dad. He knows there's no point in hurrying.

Dad kneels. He's shaking. I've never seen him cry before. Some of the others cry too. One woman is wailing in a way that scares me. The ranger looks snapped in the middle. He had acted all proud of his rifle at the beginning of the drive, made a big show of putting it on the rest on the dashboard. He'd looked all superior, like people do when they hold a gun.

He'd called the lioness Sheba. He's lost a friend.

When the Belgian woman came back from the bush, mum had said, "it's no good. I'll have to go too." She'd handed her beaker of wine to dad, who was drinking beer and leaning on the jeep bonnet. I knew she was frightened, even though it was meant to be a joke, the idea that an animal was nearby. We'd seen a male lion kill an impala the night before. We'd heard it tear a leg from a body. You could smell the blood.

Mum had smiled when she walked back, her fear all gone. She was embarrassed though because we all knew what she'd been doing. She always liked to seem ladylike. Then came the lioness. Ladylike too.

The ranger raises his gun at the cub again. The Belgian woman presses my head against her soft middle. "Don't look, darling, don't look." But I have already seen, so this is all a waste of time. I saw my mother's face switch. I saw her knees crumble.

The ranger's gun goes off. The Belgian woman jumps even though she knew what was coming. I hear the others gasp and squeal. I twist my face sideways, just enough to see the cub lying in the grass. I want to go to it. I want it to be alive. We could comfort each other. The ranger had to shoot the lioness because of what she did, to keep us safe. I don't know why he shot the cub. Is it cruel to leave it alone without a mother?

The ranger lets his gun fall. I hear a quiet miaowing. I think it might be the cub, but it's not, it's me. I'm crying. The ranger turns my way. He is crying too. For a moment, I think he will turn his gun on me.

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