Precious and the Monkeys (3 page)

Precious caught her breath. “Did you see his teeth?” she asked.

Obed nodded. “The moonlight was very bright,” he said. “His teeth were white and as sharp as great needles.”

Precious shuddered at the thought, and listened intently as her father explained what happened next.

Obed moved his head very slowly – not enough to alarm the lion, but just enough for him to look for escape routes. He could not get back to the hut, he thought, as it would take him too close to the frightening beast. Off to his left, though, just a few paces away, were the family's grain bins. These were large bins, rather like garden pots – but much bigger – that were used for storing the maize that the family grew for their food. They were made out of pressed mud, baked hard by the hot sun, and were very strong.

Obed lowered his voice. “I looked up at the night sky and thought,
I'll never see the sun again.
And then I looked down at the ground and thought,
I'll never feel my beloved Botswana under my feet again.
But the next thing I said to myself was,
No, I must do something. I must not let this lion eat me!

“I made up my mind and ran – not back to the hut, but to the nearest grain bin. I pushed the cover back and jumped in, bringing the lid down on top of my head. I was safe!”

Precious breathed a sigh of relief. But she knew that there was more to come.

“There was very little grain left in that bin,” Obed went on. “There were just a few husks and dusty bits. So there was plenty of room for me to crouch down.”

“And spiders too?” asked Precious, with a shudder.

“There are always spiders in grain bins,” said Obed. “But it wasn't spiders I was worried about.”

“It was …”

Obed finished the sentence for her. “Yes, it was the lion. He had been a bit surprised when I jumped into the bin, and now I could hear him outside, scratching and snuffling at the lid.

“I knew that it would only be a matter of time before he pushed the lid off with one of his great paws, and I knew that I had to do something. But what could I do?”

Precious knew the answer. “You could take some of the dusty bits and pieces from the bottom of the bin and …”

Obed laughed. “Exactly. And that's what I did. I took a handful of those dusty husks and then, pushing up the lid a tiny bit, I tossed them straight into the face of the inquisitive lion.”

Precious looked at her father wide-eyed. She knew that this was the good part of the story.

“And what did he do?” she asked.

Obed smiled. “He was very surprised,” he said. “He breathed them in and then he gave the loudest, most amazing, most powerful sneeze that has ever been sneezed in Botswana, or possibly in all Africa. Ka… chow! Like this.

“It was a very great sneeze,” Obed said. “It was a sneeze that was heard from miles away, and it was certainly heard by everybody in the village. In every hut, people awoke, rubbed their eyes, and rose from their sleeping mats. ‘A great lion has sneezed,' they said to one another. ‘We must all hit our pots and pans as hard as we can. That will frighten him away.' ”

And that is what happened. As the people began to strike their pots and pans with spoons and forks and anything else that came to hand, the lion tucked his tail between his legs and ran off into the bush. He was not frightened of eating one unfortunate young man, but even he could not stand up to a whole village of people all making a terrible din. Lions do not usually like that sort of thing, and this one certainly did not.

“I am glad that you were not eaten by that lion,” said Precious.

“And so am I,” said Obed.

“Because if the lion had eaten you, I would never have been born,” Precious said.

“And if you had never been born, then I would never have been able to get to know the brightest and nicest girl in all Botswana,” said her father.

Precious thought for a moment. “So it would have been a bad thing for both of us,” she said at last.

“Yes,” said Obed. “And maybe a bad thing for the lion too.”

“Oh, why was that?”

“Because I might have given him indigestion,” said Obed. “It's a well-known fact that if a lion eats a person who's feeling cross at the time, he gets indigestion.”

Precious looked at her father suspiciously. She was not sure whether this was true, or whether he was just making it up to amuse her. She decided that it was not true, and told him so.

He smiled, and looked at her in a curious way. “You can tell when people are making things up, can't you?”

Precious nodded. She thought that was probably right – she
could
tell.

“Perhaps you should become a detective one day,” he said.

And that was how the idea of becoming a detective was first planted in the mind of Precious Ramotswe, who was still only seven, but who was about to embark on a career as Botswana's greatest detective!

ETECTIVES
sometimes say to one another: it's your first case that's always the hardest. Well, Precious was never sure if that was true for her, but her first case was certainly not easy.

It happened not long after her father had told her that one day she might become a detective. When he said that, she had at first thought
What a strange idea
, but then she asked herself,
Why not?
That's often what you think after somebody makes an odd suggestion.
Why not?
And after you've asked that question, you think
Well, yes!
And then you decide that there really is no reason why you shouldn't do it.

Not always, of course. If somebody suggests something stupid, or unkind, then you should quickly see all the reasons why not. And then you say,
No thank you!
Or
Certainly not!
Or something of that sort.

But Precious said to herself, “Yes, I could be a detective. But surely it will be years and years before I get a case.”

She was wrong about that. A case came up sooner than she thought. This is what happened.

The school Precious went to was on a hill. This meant that children had quite a climb in the mornings, but once they were up there, what a wonderful place it was for their lessons. Looking out of the windows,
they could gaze out to where other little hills popped up like islands in the sea. And you could hear sounds from far away too – the tinkling of cattle bells, the rumbling of thunder in the distance, the cry of a bird of prey soaring in the wind.