Precious and the Mystery of the Missing Lion: A New Case for Precious Ramotswe (4 page)

After they had finished their breakfast, Aunty Bee went off to work, promising to return just before lunchtime to check that everything was all right. There were other children nearby, she said,
and she was sure that Precious would meet them.

Precious said goodbye to her aunt and waved to her as she made her way along the path to the main camp. Then she did a bit of tidying-up to help Aunty Bee, before she went outside to explore.
She hoped that she would see some of the other children, but there seemed to be none around. So she decided to go down to the edge of the river, which was not very far away from the staff
houses.

That was her first mistake – and it was a bad one. Nobody had warned her about hippos – perhaps they had meant to do so and had forgotten, or perhaps they just thought that she knew
what dangerous and bad-tempered creatures they could be.

Certainly the hippo that Precious came across was not in a good temper. As she came down to the edge of the river, the hippo suddenly rose from the water, fixed her with an angry stare, and
opened his great mouth to issue a resounding grunt. It was a very frightening noise, and it sounded something like this:

For a moment Precious stood quite still, too petrified to move. Then, turning on her heels, she ran back up the path as fast as her legs would carry her. Which was quite fast, of course, as most
people run rather quickly when they meet an angry hippo. And as she ran round a corner, she bumped straight into a boy of about her age who was standing in the path wondering what the noise was all
about.

“There’s a hippo down there!” shouted Precious, struggling to recover her breath.

The boy, whose name was Khumo (you say it KOO-MO), did not seem surprised.

“Oh, that’s just Harry,” he said. “He’s always down there. He’s a very lazy hippo and has never chased anybody.”

Precious was relieved, but she had still had a dreadful fright. “He looked very fierce,” she said.

Khumo smiled. “Well, let’s leave him in peace. Why don’t you come with me now and see what’s happening in the camp. It’s something very exciting. There’s a
lion.”

Precious was not sure that she wanted to meet a lion so soon after her encounter with the hippo, but Khumo seemed to know what he was doing. So she followed him back along the track, wondering
all the while what would await them when they reached the camp.

S THEY MADE THEIR WAY
to the main camp, Khumo told Precious about the lion.

“Most of the lions around here are wild ones,” he said. “This one, though, is not from here. He came with the film-makers. He’s an actor lion.”

Precious looked puzzled and asked her new friend to explain.

“They brought him with them,” he said. “He’s tame. They’re going to use him in the film they’re making.”

Precious nodded; now she understood. She had heard about dogs that had been trained to act in films – to fetch things and so on – but she had never heard of a lion doing this.

“Are you sure he’s completely tame?” she asked nervously. They were now getting close to the camp and she could see people milling around. She could also see a large cage in
which something – and it must have been the actor lion – was moving.

“Everybody says he is,” Khumo replied. “Anyway, we’ll soon find out. It looks as if they’re going to let him out of his cage.”

They had now reached the camp and were standing with some of the film people near the lion’s cage. There was a tall man wearing a large brown hat who seemed to be in charge of the
lion.

“Let him out now, Tom,” said somebody to this man, who then stepped forward and opened the door of the cage.

Precious gave a shiver as the great lion came out into the sunlight. Nobody else, though, seemed to be worried, and Tom, the man with the large hat, went forward to pat the lion on the head.

“You see?’ said Khumo. “He’s tame. You couldn’t do that to a lion who wasn’t tame, could you?”

Precious had to agree that you could not.

The children watched as the film crew set about their work. The scene they were filming had two actors walking across a piece of ground and seeing the lion, called Teddy by everyone, sitting
under a tree. Tom took Teddy to the tree and told him to sit under it.

“Sit, Teddy,” he said. And Teddy, like a well-trained dog, sat down obediently.

There were cameras mounted on trolleys and there was a lot of shouting and rushing about. Nobody seemed to mind Precious and Khumo watching, and at one point somebody even asked them to hold
onto a cable while it was being wound up. This made them feel very important – as if they were members of the film crew itself. And later on, when everybody took a break, the two children
were handed large mugs of sweet tea and the fattest fat cake they had ever seen. A fat cake is a special treat in Botswana. This is what it looks like.

It tastes just like a doughnut, but more delicious, if that is possible.

Precious and Khumo ate their fat cakes and were licking the sugar off their fingers when Tom came over to ask them to help.

“We want to film Teddy standing up suddenly and looking at something in the grass,” he said. “Would you mind hiding in the grass, and then, when I give you the signal, making
some sort of sound to attract his attention. Maybe a sort of clucking sound, as if you’re a guinea fowl. Lions like guinea fowl, you know, and that will be bound to interest him.”

They felt very important to have a job to do, and they both went off to hide in the grass as Tom had asked them. As they lay there, Precious suddenly had a worrying thought.

“What if he thinks we really are guinea fowl?” she whispered to Khumo.

“He won’t,” said Khumo. “He’s a very clever lion.”

“I hope so,” said Precious. “Because if he really thought we were guinea fowl, then he might pounce on us.”

They waited quietly, the only sound being that of their beating hearts. Precious thought that her heart was beating rather loudly – and so did Khumo. That’s the trouble about being
frightened – you may be as quiet as you can manage, but your heart doesn’t seem to take much notice.

“Right,” called Tom. “Please attract Teddy’s attention now.”