Precious and the Mystery of the Missing Lion: A New Case for Precious Ramotswe (5 page)

Precious and Khumo both started to make the noise that a guinea fowl makes. It sounded a bit like the noise a hen makes, only it was a bit more ... well, spotted. This is what it sounded
like.

At first Teddy did nothing.

“Perhaps he’s feeling a bit sleepy,” whispered Khumo. “I think we should be a bit louder.”

They raised the volume of the noise and, sure enough, Teddy’s ears started to prick up. Then he sat up and looked with interest in their direction. After that, things happened very quickly
– so quickly, in fact, that neither Precious nor Khumo had much time to react.

With one great bound, Teddy reached the edge of the clump of tall grass in which the two children were hiding. Then, with another not quite so long bound, he was upon them.

Precious closed her eyes. If you were going to be eaten by a lion, then she thought it was probably best not to see what was happening. But then she felt a rather rough, wet tongue licking at
her face, moving on to her neck, finally getting to her knees. It was a bit like being tickled, and she could not stop herself from laughing.

Teddy had pounced on them not to eat them or to scratch them, but to play. Now he was lying on the ground, his feet up in the air, inviting them to scratch his stomach. It was very funny.

Tom was very pleased with what his cameras had seen, and they all went back to the camp for tea and more fat cakes.

“You did very well,” Tom said to Precious and Khumo. “Please stay with us and help us for the rest of the day.”

“Certainly,” said Precious.

And Khumo, without any hesitation, said the same thing.

T PROVED TO BE AN EXCITING DAY
. And the day after that was exciting too, as there was
filming to be done deep in the forest. That meant a long ride in a truck – with Teddy – along a very bumpy and overgrown track.

Tom was very pleased with the work that Precious and Khumo did, and he made sure that at the end of the day they were rewarded with an envelope full of money. That suited them very well, as they
were both saving for things, and the money would be very helpful for that.

But then, at the end of the second day, just after they had returned to the camp and Precious was back in Aunty Bee’s house, they heard the sound of people shouting and calling. Something
had clearly happened, and when Precious and her aunt went outside, they found out what it was.

“Teddy’s disappeared!” shouted one of the film men. “We don’t know where he is.”

Precious joined the throng of people from the camp who started looking for the missing lion. They searched under the trucks and vans; they searched in the sheds where they kept supplies; they
even looked under the beds in some of the camp huts just in case he had decided to find a hiding place there. But there was no sign of him – Teddy, it seemed, had vanished into thin air.

Darkness came down like a curtain. Now it was too late to search any more, and they all had to go to bed hoping that in the morning he would come out from wherever he was hiding in time for that
day’s filming.

“He’ll turn up,” said Aunty Bee. “Or at least I hope he’ll turn up.”

The next morning, when the sun rose up over the tops of the trees like a great red ball, Precious went outside to look for Teddy. She studied the ground, as her father had taught her to do, for
any sign that a lion had walked that way, but there was nothing. She saw the footprints of a small family of warthogs,

but nothing that looked like the large pug-marks that a lion leaves behind.

After breakfast, when she went down to the camp with Khumo, they saw Tom sitting unhappily beneath a tree, his head sunk in his hands.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said. “Without Teddy, we’ll have to change the whole story of our film.”

Precious felt very sorry for the director. It was not easy to make a film, and when one of the stars decides to disappear it must make it even more difficult.

“I think we should try to help him,” she said to Khumo. “ I think we should go and look for him.”

Khumo was uncertain. “But will they let us?” he asked.

“I can ask Aunty Bee,” said Precious.

She went to her aunt and explained what she and Khumo wanted to do. “If we are very, very, very careful,” she said, “will you let us go off and look for the missing
lion?”

Aunty Bee looked doubtful. “There are rather a lot of elephants about,” she said. “And hippos too. Not to mention all those snakes ...”

“We won’t go near any of them,” said Precious. “I promise.”

Aunty Bee had a canoe. She did not use it very much, but it still floated and as far as she knew there were no holes in it, which was a good thing, as holes in any sort of boat are not a very
good idea.

“I suppose you can take my canoe,” she said after a while. “But keep well away from hippos.”

“We will,” said Precious, as she ran off to tell Khumo the good news.

They set off about an hour later. Precious had packed some sandwiches – enough for both of them – and she also brought a spare hat, and a compass to use in case
they got lost. Khumo brought a bag of toffees, a small box of sticking plasters, a box of matches, and two bottles of water. They had everything they needed.

The canoe was an old-fashioned one, made of wood and propelled through the water with two stout paddles. It was a little bit wobbly, but canoes often are and you quickly get used to them. Soon
they were slipping through the water of the great river, and after half an hour they were well into the wild forests and plains that surrounded the camp.

They looked about them very carefully as they made their way. There was plenty to see on the banks of the river. There were great trees from which vines hung down like swinging ropes. There were
slippery patches of mud used by crocodiles to launch themselves into the water. There were places where herds of zebra and antelopes came nervously down to the edge of the river to drink, watching
all the time for lions that might creep up behind them, or crocodiles that might lurk in the water in front of them. It was dangerous being a zebra or antelope as there were plenty of other
creatures round about who might imagine that you were just right for their breakfast, lunch or even their dinner.