Catcall Read Free Page A

heartbeating life, crushed to nothing.
    ‘Can you smell lion?’ I said. ‘I can. It’s strong and catty and furry. That’s why lions have to get downwind of whatever they’re stalking.’
    Dad sniffed. ‘You must have a good sense of smell. I can only smell mud and grass.’
    ‘I can,’ said Jamie, still clinging to Dad’s coat. ‘I can smell lion.’
    ‘How about that?’ Kim said. ‘I wonder how many people can say they’ve been so close to a real live lion? I took Kevin to Whipsnade a couple of years ago, but we didn’t get as close as this.’
    ‘Would he attack us if the fence wasn’t there?’ Jamie asked.
    Dad shook his head. ‘I don’t know. And I’m glad we won’t be finding out.’
    The lion broke away from his circuit and loped to the top of the mound. He only glanced at the female and cubs, then stood with his head high, taking in smells and sounds from across the park. Dad passed me his binoculars, and as I focused, the lion turned his heavy head and looked straight at me with his amber eyes. A shock fizzled through me. I couldn’t look away from those stern, solemn lion eyes–I was held there, staring and staring back at him. For that second, there was nothing between me and him–no binoculars, no glass panel, no fence. I felt sure he knew me, knew what I was thinking.
    Then he turned away.
    ‘Here, Dad.’ I handed back the binoculars, and he offered them to Kim. Jamie had slunk round behind Dad.
    Kim laughed. ‘It’s all right, Jame. He can’t get you.’
    ‘The fence isn’t all that high.’ From behind Dad, Jamie tilted his head at it. ‘I bet a lion could jump that if he wanted.’
    ‘Not with the ditch underneath,’ Dad told him. ‘The park-keepers must know what they’re doing.’
    The lion stared in another direction for a few moments, then gave a sigh and lay down near the lioness.
    ‘Now he’s like one of the lions in Trafalgar Square,’ Kim said.
    We stood looking a bit longer. Kim took a couple of photos with the camera Dad had given her for Christmas. My fingers were going numb, and Jamie was stamping his feet to keep warm.
    ‘I don’t like seeing lions in cages,’ Dad said.
    ‘Hey!’ Kim jabbed his arm. ‘It was your idea to come!’
    ‘Yeah, I know,’ said Dad. ‘I don’t mind it so much with monkeys or deer. But lions–it doesn’t seem right.’
    ‘Oh, they look quite happy to me.’ Kim was looking at the leaflet with the map of the park. ‘It’s what they’re used to.’
    I wasn’t sure. I’d wanted to come here, to see the lions and leopards in particular, but now I saw what Dad meant. It didn’t seem right for them to be penned up for people to stare at. Suddenly I felt ashamed of staring through binoculars. There was something about that lion that couldn’t be penned up in a cage. Something fierce and free.
    ‘I
like them in cages,’ Jamie said. ‘It’s better than having them roam around wherever they want.’
    Kim tugged at the brim of his woolly hat so that it went right down over his eyebrows. ‘Lions don’t live wild in this country, Jamie! They come from Africa.’
    ‘I know
that
!’ He pulled away, and pushed the hat out of his eyes. ‘I was just
supposing.’
    I just had to put Kim right. ‘These aren’t African lions,’ I told her. ‘They’re Asiatic. They’re from India, from the Gir Forest in Gujarat.’
    She could have read that for herself on the notice-board, but I’d already worked out that she was the sort of person who said things without really knowing if they were true or not. Then I remembered something I’d read in the
Wildlife of Africa
book Dad gave me for Christmas. ‘D’you know how people first learned to be safe from lions?’
    ‘When they made guns?’ said Jamie.
    ‘No! Before that. Ages before guns.’
    ‘When they made zoos?’ Jamie tried.
    ‘No! Ages before that, as well.’
    ‘Go on then, Josh,’ said Dad. ‘Tell us.’ We started to walk away from the lions, towards some