Free Precious and the Monkeys by Alexander McCall Smith Page A

be granted. So she had to content herself with the wide dry land that she lived in, which had a lot of amazing things to see anyway.
    There was the Kalahari Desert, a great stretch of dry grass and thorn trees that went on and on into the distance, further than any eye can see. Then there was the great river in the north, which flowed thewrong way, not into the ocean, as rivers usually do, but back into the heart of Africa. When it reached the sands of the Kalahari, it drained away, just like water disappears down the plughole of a bath.
    But most exciting, of course, were the wild animals. There were many of these in Botswana: lions, elephants, leopards, ostriches, monkeys – the list goes on and on. Precious had not seen all of these animals, but she had heard about most of them. Her father, a kind man whose name was Obed, had often spoken about them, and she loved the tales he told.
    â€œTell me about the time you were nearly eaten by a lion,” she would ask. And Obed, who had told her that story perhaps a hundred times before, would tell her again. And it was every bit as exciting each time he told it.
    â€œI was quite young then,” he began.
    â€œHow young?” asked Precious.

    â€œAbout eighteen, I think,” he said. “It was just before I went off to work in the gold mines. I went up north to see my uncle, who lived way out in the bush, very far from everywhere.”
    â€œDid anybody else live there?” asked Precious. She was always asking questions, which was a sign that she might become a detective later on. Many people who ask lots of questions become detectives, because that is what detectives have to do.
    â€œIt was a very small village,” said Obed. “It was just a few huts, really, and a fenced place where they kept the cattle. They had this fence, you see, which protected the cattle from the lions at night.”
    As you can imagine, this fence had to be quite strong. You cannot keep lions out with a fence that is no more than a few strands of wire. That is hopeless when it comes to lions – they would just knock down such a fence with a single blow of their paw. A proper lion fence has to be made of strong poles, from the trunks of trees, just like this:
    That is a good, solid lion fence.

    â€œSo there I was,” Obed went on. “I had gone to spend a few days with my uncle and his family. They were good to me and I enjoyed being with my cousins, whom I had not seen for a long time. There were six of them – four boys and two girls. We had many adventures together.

    â€œI slept in one of the huts with three of the boys. We did not have proper beds in those days – we had sleeping mats, made out of reeds, which we laid out on the floor of the hut. They were very comfortable, even if it doesn’t sound like it, and they were much cooler than a bed and blankets in the hot weather, and easier to store too.”

    Precious was quiet now. This was the part of the story that she was waiting for.
    â€œAnd then,” her father continued, “and then one night I woke up to hear a strange sound outside. It was a sort of grunting sound, a little bit like the sound a large pig will make when it’s sniffing about for food, only deeper.”
    â€œDid you know what it was?” she asked, holding her breath as she waited for her father to reply. She knew what the answer would be, of course, as she had heard the story so many times, but it was always exciting, always enough to keep you sitting on the very edge of your seat.
    He shook his head. “No, I didn’t. And that was why I thought I should go outside and find out.”

    Precious closed her eyes tight, just like this.
    She could hardly bear to hear what was coming.
    â€œIt was a lion,” said her father. “And he was right outside the hut, standing there, looking at me in the night from underneath his great, dark mane.”
    Like this.

    Precious opened her eyes