Rainbow Street Pets

by Orr, Wendy

  Mona’s heart pounded as she raced after her grandmother. She was too breathless even to shout the name pounding in her head: Kiki! Kiki!

  But a frightened lion cub knows that it’s safer to hide than run, and Kiki had hidden in the first place she saw. Out of the corner of her eye, Mona spotted tawny fur under the big blue flowers of a hydrangea bush.

  Kiki was so afraid she didn’t recognise Mona at first. For those few moments, she was a wild animal, with her eyes wide and her ears flattened back.

  Mona knew that the terrified cub could scratch without knowing what she was doing. She lay quietly on the ground in front of the bush, murmuring things Kiki liked to hear.

  Finally the cub’s breathing settled, her eyes calmed, and she let Mona pat her. Then she crawled out to be rescued, and became a pet again.

  When Grandpa came home from work, he cut off every branch in the yard that dangled over a neighbour’s fence.

  CHAPTER 9

  iki was growing every day: bigger, stronger and braver. She loved jumping on the vacuum cleaner when Gran was cleaning the house. She loved chasing balls with anyone who’d throw or kick one for her. And she absolutely loved chewing huge bones.

  Her favourite game was standing on her hind legs to grab old Goldie’s tail with her front paws, and walking around behind him. When the golden retriever was bored with the game, he just sat down on her – and when he got up again, Kiki left him alone for a while.

  Her second-favourite game was jumping out at Mona and her grandparents from behind the couch. Once she leapt on Mona’s back so hard that she knocked her down. No one else saw and Mona didn’t tell.

  But then she knocked over Sarah’s little brother, face-down onto the back step. His chin gushed so much blood that, he had to have two stitches. After that, Sarah wasn’t allowed to come over to play anymore. Mona had to talk to her over the fence and hold Kiki up for Sarah to pat. And Kiki was getting too heavy for Mona to lift.

  But when the cub lay on her back to have her tummy rubbed, looking up at Mona through dreamy half-closed eyes, a wriggly worm of happiness twisted inside Mona. She thought she would never love anything as much as she loved this little lion.

  Uncle Matthew phoned again.

  ‘Kiki’s not going to be in the circus!’ Mona said.

  ‘None of the cubs are,’ said her uncle. ‘The lion-trainer’s going to retire when these lions are too old to perform. Kiki’s sisters are going to a zoo.’

  ‘A zoo!’ Mona exclaimed.

  ‘The lion enclosure is fantastic. They’ll love it!’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Mona.

  ‘You should send Kiki there too,’ said Uncle Matthew. ‘It sounds like you’ve done a great job of raising her, Mona, but she’d be better off living with other lions instead of people and dogs – and the goat.’

  ‘Kiki loves us!’ Mona shouted. ‘She’s not going to the zoo!’

  Now Mona couldn’t pretend any longer that her mother and father would let her take a lion home. It was like wishing she could grow wings and fly. It was impossible.

  ‘Can Kiki stay with you when I go home?’ she asked her grandmother.

  ‘I wish she could,’ Gran said, hugging Mona close. ‘I wish she could stay little, and cute and happy. I wish you could stay here forever too! But life doesn’t work like that. Kiki’s going to get bigger – and you’re going to go back to your parents.’

  ‘But I’ll come back to visit! She’d still remember me!’

  ‘It’s not just about whether we can go on living with Kiki. Matthew’s right to say that staying with us isn’t fair to her – she’s a lion, not a dog or goat. We all need to find out what we should do in our lives: Kiki’s job is to find out how to be a lion.’

  Mona buried her head under her pillow. She didn’t want to hear any more.

  That night Mona dreamed of golden hills rolling down to a wide blue lake. Zebras and antelope grazed, giraffes nibbled tall branches, hippos splashed in the water, and elephants trumpeted.

  And there were lions. Magnificent, king-ofthe-beast lions dozed under trees, sleek lionesses stalked through long grass, and playful cubs wrestled over logs. Mona was in the middle of them, rolling, growling and chasing with the tumble of young lions.

  She looked down at her paws and realised she was a lion too. She was Kiki, wild and free in a place where she belonged.

  Mona woke up in the morning feeling happy, even though nothing had changed since she’d cried under her pillow in the dark. But when she went out to the kitchen and greeted her sleeping cub, she remembered her dream.

  ‘You were in Africa, Kiki!’ she whispered. The cub’s ears twitched as Mona told her, ‘There were hills, and animals, and a blue waterhole.’

  ‘We should find out how she can get there,’ said Gran.

  ‘It was just a dream!’ said Mona.

  ‘Sometimes we have to follow our dreams,’ said Gran.

  CHAPTER 10

  ona’s new dream was to send Kiki back to Africa, because that’s where lions come from. Gran and Grandpa helped her phone or write letters to whoever might know how to help.

  Everyone told them the same thing: they couldn’t send Kiki straight to Africa, because she wouldn’t have her own family. Instead, they could take her to a safari park, where she could be safe and almost free.

  The best safari park was nearly halfway between her grandparents’ house in Rainbow Street and the city where Mona lived with her parents.

  So Mona wrote a letter.

  Dear Park People,

  I have a lion cub named Kiki. She is very smart and loving. She’s very well behaved, but she needs to live with other lions. I would like her to go to Africa so she could be free, but if she can’t do that I hope she can go to live in your park. I know that everyone in your park would love her.

  Yours truly, Mona McNeil

  Four days later she got a big envelope in the mail. Inside was a letter and a brochure showing wide hills and trees, with lions dozing and giraffes grazing.

  Dear Mona,

  The only way that Kiki could go to Africa is if we had several other female cubs her age so that they could form their own pride, to learn how to hunt and live in the wild together.

  Unfortunately, we don’t have any female cubs roughly the same age as Kiki.

  However, we’d be delighted to have her come and live with us. We believe she will be safe and happy, and we know we will love her.

  Yours sincerely,

  Karhy Harris,

  Safari Park Manager

  ‘It looks like a beautiful place,’ Gran said, studying the brochure.

  ‘She’ll be well looked after,’ said Grandpa.

  The lump in Mona’s throat was too big for her to answer. She knew this was the best place for Kiki to go. She just wished she’d never dreamed of something even better.

  A week later, they started out on the long journey to take Kiki to her new home and Mona back to her old one.

  Kiki was twelve weeks old. She was as big as a medium-sized dog, and she loved riding in the car. Mona laughed out loud at the surprised Ohs! on people’s faces as they drove past and saw a lion staring out the window.

  Late that afternoon, they pitched their tent in a ‘Dogs Allowed’ campground. The sign didn’t say anything about lions.

  Mona clipped a leash onto Kiki’s collar. She wanted the cub to run with her, but the more she tugged, the harder Kiki tugged back and growled, her ears flattened to her head.

  ‘Sorry, Kiki!’ Mona said sadly.

  She got a ball out of the car. Kiki’s ears twitched forward again – it was her favourite blue ball. Grandpa changed the leash for a long rope that Kiki couldn’t feel pulling on her collar, and Mona and her lion played a crazy ball game in a circle around him.

  That night Mona lay awake as long as she could. She wanted to burn every minute with Kiki into her memory so that it would be there forever. She snuggled her sleeping-bag around the lion cub’s bed. Kiki grunted lovingly an
d fell asleep sucking Mona’s thumb.

  They left early in the morning before the sun was up and the other campers were awake. Mona and Kiki curled up in the back seat and let the car rock them back to sleep.

  When Mona woke up they were parked in front of a set of tall gates, with a sign: WILDLIFE SAFARI PARK. Grandpa was talking to a man at the gate, and a smiling woman in a khaki uniform was coming towards them.

  ‘Welcome, Kiki!’ she said. ‘I’m Kathy.’

  Mona’s hands were shaking, and her insides felt as if they were being ripped in two. I’ve changed my mind! she wanted to shout. I can’t leave her here all alone!

  But she didn’t say it. Even if she could talk her parents into moving next door to the safari park, it wouldn’t be fair to Kiki. The cub wouldn’t know if she was a wild animal or a pet.

  She wiped away her hot tears and got out of the car with her lion.

  ‘I’ve got good news for you,’ Kathy said, rubbing behind the cub’s ears the way Kiki especially loved. ‘I talked to the City Zoo yesterday. They’d just been offered three lioness cubs from a circus – but they’ve agreed to send them here instead, to see if they can form a pride with Kiki.’

  ‘They’re her sisters!’ Mona exclaimed. ‘Kiki, you’re going to see your sisters again!’

  ‘Perfect!’ said Kathy. ‘Because if they’re together, they’ve all got a chance to be set free.’

  ‘In Africa?’ Mona asked.

  ‘Yes – a wonderful sanctuary in Zambia. It has a program of teaching cubs born in zoos how to be wild again. Kiki’s a lucky little lioness: she’ll be safe, but completely free, where she belongs.’

  Mona nodded. Tears were leaking out faster than she could stop them. She couldn’t speak; she hadn’t known that anything could hurt this much.

  ‘Meow?’ Kiki squawked, and stood up on her hind legs to wrap her front paws tightly around Mona. Mona hugged her back, with her face against the cub’s neck and the tears soaking into the golden fur.

  ‘Goodbye,’ Mona whispered.

  CHAPTER 11

  t was Mona’s grandmother who’d said that you have to follow your dream, but for a long time Mona had forgotten what her dream was.

  Now, as she sat on the worn front step of the old house in Rainbow Street, feeding handfuls of grass to the three-legged goat, she turned back into an eight-year-old girl and could almost smell spilled milk and love again. Of course she knew that this goat wasn’t Heidi, because Heidi had gone with her grandparents when they moved across the country to live closer to Mona and her mum and dad, and had lived to be a very old goat. Just like she knew that she wasn’t a little girl anymore, but a grown-up woman who had to decide what to do with her life.

  And suddenly, she knew exactly what that was. She wanted to make the house into a home for animals, the way it had been when her grandparents lived there. Though not exactly like that, because Mona wanted to help lots of animals, more animals than she could have as pets, even in this house with a big garden. She wanted to help all the animals that needed help.

  The goat nibbled hopefully at her sandals till she rubbed under his chin, down to his armpits. He nodded happily, just like Heidi used to.

  ‘Would you be scared of a baby lion?’ Mona asked him.

  The goat burped.

  ‘I didn’t think so,’ said Mona. ‘Neither was Heidi.’

  An old man carrying a bag of cabbage and lettuce leaves came up the path. The goat turned away from Mona and trotted eagerly towards him.

  ‘I see you’ve met Fred,’ said the old man. ‘And I’m Bert. Fred and I are mates from way back.’

  The goat butted the bag till Bert fed him a cabbage leaf. ‘I’ve been coming over to see him since the people living here left,’ he explained. ‘If I had a house and garden I’d take him home with me. But I don’t think he’d like living in a flat!’

  ‘Poor Fred,’ said Mona, though the goat looked very happy with cabbage leaf sticking out of both sides of his mouth. ‘What happened to his leg?’

  ‘He got out when he was a kid, and was hit by a car. It doesn’t seem to bother him.’

  Fred butted the bag again and started munching on a lettuce leaf.

  ‘My grandparents loved goats,’ said Mona. ‘They moved away a long time ago, but this house had too many happy memories to sell it.’

  ‘And the happy memories were yours too?’ asked Bert.

  Mona nodded. ‘That’s why they decided that when the last people moved out, the house would belong to me.’

  ‘Would it be okay if I still come to look after Fred?’ asked Bert.

  ‘I think Fred would like that,’ said Mona.

  ‘And so would I. Gran said they were giving me the house so I could follow my dream. I’ve just figured out what that is.’

  So the next day, Mona went back to the city where she’d lived for so long. She quit her job and packed up her flat. And then she flew back across the country to start making her new life.

  She found a new place to live, not far from Rainbow Street. Then she went to the City Animal Shelter in the middle of town.

  Mona took a deep breath and opened the front door. She walked past the kennels and cages. There were big dogs, small dogs, curly haired dogs, smooth spotty dogs; white, gold, brown and black dogs. There were delicate kitties and fluffy cats. There were lop-eared bunnies and floppy-haired guinea pigs.

  Mona tried not to look. Now that she knew exactly what her dream was, she didn’t know what she was going to do if she couldn’t make it come true.

  She took the lift up to the offices on the top floor. Her hands were shaking as she knocked. She’d been to business meetings before. She’d just never been to one that could change her whole life.

  A receptionist with polished fingernails showed her in to an office where a man and two women in suits were sitting on the other side of a long table. Mona sat down across from them.

  ‘I want to turn my grandparents’ house into an animal shelter,’ she explained. ‘And I want the job of running it.’

  ‘You need more than one person to run an animal shelter,’ said one of the women.

  ‘I’ve already got one volunteer,’ said Mona. ‘As well as a resident goat.’

  The people in suits looked at each other. ‘We do need another shelter,’ the other woman said at last. ‘There isn’t enough room here for all the animals that need help.’

  ‘There’ll be a lot of things to work out,’ the man warned.

  ‘It’s not like having your own pets at home,’ the first woman explained. ‘You’ll start to love some of the animals – but you have to give them up when they find the right home.’

  ‘I learned how to do that a long time ago,’ said Mona.

  The City Animal Shelter sent painters and carpenters to help Mona turn the Rainbow Street house into a proper animal shelter.

  The reception area, where Mona would meet the animals that came in, had chairs and a big desk. On the wall was a photograph of Kiki and her cubs in the wildlife sanctuary in Zambia. Kiki had learned all the things her mother would have taught her if she’d been born in the wild, and now she was living free.

  Across the hall was the examination room, for the visiting veterinarian to check the animals, and the surgery to treat the sick ones. There were rooms with cages for small animals like pet rats and guinea pigs.

  The house was pale blue, just as it had been when Mona was a girl, but the door was a cheery, cherry red. Over the door, Mona painted a bright, seven-coloured rainbow.

  The grand opening of the Rainbow Street Shelter should have been a bright and beautiful day, with sunshine, blue skies and singing birds. Instead, rain tumbled down, thunder thundered, and lightning flashed in the black sky.

  ‘Maybe it’ll stop by the time they all get here,’ Bert said hopefully.

  Everyone was coming at ten o’clock: the mayor, the people from the City Animal Shelter, photographers, reporters – and best of all, lots of people who cared about animals.r />
  The rain didn’t stop.

  Bert tied a ribbon across the front gate.

  A newspaper photographer drove up. He got out of his car and stepped into a puddle. There were no crowds of people, just a young woman, an old man and a three-legged goat huddled under an umbrella. The photographer got back into his car and drove away.

  The mayor, his assistant and the people from the City Animal Shelter arrived a minute later. The mayor waited for a journalist to get out of her car, then smiled and snipped the soggy ribbon. They all raced down the path to the front door.

  ‘Congratulations,’ said the mayor, shaking Mona and Bert’s hands.

  Mona showed them around the building. They looked through the windows at the outside enclosures and said what a good job she’d done. They thanked Mona for donating the building and said they looked forward to working with her.

  Then they scurried back through the raindrops to their cars. Mona and Bert stood at the gate to watch them drive away.

  It wasn’t how Mona had imagined the first day of her dream.

  ‘Look!’ said Bert.

  A bedraggled white cockatoo was flapping wearily towards them. Flying low over their heads, with its left wing drooping, it landed in the tree near the red front door. It looked wet, miserable and lost.

  ‘G’day, mate,’ Bert called softly.

  The bird cocked its head warily.

  ‘He’s scared,’ said Mona. ‘He doesn’t look like he’s used to flying.’

  He’s hungry,’ said Bert. ‘Hold on, mate, you’ve come to the right place for a treat!’

  Mona waited at the gate as Bert walked slowly around the garden to the back of the house. Whether the bird had escaped from a cage or was a wild bird who’d been injured, he needed help now.

  ‘You look like you’ve travelled a long way,’ she told him. ‘We should call you Gulliver – at least till you find your own home.’