Daughter of Lions

by Banks, Catherine

  “So you don’t have to mess with the wrappers,” I answered around my bite of burger. He looked at me sideways with a questioning look. I smiled. “I do know how to handle being around you guys, remember?”

  He faced the road again. “Sorry, sometimes it just amazes me how much you really understand about us.”

  “Well I have had my entire life to learn.”

  We drove in silence after that and I felt his eyes continually return to me. He stopped in front of the miniature golf and arcade place and turned the car off. I looked at the sign and then at him. “Here?” He smiled at me and climbed out of the car, shutting the door behind him. I followed him to the entrance and actually felt a smile take over. “I have not been miniature golfing since I was like ten.”

  “I never have,” he said as he paid for us to enter.

  I looked at him in shock. “You’ve never been miniature golfing?”

  He shook his head. “Nope.” I could see there were some dark thoughts brewing just beneath his calm surface and I did not want them there in his eyes.

  I grabbed his hand and drug him inside to get our clubs. “I am so going to kick your butt.”

  We grabbed a score card, putters and balls and walked to the first obstacle, the easiest of all with a straight shot into the hole. I set my ball down and lined myself up, looking from the ball to the hole. “You look very serious,” he whispered.

  I shushed him and then hit my ball. It rolled perfectly straight and into the hole. I cheered excessively and took the score card and pencil out of my back pocket and wrote down one. “Hole in one.”

  He set his ball down and asked, “Do you really think that you can beat me?”

  I leaned on my putter and said, “I know I can beat you.”

  He hit the ball and it rolled straight into the hole. “Mark a one please.”

  “This is the easy hole. You won’t stay tied with me for long,” I taunted as I marked his score and then put them in my pocket and walked to the next hole. Werelions were very competitive and I knew I could get him really going and get his mind off of whatever bad stuff had been swirling darkly in his eyes if I got his competitive streak going.

  “You’re right. Soon I will be far ahead of you,” he said smugly.

  I rolled my eyes at him and walked up to the second obstacle, an uphill hole with a door that opened and closed and then once you hit the ball in it dropped through a tube that then fell onto a lower flat area where you had to hope your ball fell in a good spot and didn’t bounce off the pieces of plastic that surrounded the hole on the ground. If your ball hit one it would send it to the other side and take you at least three hits to get it in the hole. I was never good at this one because I either hit it too soft and the ball just rolled back down, or I hit it too hard and it bounced off the door. Plus I often had my ball end up on the other side of the plastic pieces and got a seven or eight. I had to time it just right so I would not look like an idiot and keep my fingers crossed that it fell in a good spot.

  “Let me go first,” Brandon said as I was about to swing.

  I picked up my ball and bowed. “Ladies first.”

  He growled, but I could see his smile as he set his ball down. He watched the door and waited patiently like a good hunter does when watching its prey. He hit the ball and it bounced off the closed door, rolling back down the hill to him. I held in my giggle and he grumbled something before setting his ball back up. He stood perfectly still for an entire minute and then hit his ball. It rolled up the hill and into the hole just before the door closed. We switched places and I set my ball down, waiting for the perfect timing. I hit the ball, but not hard enough and it rolled back down.

  “At least mine made it to the door,” he mocked.

  I stuck my tongue out at him and grabbed my ball as it rolled to the bottom. I hit it again and this time it went all the way up and the door opened just as the ball neared it, letting the ball fall perfectly into the hole. We walked to the next hole and I almost cheered when I saw my ball sitting right next to the hole. Brandon’s was on the other side of the plastic piece.

  “This is not a fair hole,” he muttered.

  “You’re only saying that because your ball is over there,” I said as I tapped my ball into the hole. “Three for me.” I wrote down my score and sat on the bench that was positioned to face this hole.

  He looked at the layout, weighing his options and calculating his moves like a good predator. He looked up at me and smiled smugly, a sign that he had thought of something mischievous. I waited patiently, hoping that his idea would fail.

  He stood next to his ball and prepared to hit it into the plastic piece. What was he doing? I kept the question to myself and waited. He hit the ball and chipped it upwards, over the plastic pieces and down into the hole. “Three,” he said smugly.

  I stared at his ball in shock because I would have never thought of it. Smart jerk. That had to be cheating! Didn’t it?

  We walked to the next hole and I grudgingly wrote his three down. “Don’t look so sad,” he said with his stupid smirk plastered on his face.

  “I’m not sad. Just realizing that I need to up my game,” I said as we stood in front of the windmill that led to a small bridge that crossed over water and into the hole. If you could hit it perfectly straight you could make it, but if it veered even a little bit you would send your ball into the water. “I’ll go first this time,” I said as I set my ball down.

  “Whatever you think will help you win,” he said as he sat on the bench and leaned his chin on top of the putter. I really wanted to kick that putter out from under his chin.

  I turned away from him and focused on the windmill. I took a deep breath and hit my ball. It rolled right between the windmill, across the bridge and stopped just short of the hole. “Woo!” I yelled happily. I jogged around the windmill and hit my ball into the hole. Brandon rolled his eyes and set his ball up. He hit the ball and it curved just as it exited the windmill and rolled right into the water.

  “Slosh!” I yelled. He stormed over to the water and squatted down, reaching into the six inch deep water and grabbed his ball. “Hit it straight,” I offered.

  “Thanks,” he muttered as he walked back. I stood next to the water, close to the bridge and waited. He hit his ball and this time it was a perfectly shot. I didn’t want him to stay even with me though, so I hit his ball with my putter into the water.

  “Hey!” he yelled.

  I laughed and said, “Whoops my putter slipped.”

  He growled and ran towards me, chasing me around the hole and tickling me. I yelled and tried to keep away from his tickling and stepped into the water. “Ah!” I screamed.

  He caught me as I started to fall and helped me out of the water. “That’s what you get.”

  “My pants are wet,” I complained.

  He laughed and I reached down and splashed water up onto his shirt. He gasped and started tickling me again.

  “Stop! I surrender!” I said around my laughing.

  He stopped tickling me and smiled in victory. “I finally won.”

  “You still have to take another shot.”

  “No that one counted. It would have gone in if you hadn’t hit it.”

  “We don’t know that for sure,” I said. He started tickling me again and I said, “Okay! It counted!”

  He stood up and brushed his pants off. “That’s what I thought.”

  I grabbed my ball and headed to the next hole as Brandon fished his ball out of the water. We played through all of the holes and in the end we tied. “I still think I should win since you should have taken another shot for the one that fell into the water,” I complained.

  “It didn’t fall into the water,” he said mockingly, “You hit it into the water.”

  “Tomatoes potatoes,” I said with a dismissive wave of my hand.

  “That’s not the right saying,” he said with a laugh as he led me inside to the arcade.

  “Now what?” I asked him.


  “Now we play some games.” He took out his wallet and put twenty dollars into the token machine.

  “I bet I can get more tickets than you,” I taunted.

  “Do you think everything is a contest?” he asked as he scooped the tokens out.

  “To male lions it is,” I said knowingly.

  He laughed. “Okay, maybe you’re right.” He separated the tokens evenly into two cups and handed me one of the cups. “Meet at the prize area in half an hour.”

  I nodded my head. “I’ll be there with my bucket of tickets.”

  He smiled. “I’ll have two buckets.”

  I laughed and darted off into the rows of games, searching for the game I knew I could win a large amount of tickets on easily. I darted around people, down three different aisles and made a loop before stopping at the machine. I heard Brandon laugh somewhere to the right of me and was glad he had seen me being ridiculous about hiding my trail from him. The machine in front of me was simple, you dropped your coin in and it slid down one of three slots, ending up either on top of or behind the coins already stacked on the bar which moved back and forth. The goal was to get the bar to push off the coins into the end. For each coin that fell you got six tickets. I was a pro at this machine from hours of practice when I was younger and mom dropped me off with a wad of cash to entertain myself while she went and did whatever it is that she does when she leaves. I walked around it, looking for the best area with the most coins perched on the end of the bar and then started putting my coins in. As I had planned the coins fell again and again and the tickets began stacking up on the ground beside my foot. Kids passed by and pointed at the pile of tickets whispering to each other in amazement. A few others decided to take their chances at one of the other sides of the machine, but none could get as many tickets as I had.

  I stopped playing the game when I had used half of my tokens and went to the one other game I could get the most tickets with. The game was a large circle of lights with numbers next to each light and a large button on the machine which you had to hit to stop the light and then you would get that number of tickets. You had to time it just right because the highest number of tickets, fifty, had a three on either side. If you did not hit it on time you would get three instead of fifty, something many people did. Most of the time I just went for the twenty-five light since there was an eight on either side, a better option in my opinion.

  I put in my first token and watched the lights, waiting, timing the moment I hit the button. I hit the button a little too late and got eight tickets. I leaned forward, waiting again and hit the button getting twenty-five. I smiled smugly. Now I had the timing. I would definitely beat Brandon.

  “Victoria?” someone asked behind me.

  I hit the button and then turned around to find Sandy and Devon standing behind me. “Hey guys,” I said with a smile.

  “Are you really playing these kids games?” Devon asked as he walked over to the machine and looked at it critically.

  “Brandon and I are having a competition,” I said indignantly. “And I like these games.”

  “You are such a dork,” Sandy said with a laugh.

  “What are you two doing here?” I asked as I hit the button and got twenty-five more tickets.

  “We are on our way to play miniature golf. You guys want to join us?” Devon asked.

  “No thanks, we just played the course.”

  “Well we’ll let you get back to your game. We wouldn’t want to break your concentration,” Sandy said with a laugh.

  I waved to them. “Have fun.” I used up the last of my tokens and carried my cup, which was spilling over with tickets to the ticket counting machine where I found Brandon feeding his tickets into one already. “How did you do?” I asked.

  “You’ll see as soon as I print the receipt,” he answered as he watched the machine eating his tickets and counting them.

  I smiled and started feeding my tickets into an open machine. It seemed like it was taking forever, but when I finally finished I was pleased with the number. Brandon was standing at the counter looking at the prizes when I walked over. “Okay, let me see your receipt.”

  He held up his and my jaw dropped open. “One thousand?! How did you get one thousand?!”

  He smiled. “I take it that means you got less?”

  I held up my receipt with seven hundred tickets listed. “You must have cheated. How did you get so many with only ten dollars in tokens?”

  “It’s all about patience and timing,” he said as he pointed at the machine that I had been on last.

  “You got the fifty ticket light, didn’t you?”

  He smiled wider. “Every time.”

  I sighed. “Well I guess you won.”

  He bumped my shoulder with his. “What are you going to get?”

  I looked around at the kiddy stuff and the ticket prices. The best stuff was always a ridiculous amount that you had to save your tickets for and came back multiple times before you could get them. “I don’t know,” I answered him honestly. “What are you getting?”

  He shrugged. “I could get a bunch of candy.”

  I laughed. “You could, but I doubt you would eat it.”

  “True. I’m not much of a candy person.”

  “If only they had ice cream,” I said with an exaggerated sigh.

  “Or steaks,” he said with a grin. I laughed and the girl working behind the counter looked at me like I was crazy. “So, what are you getting?” he asked again.

  I looked at stuffed animals and my eyes locked on a little stuffed golden kitten, which made me smile. “I think I might get a stuffed animal.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” he said with a wicked grin. I did not like that grin. It was a grin that meant he was definitely up to something.

  I moved to the other side of the counter where one of the workers was free and apparently ignoring us and asked for the golden kitten quietly so that even Brandon could not hear me. I looked over at Brandon, but he was facing in the other direction, which was perfect for me. The worker gave me the stuffed kitten and I asked for two pieces of candy to finish out my tickets and then put them inside one of the bags they had for kids to take all of their prizes home in.

  “I’ll wait for you at the café while you make up your mind,” I said as I walked away. Brandon nodded his head and turned to face the worker who was finally done with the ten year old who had used all two thousand tickets to get a plastic slinky. One that I knew from would stop working in only a couple of days.

  There were a lot of kids playing in the arcade and some teenagers, but only a handful of adults. I knew from personal experience that the parents loved to drop the kids off and let them play while they did other stuff, but it seemed strange that so many adults did it. I ordered two salted pretzels with nacho cheese and two drinks from the café and sat at an empty table to wait for Brandon. It felt good to be out at a normal place with Brandon and enjoying the human side of him. Not that I didn’t enjoy the lion side, in fact I loved his lion side and loved laying in my tree haven and petting his soft fur and big mane, but sometimes it was nice to spend time with him in his human form.

  “Is one of those for me?” he asked as he sat down with a bag in his hand.

  I nodded my head and tore off a piece of my pretzel and dipped it in cheese before popping it into my mouth. “So, what are we going to do now?” I asked as I chewed.

  “We’re going to go get food,” he answered as he ate half of the pretzel in one swallow.

  “All that chasing me around made you hungry?” I asked with a teasing smile.

  He smiled back and dipped a small piece of pretzel in his cheese. “Yes.”

  “I think we should go to pizza.”

  “Pizza does sound really good,” he said as he licked salt off his fingers.

  “Pizza and a salad,” I said as my stomach growled. I was used to being hungry often, but it had not felt like we had been out long enough for me to be hungry again.
I looked down at my phone and felt my eyes widen in shock. We had been out for over two hours. No wonder we were both hungry.

  “A salad?” he asked in shock. “I didn’t know you ate salads.”

  I smiled. “It’s the human part of me. It likes vegetables.”

  “My human side doesn’t like vegetables,” he said.

  I didn’t want to upset him so I didn’t say that he didn’t really have a “human” side anymore. Now he was just a lion that had a man form. Not really a human anymore. I on the other hand was part human still.

  “Okay, let’s go. I don’t want to wait too long or it will take forever for the pizza to be made,” he said as he stood up.

  “I’ll call and order ahead while you drive,” I offered.

  “Good idea.”

  We walked out to the car and I dialed the number, ordering two large pizzas, one all meat supreme and one pepperoni and pineapple. It took twenty minutes to get to my favorite pizza place, but as soon as we walked in and smelled the pizzas I knew it was worth it.

  I paid for the pizzas and drinks and a salad for me and was excited to see our pizzas waiting for us. Brandon carried the pizzas to a table while I made a large salad and filled my drink. When I made it back to the table, Brandon had already eaten three slices of his pizza. “Maybe I should have ordered three pizzas,” I said half seriously.

  He smiled. “Probably.”

  I sat down and ate the salad as quick as possible and then started on my pizza. Brandon finished his pizza and then eyed mine as I ate it. Part of me wanted to offer him my pizza but I was really hungry. “You should order another pizza,” I suggested.

  He licked his lips and sighed. “Yeah, I’m really hungry for some reason.”

  He walked to the register to order and I felt terrible. Even though we had been eating a lot when my mom was gone, he had also been expending a lot of energy by protecting me, doing football practices, teaching me how to fight and playing with me. I was wearing him down.

  I finished my entire pizza before he came back to the table. He seemed to notice the change in my emotions and was looking at me quizzically. I stood up and walked to the salad bar to get more salad so he could not analyze me any longer. I was just putting the dressing on my salad when he asked from right beside my ear, “Why are you suddenly sad?”