Lily to the Rescue: Lost Little Leopard

by W. Bruce Cameron

  “Let Nala come out on her own,” Mom replied softly.

  It occurred to me that they were saying “Nala” because that was the name of the large kitten. This might be where she lived now—her scent was certainly painted all over everything.

  I yawned and then blinked in surprise. Nala the large kitten was suddenly standing on top of a big boulder, looking down at us with her light eyes and spotted face. I wondered who had helped her climb up there.

  “It’s okay, Nala. Remember Lily?” Mom bent down and snapped the leash off my collar. I stretched, unsure what we were doing. Was I supposed to go play with the cat on the rock? Or stay with Mom and the bottle?

  I picked Mom.

  Then Nala dropped silently from her perch, landing lightly on all four feet. “Leopards are amazing jumpers,” Mom said over her shoulder to my girl.

  Nala sat at the base of the big rock and stared at me. I reminded myself that this wasn’t like Bad Cat, this was a kitten who liked me. Wagging, I wandered up to sniff her face and was rewarded with a swipe on my snout.

  I wish cats would learn that jabbing a dog in the nose is no way to play.

  Nala lowered her front legs to the ground and left her rump up high in the air, wiggling. I have played with lots of cats, so I knew exactly what she was going to do next. She pounced at me, but I was ready! I dodged to one side and nudged her with my head.

  She toppled over into the dirt, lying on her back and kicking with both legs. I jumped on her so that I could gently chew her face and her ears. She shoved me off with her strong back feet.

  Nala knew Wrestling! I raced around the yard to see if she knew Chase-Me, too, but she didn’t seem to. She just waited for me to run back to her and jumped on my back, hugging me tight with her front legs.

  I flopped down so we could roll in the dirt, and then I looked up to see that Mom was sitting down on the ground. “Lily? Bring your friend over here. Come, Lily.”

  I obediently made to go to Mom, but Nala was right at my side, leaping up onto me, so I was a bit distracted. Eventually, though, we both closed the distance between us and Mom, and then Nala stopped, looking at Mom with unblinking eyes.

  For some reason, Nala did not understand that Mom loved all animals. I went to Mom and nosed her and she petted my head, and then I looked pointedly at the bottle in her hand.

  “It’s okay, baby,” she said. “Remember me?”

  Nala solemnly watched me rubbing my head on Mom. When I flopped down on my belly and put my head in Mom’s lap, Nala took a small step forward. Then another, and then another.

  Maggie Rose made an excited sound on the other side of the door.

  Mom held out the bottle of milk toward Nala. By now I’d figured out who the milk was for—not a deserving dog, that was for sure. Humans often make decisions that make no sense to dogs.

  Nala stared at the bottle. Her nose wiggled. Her whiskers trembled. She came closer and closer, and Mom pulled the bottle back a little at a time until Nala had to climb right into her lap to get it. I moved my head so Nala wouldn’t step on it.

  Nala grabbed hold of the bottle with her two front paws. She sucked and sucked.

  When there are no treats being offered, a dog can always find ways to be happy. I ran around the yard. There was a stick in the dirt, and I grabbed it and shook it so hard it cracked.

  Then the door opened. I looked up to see if it was Maggie Rose, but it wasn’t.

  7

  Dusty Pants stepped through the gate, shutting it behind him. “That’s amazing!” he marveled softly. “She wouldn’t touch the milk this morning. I tried everything I could think of. Why does having Lily here make all the difference?”

  Nala didn’t even look up at him. I wagged, though, touching his Dusty Pants hand with my nose.

  Mom nodded at me. “For some reason, my daughter’s dog just has the knack for putting animals at ease.”

  “I don’t need to tell you how great this is. We were discussing force-feeding the cub, but that would only be a last resort. We need to keep her healthy, though, and she just hasn’t wanted to eat.”

  “Mom,” my girl called. “Can I come in and see Nala?”

  The man and Mom exchanged glances. “Honey,” Mom said, “we need to limit the number of people the leopard is exposed to. I’m sorry.”

  I spent most of the day at that wonderful place, called “Zoo.” Most of the time was spent wrestling with Nala. Some of the time was spent watching Mom give Nala bottles of milk, and some of the time I sat with Maggie Rose on the other side of the gate.

  When we arrived back at Home, Brewster was there but Dad was not. I sniffed curiously, wondering where he was.

  “I miss Dad, too,” Maggie Rose told me. “He’s in Veracruz right now, Lily. He’s staying in a hotel right near the jungle, and he says he can hear monkeys in the morning!”

  The next morning I went to Work with Mom and Maggie Rose. My girl went to the cat area and began cleaning cages.

  Jax was so excited to see me he was whining in his kennel. Mom put a leash on the puppy, who lunged and twisted, trying to get at me. Remembering the sensation of having his thick body crash into my ribs, I remained just out of reach.

  In the yard, Mom reached into a pouch on her waist and pulled out some delicious treats. Jax, now off leash, tried to climb on my head.

  “Jax, come,” Mom said.

  I went obediently to Mom and did Sit. Jax bit my face. “Jax,” Mom urged gently. “Come. See how good Lily is?”

  We spent a long time in the yard. I demonstrated over and over how to do Come. Jax demonstrated how to chew on my body, climb on Mom, roll on the ground, and run away when Mom tried to put him back on the leash.

  Once inside Work, Jax saw Maggie Rose carrying a cat. He went crazy trying to get to it, leaping and pulling at the end of his leash. My girl twisted away and I put myself between her and Jax to protect her.

  “No, Jax,” my girl said.

  “Jax doesn’t seem to know about cats. I’m surprised—I would have thought Charlotte’s cat Mia would have taught him a few lessons,” Mom said as she struggled with the puppy.

  “Charlotte said the cat lives in the house and front yard and Jax always stayed in the back,” Maggie Rose replied.

  Jax didn’t earn himself a single treat that day. I received several, however, which almost made having Jax slam his body into me worth the whole ordeal.

  After putting Jax in his kennel, we returned to Zoo. Wonderful smells! I gobbled up a piece of hot dog I found in the grass. And then Mom and I entered Nala’s yard. Maggie Rose stayed behind the bars. The kitten was hiding again, but soon after I sniffed around the base of the big boulders, she emerged from behind the rocks.

  “The same thing happened,” Dusty Pants informed Mom. “Nala hasn’t eaten since you left yesterday. She wouldn’t even show herself. I’m very concerned.”

  “I’m hoping our little leopard will get used to her surroundings soon,” Mom replied.

  Nala liked to play all the usual cat games—Hide-and-Pounce, Wiggle-Your-Butt, and Roll-and-Wrestle. I’m very good at these games, because I play them with the not-so-large kittens at Work. Those kittens are fragile and I’m always careful with them, but when Nala and I did Wrestling, it was like playing with a dog.

  When Mom produced a bottle, Nala followed me over to her lap, but I did not want to sit and watch the kitten have more milk, so I trotted over to Maggie Rose. Dusty Pants was talking to her, and he opened the barred gate to let me out to see my girl.

  “I’m going to take Lily to the fish pond,” Maggie Rose told the man.

  “That’s fine, but otherwise please don’t go anywhere else without a staff member or your mother,” Dusty Pants replied.

  My girl took me to a big bathtub. We stood behind a fence. “See the fish, Lily?” I knew what fish was, but couldn’t smell any. But yes, if she was asking if I’d like some, I would be more than happy with that, though I like chicken better.

  When we
returned to Nala’s yard, my girl sat on the cement behind the bars, and I put my head in her lap and prepared for a little afternoon snooze. She was quiet, too—we hadn’t even announced to Mom that we were back.

  I heard Mom talking to Dusty Pants. The man cleared his throat. “I wonder if you’d be willing to donate Lily to us.”

  Maggie Rose sucked in a breath, and I glanced up at her curiously.

  “Give Lily to the zoo?” Mom looked surprised. “That’s a big thing to ask, Doctor Quinton. My daughter loves Lily more than anything.”

  “Just hear me out. When your dog leaves, it’s as if someone has thrown a switch. Nala hides and won’t come out. We need to get Nala to accept feedings from other staff members, which isn’t going to happen without Lily.”

  “How long would this last?”

  The man sighed. “I have to be honest. Once the program determines where they want Nala to go, we’re going to need to make the move as successful as possible. I can’t see us accomplishing that without your dog.”

  My girl raised her hand to her mouth, but she was not eating.

  “That could be more than a year, Doctor Quinton,” Mom objected. “You’re saying Lily would move with Nala to one of the sanctuaries?”

  “I wouldn’t ask if this weren’t desperately important, Chelsea. We have to do whatever it takes to help this little Amur leopard survive. The world can’t afford to lose even a single one.”

  There was a long silence. “I’ll have to talk to Maggie Rose, you understand. I really care about what we’re trying to achieve—but this would be very hard for my daughter.”

  Maggie Rose buried her face in my fur. I did not understand what was happening, but I knew she was sad, and a sad girl always needs her dog.

  “Oh no, Lily,” she murmured. “Oh no.”

  8

  Dad was still not at Home when we returned. My girl’s brothers Bryan and Craig were, though. Craig talked to his phone, calling it “Dad.” Then Bryan did the same thing. So the phone was called Dad now? Much of what humans do makes no sense to a dog, but this one was particularly confusing. How could Dad be a phone? How was a phone going to wear his wonderful shoes?

  The phone was passed to Maggie Rose.

  “Hi, Dad,” she said in a small voice.

  “What’s wrong, Sweetpea?” I heard Dad’s voice say. I sniffed the air but he was nowhere nearby. My nose couldn’t find him anywhere in the house.

  “I just miss you. I really need to talk to you,” my girl told the phone that was not Dad.

  “Do you want to talk now? You can take it somewhere private, if something’s bothering you.”

  Maggie Rose shook her head. “No, I want to talk in person.”

  The next morning, Mom talked to her phone. She did not call it “Dad.” Maggie Rose glanced up at her when she said, “I was afraid of that.”

  When Mom put the phone in her pocket, my girl asked, “What’s wrong, Mom?”

  “Nala refused to come out of her hiding place all night, and she’s still in there.”

  “She needs Lily,” my girl said quietly. “Doesn’t she?”

  “Why the sad look, Maggie Rose?”

  My girl shook her head. “I was just hoping Lily could go to the rescue with me and play with Jax.”

  Mom smiled. “Let’s stop there on the way.”

  At Work I was let out into the yard and a few moments later Jax bounded out as Mom held the door open for him. I cringed as I watched him barrel across the yard, knowing he was planning to crash into me. At the last moment, I dodged out of the way and the puppy fell and rolled in the grass. I jumped on him to keep him pinned down, but he was so strong he was soon wriggling away from me. He leaped and twisted and jumped.

  “Look at that energy!” Mom said.

  I was becoming annoyed with his habit of running at me at full tilt and then running into me, showing no restraint at all. At one point I actually chopped at the air with my teeth, letting him know I needed him to back away so I could rest from his constant playing. He sat and gazed at me, puzzled—considering, for the first time it seemed, that there was some other creature in the world except him.

  That didn’t last long.

  When I wearily climbed into bed with Maggie Rose that night, I nearly groaned with relief to be lying on soft blankets. I opened my eyes, though, when she reached for me and pulled me to her, wrapping her arms around me in a sad hug.

  How could a hug be sad?

  “Oh, Lily, I am going to miss you so much,” she murmured in my ear.

  * * *

  I spent the next several days playing gently with Nala at Zoo and being crashed into in the backyard by Jax. Maggie Rose was doing School—the word means she leaves early in the morning and comes back with books in the afternoon. Craig and Bryan were doing School as well. So I spent my time with Mom. Every day, we went to the zoo to see Nala and give her a bottle. At Work I tried to let her know I would rather nap with Brewster, but she said, “Come, Lily,” and let me out in the yard for another wrestling match with Jax.

  Mom was still trying to teach Jax tricks for treats, like “Sit” and “Come.” Jax seemed to think Mom was saying, “Climb on Lily and bite her lips.” Whenever we were in the building, he was on leash and I wasn’t. He pulled and strained to get into the cat area as we passed it. “Jax, you’re going to be a good dog someday. Just not today,” Mom told him.

  I hoped someone would soon arrive and take Jax away. That happens a lot at Work. Animals live there for a little while, and then they leave to go and live with happy people.

  I wondered which people the big screeching birds had gone to live with, and if they slept in their person’s bed like I slept in Maggie Rose’s. I also wondered why any person would choose to have a big bird with a sharp beak instead of a dog.

  After a few more days Dad finally came back, and his shoes smelled better than ever! Everyone hugged him and was very happy to see him. Maggie Rose whispered something in his ear, and he nodded.

  “I think I’m going to take Maggie Rose and Lily for a walk,” Dad announced.

  Mom regarded him oddly. She looked between Dad and my girl. “Oh?”

  “Sure. Just a father–daughter walk with my game warden girl.”

  I was very excited to feel my leash click into my collar, especially since Jax was nowhere to be found. “You come, too, Brewster,” Dad said. “You need the exercise.”

  Brewster likes to stop at almost every tree and lift his leg, so we walked very slowly down the sidewalk, pausing often.

  “What’s on your mind, Maggie Rose?”

  “I really missed you, Dad.”

  “I missed you, too, honey.”

  “Something happened while you were gone.”

  Dad looked down at her and lifted his eyebrows. “Oh?”

  I politely sniffed where Brewster had just marked.

  “Nala can’t live without Lily. Everyone says so. She doesn’t eat or even come out. And Doctor Quinton at the zoo says they need to adopt Lily and take her away to go live somewhere until Nala is grown up. Which could take a year!”

  I sensed the distress coming off my girl, and gazed up at her in concern.

  “Oh, Maggie Rose, I’m so sorry that you’ve been carrying this all by yourself. Why didn’t you talk to Mom?”

  “Because … because you’re the game warden. This should be your decision.”

  “Oh.” Dad stopped and bent over so he could look at my girl with serious eyes. “Maggie Rose, Lily is your dog. This isn’t a decision for me to make.”

  My girl’s hand came down to touch me. Even her fingers were sad. I licked them.

  “Is Nala really that important, Dad?”

  They resumed walking again. Brewster took this as a sign that he should lift his leg on a fence.

  “Every Amur leopard is important, Maggie Rose, because there are so few left. We don’t know where she was stolen from, and so far the man we have under arrest isn’t talking. But if we don’t build
up their population, we’re going to lose them, and that would be a loss for all the world.”

  Maggie Rose bit her lip. “Then I know what I have to do.”

  9

  We walked in silence for a long time. Finally Dad said, “What do you mean by that, Maggie Rose?”

  “You left us to go to the jungle to free the macaws, because that’s your duty, even though it was a sacrifice to travel all that way and be away from your family. Like a soldier doing his duty and asking Mom to find a home for Jax. And this is the most important duty of all, because Nala won’t survive without Lily. So even though she could be gone for more than a year, I have to let her go.”

  “That’s my game warden girl,” Dad replied softly. He put his arm around her, and she put her arm around me.

  Maggie Rose was crying, though I had no idea why. I licked her face and she hugged me for a long time.

  Later, the family all sat at the big table and ate, and I squeezed myself between Maggie Rose’s legs and Bryan’s, since they are the ones who drop bits of food most often.

  “The macaws handled the travel very well,” Dad said. “They’re back in the rainforest and I think they’ll be fine.”

  Bryan let a bit of bread fall to the floor, and I pounced on it.

  “That’s wonderful. And Bryan, stop feeding Lily at the table,” Mom said.

  I heard “Bryan” and “Lily” and wagged happily. Yes, I loved Bryan at the dinner table very much.

  “So,” Mom said carefully, “how was your walk?”

  Nobody answered.

  “Maggie Rose? Why are you so quiet this evening?” Mom wanted to know.

  More silence. Dad cleared his throat. “I think Maggie Rose has something important she wants to tell us.”

  My girl was sad. I hurried to her legs and pressed against them, so she’d know her dog was near.