A Day in the Life
What a wonderful world
— Louis Armstrong
"I got one!," yelled Banzai and regretted it straight away. Ed rushed up to him, wanting to bite him but Banzai eluded him fast and snatched at the bone which had one last piece of rotten meat on it.
Rotten meat is better than none.
Ed snarled angrily and tried to swoop down on him but Banzai darted off – followed by Ed.
Bones hurtled through the air and Ed even hurt his hind leg on a broken off rip but that didn't stop him.
When Banzai wanted to catch his breath, Ed jumped on him and made him stumble.
He slapped down, the bone flew – and landed right in front of Shenzi's paws.
"Thank you," she said with an evil grin and gnawed the meat off the bone.
"Hey – wow, Shenzi, you've grown a lot, haven't you? You're a real woman now," Banzai mocked her.
In return, she spat in his face. "We see each other every day, idiot."
"So what? You really seem more taller 'n all, never realised that before! … Mind telling Ed to get off me? And tell him to stop chewing my leg 'cause that hurts."
"Do it yourself!" She wiped off the spit of his face though.
"Belated happy birthday," he added, pointing at the bone.
"'Excuse me? That was two months ago. And you didn't even forget about it."
"Oh. Thought I had." He smiled wryly. "... What did I getcha?"
She glared at him. "Quality time with you and only you. And everything's about me, only me. Without you complaining about stuff."
"That's something great, innit?" He drew closer; Ed watched them interestedly. "Quality time with me, just you and me, all alone …"
"Oh jeez, enough with that crap." Shenzi snarled and attacked Banzai. He didn't have time to fight back and quickly found himself lying on his back. He felt as helpless as a bug.
"Don't you ever do that again!," she panted. Her mouth was hanging open and her saliva dripped on Banzai's face.
"Wipe that off first."
"Ed!," she yelled and he came running, but she licked over Banzai's face before he arrived.
"So? You gonna stop with that crap?"
"... We'll see."
As they were shuffling back to the Elephant's Graveyard – a place fairly worth living, because there were many caves – (they shuffled, because they weren't exactly keen on going there. Dammit, no one's keen on that in a scruffy place like that) Banzai couldn't help but stare at Shenzi.
Or at that what he could see.
Her bottom, in that case.
That odd phrase he'd used before – about Shenzi having grown up … he hadn't realised how pretty she'd become. He saw her every day, she was right, but this time … he'd seen her in a new way. From below. Like a grown-up.
He didn't even know why he felt a sudden urge … a sudden urge to do things to her.
"Banzai! Banzai? Banzai, arsehole, I'm talking to ya!"
A slap in his face and he returned from his trance.
"W-what?" No reply.
"Is there something?," Shenzi asked Ed whispering and turned her bottom to him; it was embarrassing for her to ask and Ed didn't even look in the first place.
"Nope … nothing there, I … there was a mosquito and I didn't want to kill it, because …"
Because if there'd really been a mosquito, I'd have to hit your butt and you'd have killed me.
"Oh."
"But it flew away so it didn't sting ya and-"
"Good."
"Does anyone of you know how Ajuza is doing?," Shenzi asked when they jumped on a rock that led to their cave.
"No. Why though? She's gonna die soon anyway. She's like … how old is she? Hundred?"
"Seventy-nine." She rolled her eyes.
"Why you askin' anyway?" Banzai's face got close to hers again. She didn't like that, it made her feel awkward and uneasy. Like someone had intruded her personal space.
"'Cause I want her to die."
Ed stared at her indignantly and babbled something.
"Stop with that 'you don't wish death upon people', she's too old for being our matriarch!," Shenzi hissed, "we need someone who's younger, someone -"
"Like you?" Banzai raised an eyebrow.
She smiled smugly. "So we agree on this one."
He grinned slightly. "Seems like." Then his face darkened. "Go inside. Witu's starin' atcha again."
Witu couldn't be described with one word but 'scary'. Banzai'd told Shenzi that Afa'd told him, that Nyonge'd told her, that he'd raped a girl, but Shenzi said, that he should tell Afa to yadda yadda yadda, something, anyway, that Nyonge should keep her dirty mouth shut.
He did indeed tell her that. Yours sincerely, Banzai.
Afterwards, he had a nasty wound on his chest that was very nasty, really.
Shenzi'd told him to stop whining about it because 'he was such a crybaby'.
He did stop.
Though only because Shenzi licked the wound clean.
Anyhow, Witu was a voyeur. He said about himself that he was there to soothe women's troubles and thought he was funny. Then he'd laugh in a creepy way.
Nobody trusted him. He wanted people to, but "the more he tries, the worse it gets. Guys, which girl likes a creep walking up to her, hugging her from behind and asking her perverted things?"
Those were Hinkiza's words. She was the daughter of the shaman Arthur (who wasn't creepy though his name was. His parents were some sort of extreme colonists who worshipped the British Empire. Weird guys. It was even weirder that they had it passed it on to their fifteen year old granddaughter) and she was called "Kiza" by everyone else. Nobody really liked her and most everyone knew why. But Banzai never wanted to talk about it and neither did Shenzi. Ed couldn't say it in a way so everyone would understand.
Almost no one understood him.
"Go inside now."
Shenzi glared at Witu again, then strutted in the cave.
"You know what he just recently asked me?"
"Why d'you think I care?" Banzai glanced at Ed tiredly. "That's girly stuff. Go and tell Afa, she's your bestie, ain't she!"
"You're my best friends too."
"Yeah, but she's got ovaries, we don't, she's much better at underst-"
"Seems like Afa doesn't need me any more. Pshaw, she's always hanging out with that -"
Ed elbowed Banzai and actually managed it to roll his eyes. Shenzi wasn't exactly feminine yet all the usual drama of women happened in her life.
"Now … what's up with Witu?," Banzai interrupted her word vomit about her devious best friend who dared to not spend her time with her, but always had something else, something better to do when Shenzi once got rid off Ed and Banzai to visit her.
"Oh right. Witu. Last week he – well, he approached to me and came very close, askin' me if I was in heat. And I – I got my wires crossed 'cause, y'know, think about what he told me – and I said, no, I'm not in heat, 'cause that's a shady place and it's not that hot after all and he got an all dirty expression and was like "No, not the weather. In. Heat. Blood an' stuff. 'Cause, you can smell that."
"Why did he ask in the first place if ya can smell it?," asked Banzai.
Ed tapped him.
"No, Ed! We're done with the bets on that -"
"Bets on what?," she asked harshly.
"N-Nothing!" Banzai tried to shut Ed up but he chattered away, naïve as he was. Shenzi's face darkened.
"So … I'm part … of your bets." She stood up and slowly approached to Banzai, glowering at both of them.
"Were. You were, Shenzi." He smiled feigned. Dammit. "We don't do that any more, 'twas silly-"
"And those bets are on – on," Shenzi came closer and closer, he tried to escape by walking backwards. "On when I'm in heat."
"They were on that, Shenzi', were, past-"
"Are you outta your mind?," she screamed. Ed kept his head down and started whimpering. "Shut up! I'm part of the most idiotic bets of yours? 'Is Shenzi bleeding today or ain't she?' I'm gonna go insane!" And she stormed off to her own cave. (There were was one big cave and three caves inside for each one of them.)
Banzai glanced at Ed. "I told you she'd find out but no, you bloody idiot said we should just keep our bloody mouths shut and she wouldn't find out. Now, who told her about our bets?"
Ed tapped his chest.
"No. Not me. 'Twas you. I … I mentioned it in passing. We could've overacted it easily but you had to tell her everything."
Ed just gawped at him.
Banzai sighed. "Do I have to talk to her?"
Ed nodded.
"Bugger off," Shenzi muttered when Banzai entered her 'room'.
He didn't want to do that. To him, it felt like he invaded her incredibly private private life. Just because she slept here, here on the dirty floor, that dirty floor on which she scribbled small pictures, here, where she was when she was sad (which she never was) or mad – like right now.
Besides, there were tufts of her fur everywhere and they stuck to his paws as he walked over them.
"But I -"
"Are you deaf? Naff off!"
"I wanted to … apologize. For Ed too, 'cause he's a nasty coward who doesn't dare to be here, though it was all his idea, I swear!"
She turned around to him; he was relieved that her face and her eyes seemed to be dry as a bone. He sucked at comforting people. Especially not when those people had cried; he had tried around ten years ago for the last time, when he was twelve, when his youngest sister Daima, two at that time, had tumbled and hurt her knee. He patted her head, trying to persuade her that her pain was imaginary. She'd stared at him, tear-stained – and ran off to her mother.
Though actually, Banzai didn't know what was wrong with that kind of comfort.
He'd watched that in a similar situation with Shenzi and her older brother Katili who had managed to calm her down.
"Okay."
"… What?"
Shenzi stood up. "I hope you'll never do that again. Or I'll tear something off ya."
Banzai swallowed. "Tear off what?"
She smiled. "I'll come up with something."
