Sarabi of the Pride lands
Ch. 1 Frolicking
The tangerine crest of the African sun slowly rose above the grassy plains. The crickets were still chirping when Sarabi peered out of the pride's den. She looked over at Sarafina her best friend and nodded towards the den's opening.
Sarafina followed behind her as they quietly ran off across the tall blades of grass that swayed back and forth in the breeze. The two lioness cubs waited until they were past the cola trees to start talking to each other.
"Sarabi where are we going today? Are we going to the gorge?" Sarafina asked bounding freely.
"No, we're going to hop hippos by the Grumeti River and ride logs down the stream," Sarabi said excitedly.
"Log riding! I can't wait and best of all no dodo beak to babysit," Sarafina said bounding that much faster.
"Tell me about it! My older brother Djimon used go log riding after jumping elephant graveyard bones!" Sarabi said as she could hear the splashing of the river up ahead.
Plump calfs were splashing about in the riverbank and eating weeds at the river's edge. The Elder hippos were wading in the cool fresh water sluggishly and completely unaware of the two lioness cubs crouching through the savannah grass.
"They're not gonna see us coming," Sarabi laughed mischievously. Sarabi spotted an adult hippo with its back to her and submerged in the cool water. As quickly as she could without being detected, she climbed onto the hippo's back careful that her claws were not out.
Sarafina slid onto a hippo who was lazily grazing on grass. She looked att Sarabi waiting for the "go"
Sarabi jumped up on her hippos' back effectively startling it and causing it to scramble in the river.
Sarafina also jumped on her hippo then clung tightly to its back so as to not fall off of its back.
"Woo-hoo! We're flying!" Sarabi hollered.
"Haha yeah!" Sarafina answered as she held tighter to the back of her hippos' neck.
The two racing hippos scared the others in the herd and they all either ran around panicked or hurried out of the river for cover. The little calves were either pulled out by their mothers or scrambled out by themselves.
Suddenly the two hippos the young Sarabi and Sarafina rode began to thrash around violently in a desperate effort to get the lioness cubs off of their backs.
In return Sarabi and Sarafina clung onto the hippos for dear life and in their panic allowed their claws to come out. This sent their hippos crying in pain and then they began to buck with all their strength until the young lionesses were flung into the air and then sailed down into the river.
Sarabi went under the water's surface and flailed about until her head re-surfaced. "Sarafina! Where are you?" she called out as she looked around.
Sarafina's head popped up through the water and she cried, "Sarabi! Help me!"
Sarabi treaded water to thick log floating along the current and grabbed on. She used her weight to push herself and the log towards her drowning friend.
Sarafina sunk her claws into the other end of the log and held on tightly.
"The current is moving too fast! It will take us over the falls if we don't get out." Sarabi said frantically looking for a branch or something for them to grab onto.
"Sarabi, I think we'll have to jump," Sarafina said as the current sped up.
"We'll never make it with a fall so high," she said as she struggled to stay afloat.
In a last desperate attempt Sarafina cried, "Help! Somebody please, help!"
Just when it seemed that they were about to fall over into the abyss, Sarbi's brother Djimon and her father Mtumbi snatched the log from the edge and rescued the lioness cubs.
Both cubs coughed and spattered on the dry savannah grass and then looked up to see to admonitioning faces looking down at them.
"Sarabi. You no better than to run off from the den without Zazu. What's worse is that you put Sarafina in danger by coming down to the river! You know that you two are small enough to drown in a river this size," Mtumbi scolded.
Sarabi hung her head down and waited to get reprimanded some more.
"Sarafina, your mother was worried sick about you! What if you had been killed?!" Mtumbi exclaimed.
"I'm sorry," was all Sarafina could muster as she too hung her head in shame.
"You guys are lucky that you weren't killed," Djimon added.
"But you did it and you didn't get in trouble," Sarabi retorted.
"Yeah, because I wasn't a cub and I didn't play in a river this large, I played in the watering hole," Djimon snorted out of annoyance.
"Enough talk. Let's get you two girls home, there's big news that las ahead and we have some important guests coming today.
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