Precious and the Mystery of the Missing Lion: A New Case for Precious Ramotswe (2 page)

Precious was very proud of it.

“What a beautiful hat,” people remarked. “May we touch it?”

“Yes,” said Precious. “But I wouldn’t, if I were you!”

Another present Aunty Bee sent one year was a bracelet made of twisted elephant hair. This was very special, as people said that elephant hair was lucky. Such bracelets were also very rare, as
the elephant hair had to be plucked from the end of the elephant’s tail, and it was very dangerous to do that. Elephants do not like you to pull their tails, even if all you want is to borrow
a few hairs for a bracelet.

Aunty Bee bought that elephant hair from a man who was very thin. People said that an elephant had sat on him and squashed him a bit, but nobody knew whether or not that was true. But it
certainly made an interesting story to tell to people who admired the bracelet.

And there were other presents, too. There was a cup made out of the seed-pod of a great baobob tree. These trees are very wide and fat: so wide that it can take twenty people holding hands to go
all the way round them. That’s what this picture shows. Think of that! Twenty people!

It was not just on her birthday that Precious heard from her Aunty Bee. Often a letter would arrive with news of what was happening up at the safari camp where she worked. A safari camp is a
place where people go to make expeditions into the wilderness. They go out for days on end to see wild animals and take photographs of them. They live in tents and eat out in the open and usually
enjoy themselves very much indeed.

The camp that Aunty Bee worked in was called Eagle Island Camp. She was one of the cooks there, but she also earned a bit of money telling stories to the visitors. She knew all the old Botswana
stories and would recite these beside the fireside at night. People loved to hear these and would clap and clap after she finished.

Aunty Bee was very busy but she always seemed to find the time to write to Precious, even if the letters were not very long – one or two lines perhaps. And it was in one of these short
letters that she asked Precious whether she would like to come up to visit her.

“Dear Precious,” she wrote, “I know that the school holidays are coming up soon. Would you like to come and stay with me up at the safari camp for a few days? Something very
exciting is about to happen. I do hope you can come. With love, Aunty Bee.”

How would you answer a letter like that? Exactly – so would I!

HEN
P
RECIOUS
showed this letter to her father, Obed Ramotswe, he
looked doubtful.

“It’s a long way away,” he said. “It takes a whole day to get there – sometimes more.”

“I don’t mind,” said Precious. “There are buses that go that way, aren’t there?”

Obed scratched his head. “That costs money,” he said. “And I’ve had a lot of bills to pay this month.”

Precious tried not to show her disappointment. Her father was kind to her, and she knew that he would do anything to make her happy. If he said that there was no money for the bus fare, then she
knew that this would be true.

“Perhaps I can go some other time,” she said quietly. “I’ll write to Aunty Bee and tell her.”

Obed held up a hand. “No,” he said. “Don’t do that. I think I may know somebody who’s going up there for four or five days. He’s a cattle buyer and he has
some business to do in those parts. He might be able to give you a ride up in his truck.”

Precious hardly dared hope. “Do you think so?” she asked. “I wouldn’t take up much room.”

Her father smiled. “I’ll ask him,” he said. “He owes me a favour, anyway.”

That evening, Precious wrote a reply to her aunt telling her that there was a chance – just a chance – she would be able to come to stay with her. The next day, though, even before
she had time to post this letter, her father went to have a word with his friend. When he returned to the house, he was full of smiles.

“You can do your packing,” he said. “You’re going to be leaving tomorrow.”

Precious was too excited to go to sleep easily that night. Eventually she dropped off, and dreamed that she was already up in the Delta. There were tall trees, and these trees were full of
monkeys, swinging adventurously from every branch. There was a wide river, filled with clear, swift-flowing water, and in this water there were the long dark shapes of crocodiles and fat, floating
hippos. There were wide plains of high grass, and in this grass, half-hidden and staring out with large yellow eyes, there were lions.

She awoke to her father’s voice.

“Time to get up, my darling,” he said. “The truck will be here any moment now.”

She leapt out of bed and dressed quickly. Her father had made her a breakfast of thick porridge and goat’s milk, and she ate this while he checked that she had everything she needed. There
was a little bit of money – not much – tied up in an old handkerchief. “You can use that to buy yourself a treat,” he said.

She wiped the traces of milk from her lips. “I’ll buy you a present,” she said.

“You don’t need to do that,” he said, smiling. “You may need some food on the way. Use it for something like that.”

There came the sound of a horn from the road outside.

“That’ll be the truck,” said her father. “Off you go, now.”

Obed’s friend was called Mr Poletsi. He was travelling with his wife, who was called Mma Poletsi, and there were ten passengers – friends and friends of friends
– who had crowded into the back of the truck. The Poletsis sat in the front, in the cab, while everybody else made themselves as comfortable as they could in the back. There were also several
chickens in a small coop, a dog tied to somebody’s toe with a piece of string, and a baby goat. Precious thought it a very strange mixture, but the important thing for her was that she was on
her way to see her aunt. That was all that mattered, she thought.