"Alright, alright, I'm glad to see you too."  Naline wasn't
done saying hello, not by a long shot.  She was taking full
advantage of my being temporarily incapacitated by inflicting
her greetings on me as vigorously as she could.  She rubbed
her furry little head on my face as if I were a magic lamp.
If she didn't quit soon, a genie was liable to come out of my
nose or something.  "Come on, let me up."


    Naline gave me a great big smile as she skipped off me,
allowing me a second's respite to sit up and catch my breath
again and recover from her energetic greeting.  I managed to
get all the fur out of my mouth just as she skipped on my
lap.

   "Well, did you bring it?"  Naline asked, brimming with
excitement.

  You know, when I was a little kid and Gramma had come home
to visit, I never asked how her trip had been or whether she
was tired or not.  The only thing I wanted to know was what
she had brought me.  Naline had the exact same expression on
her bright little face.  Kids is kids.

  "Sure," I nodded at my backpack, "just you lead the way."

  Naline smiled gleefully and impatiently skipped about as I
got up.  She led us into the ocean of grass, chatting as
interminably as ever.  She updated me on the present world
situation.  Everything from who liked whom in the pride, to
what her father had told the hyenas the previous day.  Same
Naline I remembered, full to the canines in chatter.

  "Say, uh, Cruz..." she paused momentarily as she glanced
up at me, "what's wrong with your hair?"


  "My hair?"

  "Yeah, it's different."

  "Like how different?  Is there a bug on it?  Grass?  What?"

  "No, it's...," she looked it over critically, "shorter."

  "Oh.  I got a haircut."

  "What's a haircut?


  "Well, unlike yous lions, our hair grows and grows..."

  "Like a mane?"

  "Yes, like a mane.  But, unlike a mane, it doesn't look
good long.  Not on me, anyway.  So I cut it short."

  "Why?"

  "Because it looks bad."

  "Really?"


  "Yeah.  Over here, it kinda poofs up," I teased my hair to
show her how, "and over here, it curls over like thus, so it
looks dumb."

  "I think it would look good."

  "Yeah, well, I didn't come all this way  to discuss
hairdos, right?"

  And I hadn't.  I had come for a picnic.  I know that sounds
kinda crazy, picnicking with a lion, right?  Well, it sounds
crazy to me.  Anyone who flashes light years with a cooler
full of foodstuffs and other such gastronomical sundries
strapped to his back to meet with a friend for lunch, and
that friend happens to be from the species pantera leo,
absolutely has to be certifiably crazy.

  So call me crazy.

  Last month we had been talking about what different animals
tasted like.  I'd never eaten zebra or wildebeest or
elephants or rhinoceroses or any such comestibles, and I was
curious.  Naline had enlightened me on the subject and
instructed me on the finer points of savanna gastronomy.


  For my part, I had told her all about all the different
things I'd eaten in my travels.  Believe you me, when you're
in the business I'm in, you get to eat all kinds of things
you never thought you would.  You remember when you were
three years old and your mother would tell you not to put
such-and-such in your mouth?  Well, that's all that one eats
in some worlds.  You get used to it.  After a long while.
I'd lost a lot of weight during my first few months of
freelance mercenarying.

  So anyway, I promised that I'd bring an assorted hodge-
podge sampler of all the various things that could be found
in some of the more exotically stocked markets around town.
And that's exactly what I'd done, much to the excitement of
my little lioness friend.

  She led us to a large cluster of thickly foliaged trees.
Inside was a nice, inviting clearing that just begged to be
picnicked in.  We found the quietest, shadiest spot and sat
down to business.

  "Ready?"  I took off the backpack cooler and set it up
between Naline and me.

  "Yeah."  You know what they say about curiosity killing
the cat?  Naline seemed like she was losing a life a minute,
wanting to know what goodies I'd brought.

  "Keep in mind you might not like some of these."  I put my
hand on the lid and opened it ever-so-slowly.  You could see
her eyes widen in anticipation.  I moved even more slowly,
letting the lid creak as it opened.  Naline was gritting her
teeth and going crazy with impatience.  Tee-hee.  I'm so
mean.


  "Hurry!"

  "Alright alright.  Here we go."  Lemme see, where to
start?  "Okay, Kitten, this first little item," I reached
into the cooler and got out a small slab of meat about the
size of an apple, "is all that they eat in Sentres Homitai.
It comes from a deep sea mollusk that's ugly as sin, but it's
tasty as my uncle is wide.  And he's pretty wide."

  "Gimme gimme!"  I had her eating out of the palm of my
hand.  Literally.  She didn't even pause to taste it; it was
gone faster'n it takes me to write the word "zip."

  "So?  How was it?"

  "Not too bad.  Gimme more."  She licked her chops in eager
anticipation.

  "Okay.  This next item is eaten more in the desert regions
of the outlying territories.  They call it, well, I've never
actually been able to pronounce it properly, but it's rather
popular."  I cut it in two and gave her half.  I munched on
the other half because, you know what?, I really like this
stuff.


  Naline rolled the morsel in her mouth, first on one side
and then on the other, savoring it with every taste bud she
had.  She chewed a bit and looked all around as she tasted
and swallowed.  I've seen culinary judges that make less of a
show of tasting things.  She finally delivered her veredict:
"A little dry."  Pbah, what did she know?

  "Next on the menu," I produced a teeny bit of meat about
the size of a grape.

  "What?  That?"

  If I'd brought nothing but a single bread crumb, she
wouldn't have been able to make a more disappointed and
disheartened face.  She had probably expected a gigantic
steak or a whole side of beef, and I had instead brought out
a teeny weeny bit of avian chow.  Naline looked at it as
derisively as one would look at rotten eggs marinating in
spoiled milk.

  "It's a small tropical bird dipped in spices and smoke-
cured for four months."

  "That's a bird?"  She didn't seem impressed.


  "Well, I didn't say it was an eagle.  Here."  I tossed the
minuscule bird in her direction.

  She caught it with one swift flick of her tongue.  Her
expression instantly changed from one of derision to one of
extreme surprise.  "Holy... oh... geez...!"

  I had somehow forgotten to tell Naline that these little
critters are powerfully and fiercely hot like nothing else
I'd ever tried.  Some restaurants serve them along with an
anesthetic drink for afterwards.  First time I'd had one, I
drank two.

  "Oh, WOW!  Aaahh... that's hot!"  She panted and wheezed,
her tongue hanging out a foot and a half.  I think I saw
smoke coming off of it.

  "Quick, eat one of these."  I took out another little
tidbit from the cooler and offered it to her in my
outstretched fingers.

  "Naa-aah."  Naline shook her head no.  She said something
that somewhat resembled "I don't trust you anymore."


  "Come on!  These things put out the fire."  She gave me a
doubtful look.  "They're made from the liver of another
tropical bird that eats these first birds like popcorn.
They don't taste too great, but they put out the fire real
quick."

  She gave me a look that somehow let me know that if I was
tricking her and giving her something that would make her
predicament even worse, she would do nothing less than bite
me.  I knew better.

  "Come on, Kitten, before it really starts to burn."  That
was threat enough for her, and she ate it with record-
breaking avidity.

  "Aaahhhh," her shoulders slumped in relief, "that's
better."  She gave me an accusing look, "you did that on
purpose."

  "Me?"  I acted as if she'd deeply hurt my feelings.

  "Yeah, you."  Her reproachful gaze quickly faded away as
her attention was once more drawn to the cooler full of
goodies.  "What else did you bring?  And no tricks."


  "Okay, no tricks."

  We spent all morning sampling the large variety of things
I'd brought.  And you know what?  I can't think of a better
way to spend a morning.

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