Naline and I had been laying in the mud for the better part
of five minutes, recovering from the shock of being run over
by herds of zebras, skydiving without parachutes from miles
high, and almost drowning in oceans of water.  The sun beat
down as it always does in this neighborhood, and pretty soon
we were verily caked in hard, brown clay.  I decided it would
be a good idea to move before we were permanently cooked into
the muddy bottoms.

  We laid there quietly for a couple more minutes, listening
to the sound of thundering hooves.  After a while, they
seemed to fade into the distance.  Good riddance!

  "Would you mind running along?"  Now, that was an unusual
thing for Naline to say.  I sloshed and turned in the mud a
bit until I could see what she meant.

  "Hello?  I said would you mind moving on?"  Strange.
Naline hadn't moved when she talked.  Hey, when did it get
cloudy?  It was then that I realized that it hadn't been
Naline talking, and it hadn't been a cloud that blocked the
sun, it was a huge... something.  Gray.  Big.  A great big
elephant!  Cheez louise!  She was standing not three feet
from us, looking down at us between a pair of great big
tusks.  Naline's eyes were big as planets, taking in the
massive bulk that was the lady elephant.


  She looked more annoyed than angry, so I figured we'd
probably hadn't landed on her kid or anything when we'd
fallen in the lake.  I sat up as best I could and tried my
best diplomatic tone.  "How may we help you, madam?"

  "Look here, you," she emphasized each word by poking me in
the chest with her trunk, making sure she had my complete
attention.  "We have trouble enough traversing the savanna
what with zebras and all stampeding around, without
having..." she gave us a disdaining glance, "people mucking
about in one's drinking water."

  "Look, I'm sorry, we didn't mean..."  She didn't even let
me finish my sentence.

  "We try to keep things clean," she rolled her eyes and
waved her trunk in the general direction of the lake, "but
there's always some hoodlum or another sloshing around,
dirtying up the water."

  "Hey, it was an accid..."

  "What would you do if I just went over to your water hole
and started kicking up the mud and making it undrinkable,
eh?"  She poked me in the chest once again.  "You wouldn't
like it, would you?"


  "Well, no, actually, we..."

  "Just shoo!"  She waved her trunk as if she were waving a
fly away.  She turned her head away and dismissed us with a
sneer.  "Go on with you."

  "Look, lady,"  I was having just about enough of her rude
arrogance.  She was getting on my last nerve, and I was
gonna let her know it.

  "Shoo!"  This time, her tone meant business, and I decided
it would be a better idea to get moving along.  I collected
Naline, who was stuck shoulder-deep in silt, and awkwardly
attempted to slop out of the mud bank.  I tried moving one
foot, and then the other, but they wouldn't move properly.  I
stomped in the mud for a bit, trying to get myself unstuck.
I could tell by the elephant's impatient sighs that I wasn't
moving fast enough for her.

  Naline and I finally managed to slop ourselves out of the
mud bank and onto terra more firma.  We were covered from
head to tail with mud in various stages of dryness and
hardness.  We looked like mud monsters from outer space or
something.  Definitely not our most presentable moment.

  "Go on!"  A little ways behind the elephant, we noticed a
whole herd apparently waiting for the boss lady to get rid of
us nuisances.  "Shoo!"  Naline and I turned in the general
direction of the Rock and traipsed away in the sun.


  As we walked away, the rest of the herd moved in.  There
were maybe fifteen of them, drinking, sloshing, and rolling
about in the muddy shore.  The sounds of frolicking and
merriment disappeared behind us as we topped a nearby hill.

  "Who do they think they are?"  Naline was livid, furious at
the indignities we had suffered.  "Why those overgrown..."

  "Shhh, they've got good hearing, Kitten.  Keep it down."

  She lowered her tone, but not the heat of her ire.  "You
would have thought we were bugs, the way she treated us."

  "Look, just keep walking and be quiet."  I walked as
nonchalantly as I could and waved my hand to hurry her
along.

  "What?"  I bet she was wondering whose side I was on.


  "Shhh.  Just trust me.  Keep walking and get ready to run."
I tried my hardest to suppress a giggle and waved her along
again.

  "Huh?"  If her expression was any indication, Naline was
perplexed, confused and puzzled all at the same time.

  "Just..." I vainly tried to hold the laughter in, hurting
my delicate pulmonary system in the process.  I tried holding
both hands over my mouth, but even that failed.

  "What's going on?"  She kinda half frowned and half smiled,
wanting to know what the joke was, and trying to figure out
if I'd gone completely bonkers.

  "When we left the water..." a bit of a chuckle escaped my
best efforts to suppress it, "...I dropped in..." I started
a half trot as I vainly tried to breathe normally because I
knew that very, very soon...

  A chorus of surprised and angry trumpeting blasted in from
over the hill.  Splashing, running, and near-panicked
shouting and yelling all mixed with outrage came in loud and
clear from the near distance.  The elephants didn't sound
very happy at all.


  "What?"  Naline was nearing panic herself.  "Cruz!  What
did you do?"

  "I dropped in..." I couldn't hold it anymore and burst out
in hysterical laughter, "an bitter bomb!"

  "A what?!?"

  "A bitter bomb!  It's harmless, but it makes the water
taste like last year's lemons."  The stuff I'd used had
actually been outlawed in some of the more civilized worlds
because of its unbelievable efficacy at turning nice, pure
water into the foulest, bitterest, most undrinkable liquid
imaginable.  It dissipated after a day or two, but it sure
stunk up the place in the meanwhiles.  Hey, those rude
elephants deserved it!

  Naline's swift mind quickly realized both the effects and
implications of what I'd done.  Her realizations came into
sharper focus when Ms. Big Boss Lady came tearing over the
top of the hill, as enraged as I've ever seen an elephantess
be.  She looked as if she'd just drunk a supertanker full of
vinegar, and she didn't look very happy about it.

  "Cruz?"


  "Yeah?"

  "Maybe we better run."

  We tore off, running like crazy, with Ms. Mad Elephant
chasing us in a most undignified way.  It probably made her
madder that Naline and I were laughing hysterically as we ran
for the hills.

  I don't know of you've ever had a lady elephant chasing
you, steadfast in her intent to squish you into the ground
like a bug.  In case you haven't, I must recommend it as a
most marvelous and effective way to make you run as
expeditiously and earnestly as you ever have before.

  Lioness, mercenary and elephant ripped across the savanna,
leaving a trail of dry mud, flying grass, uncontrollable
laughter, angry cursing, and torn grasslands in their wake.
Fortunately for us, Ms. Boss Lady was soon overcome with the
choking, coughing, eye-watering and all around unpleasant
effects of the foul stuff I'd dropped into the water.  She
abruptly abandoned chase, hacking and wheezing, giving us
the angriest glare I've ever seen.  If looks could kill,
every living creature on the side of the continent where
Naline and I were standing would have instantly perished.

  Naline and I didn't want to chance Boss Lady regaining her
breath, so we ran and ran, almost falling over each other
from laughing and running.  It must have been ten minutes or
more before we stopped to catch our breaths under a baobab
tree.


  We panted and wheezed and gasped and laughed.  My sides
hurt like crazy from running and Naline was panting like a
pack of dogs.  It was unanimously decided that we should find
a supply of water very soon, else we'd both die from thirst
and exhaustion.  Naline knew of a nearby pond, so we marched
over directly.

  It was a nice, clear pond, ringed all around with huge,
shady trees.  When I say clear, I not only mean that it was
free of mud and silt; I also mean that it was clear of
crocodiles, hippopotamuses, and mean, rude herds of
elephants.  That's important when one not only needs to drink
huge amounts of water, but also needs to wash off large
amounts of dry clay caked in one's hair.  We were covered
with hardened mud from head to toe.  Naline looked like
walking pottery.

  We drank and drank like crazy.  Surprisingly enough, the
water was cool and fresh; something rare in this part of
Naline's world.  I wasn't about to complain, though.  We
drank water enough for eight pairs of mercenaries and young
lionesses.

  "Aaahhh."  Naline had sated her thirst and she plopped on
the shady ground, belly up and a grin on her face.

  "Ahem."  I tapped her paw, getting her attention.

  "What?"


  "We gotta wash off all the mud."

  "So?"  I pointed at the water.  Naline quickly realized
what I meant.  "No!  I don't like water!"

  "Come on, into the drink."  Before she could get herself
upright and escape, I quickly seized the reluctant lioness.
You would have thought I was gonna throw her in a pond full
of piranhas, the way she was struggling to get away.  She
twisted and contorted and kicked her little legs in the air.
In the end, it availed her for nothing.

  "Noooo!"  Ker-splush!  In she went.

  "Don't squirm, it makes it harder to wash off the mud."
She fought me like the fierce creature that she was, clawing
and struggling as best she could.  But when she realized that
I wasn't letting go 'till she was clean and mud-free, she
gave up and let me decontaminate her.  I rubbed and scrubbed
and laundered her until she was good as new, shiny and
squeaky clean.

  When I judged her to be unmudified enough, I set her back
on shore, much to her relief.  She looked immaculate and in
mint condition, as if she'd never been out of the box.
Naline hadn't been very happy about being bathed in such an
un-leonine fashion, but even she had to admit that licking
all the mud off herself would have been most unpleasant.


  We left the pond, headed back towards her Rock in the very
best of spirits.  Naline skipped happily as we went along,
pouncing on insects and tall blades of grass.  I felt as good
as one is supposed to feel when one is on vacation, which is
very good.  Hey, you know what?  Despite things like rude
elephants and stampeding zebras, there are pretty good times
to be found in the savanna grasslands when you're with your
best Kitten friend.

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