Serengeti

This is NOT the same story... don't be confused from the earlier post.

The names need changing - Mona and Miguel do not sound African.

However, read and leave comments. =) thanks.

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The wind blew that day with forcefulness beyond what the small house had ever seen. That is why it fell over, for it was unprepared.
It fell to the mercy of the wind, leaving Mona and her brother Miguel homeless.
Mona was sixteen, Miguel seventeen, and neither of them had much of a chance to survive on their own in the Serengeti.
They had built their house without even considering that the wind might blow it over. Why it had happened, why the wind had come that strong just once, and then disappeared altogether, was a mystery to Mona.
Mona really didn’t have time to contemplate it. Her brother insisted that they pick up the few, shabby remains of their belongings and start to migrate.
“Obviously,” Miguel had said matter-of-factly, “This spot is cursed. We must move.”
That didn’t make sense to Mona. They had thrived on that plot of land for as long as she could remember. And yet…
Miguel had a point.
So they picked up what they had (which wasn’t much anyway) and started across the plains, until they found a spot, like a cave or big tree, to stop.
On the way, Mona got tired and hot, and to keep her mind off the heat, she thought of her mother.
Her mother, and her father, who she really never got to know.
Her mother, who’d been taken by strange soldiers when she was but eight years old, just eight years ago.
Her father, who’d been taken in the same manner.
Right off their own little plot of land.
So maybe Miguel was right. Maybe it was cursed.
That was more painful to think of than the heat and the fatigue. So she focused her mind on the prowling lion in the distance…
There was a prowling lion in the distance.
That wasn’t making the heat easier, either.

Miguel trekked across the endless plain, scoping out a break in the horizon that would indicate a tree or cave.
Miguel spotted a break in the surrounding grass, but not so far as the horizon.
It was close enough to indicate what it was.
And it was no means of shelter.
He turned around slowly to face his sister, knowing she probably saw the predator in the distance, too.

Mona shuddered, but only for a second. She’d been raised by her brother. And she knew what to do.
She wasn’t really afraid of the lion, she’d been taught not to.
She’d been taught to kill it. Fearlessly.
And so, raising her bow and arrow, she deftly did as much, saying simply, “We will feast well tonight.”

Miguel knew the instincts of his sister, and he knew she’d kill it.
But he wondered whether or not she saw the cackling hyenas not too far away, shorter, and less visible in the grass.
When she let the arrow slice through the air, he figured not.

Mona was quite confused when her brother started to yell.
“Writi hatu? What have you done?” he screamed, taking the bow from her hands. “Hatu motep shri lata mesza! You’ll bring the hyenas here!”
"Wri-haut," Mona cursed in her native tongue. She didn’t see them low in the grass (she did now, but now it was too late).
Now, instead of having one giant lion, she had six hungry scavengers.
And she was out of arrows.

Miguel knew that arrow was a waste, and now they couldn’t go through there without being chased. So he headed west, having no better clue where that would take him.

Mona saw a tree far in the distance and suggested to her brother that they stop. The sun was setting, and there wouldn’t be time to go any farther.
Miguel agreed with her, and they reached the tree, having nothing to eat. So they surrounded themselves with the small bundle of belongings they possessed and collapsed onto the earth below them, tired from a long day’s hike in the African sun.
They’d been asleep no more than five minutes when the lions came home for a day’s hunt, to take their rest in the giant tree.

***