Shane Simba walked the few doors to my office in the State House.

"Can I take a few minutes of your time and ask you about some things, Maurice?"

I welcomed him and he took a chair near my desk.

"I want to endow a scholarship of the arts in Catherine’s memory. Can you help me decide which area? If you don’t mind, I’d like it presented each year at the arts center. It meant so much to her, Maurice."

"That would be superb, Shane. What a marvelous idea. We’ll create a Catherine Simba awards day and present it then."

His eyes filled with tears which he swiftly brushed away.

"I know it is nothing akin to the suffering of you and your children, Shane, but I miss her terribly too. I miss her friendship and the creativity that she leant my memorial to Lawrence. She put the arts center on the map."

"Every day is something of a travail for my children and me.  We'll have to  move past her loss, but it won't be easy and never complete.  I’ll let you make the decision each year where to apply the money for the scholarship, Maurice. I’ll start this year with an endowment of 30,000 British pounds, Sterling."

"That is most generous, Shane. It will educate some young animal or human that desires to study the arts whether it be dance, music or other, such as aspiring painters. Did you prefer it to only be for animals rather than humans?"

"No, Cathy loved some of the native human artists she worked with on exhibits. Let it be for all."

"I will make the arrangements and will get back to you on it. And thank you, Shane. That’s such a meaningful memorial."

"Thank you, Maurice, for giving Cathy that job. It made her so happy."

At the end of the day, I put my head together with Christine Cheetah, our new director and her sister, Chelsea. We decided to name the theater that held the plays and ballets the Catherine Simba Memorial Stage.

The Simba pride went one further. In light of the fact that Shane’s wife had given them many lucrative ideas on their various resorts, having been on their board, they named the huge banquet and meeting rooms at both resorts for her.

Christine Cheetah was fitting nicely into the arts center. She was kind and caring, also endowed with the Cheetah family brains. She had, after all, gotten a degree from a major American University and lived in New York City where she had a very good job. She had just written a book on the Simba pride. Their ire had been short lived since she had not given details of blow jobs and the like that had been the earmark of Betty Chimpo’s tome. Of course the delicious sexual descriptions littering Betty’s book had caused it to go into its third printing. Christine worked well with her leopardess assistant, Amy Chui. Being Chelsea’s best friend and sister, she worked nicely with the peppery ballerina. She also went smoothly with Micah Mbubé who asked her out. Christine decided that to date co-wokers wasn’t the best choice so she declined his offer of dinner. I was pleased at the change in the employees there. They began to hum and whistle about their work again. Whether Christine was capable of the cutting edge ideas of her late sister remained to be seen.

Shane Simba’s next big theater of operations as Vice President turned out to be a summit of world figures such as Nelson Mandela and Bill Clinton. It was to be staged in Cape Town, South Africa. It was to last a week and be held in The Table Bay Hotel on the Victoria and Albert Waterfront. As the well known dignitaries made reservations to attend, Irving Impala and Betty Chimpo decided to stage her news show from there by remote. Wilda Wildebeest, the state house reporter for WMM-TV was to go as well. The issues to be addressed were the environment, AIDS, animal rights and world peace. President Ralph Lyon was to fly down for one day and address the opening session.

Bertram Baboon and I were lunching at OKAPIS. There was a modicum of spare time since the stage setting for the summit was to be in South Africa and I had resolved my leadership crisis at the arts center. Bertram was still working with Chad Cheetah, his live-in lover and playwright, on the adaptation of his next film directing project.

"Leah Lyon is quite the little actress. Roy Lee is tinkled pink," remarked Bertram, popping a buttered radish in his mouth and chewing it noisily. "How is Christine Cheetah doing with your arts center?"

"Better than Caroline, I must say. I dare say she will not have the creative brilliance of Catherine, though. Few do."

"Great loss...Catherine. Dorian and Cynthia certainly have a mixed bag of offspring, don’t they?"

"Yes, they seem to."

"I have never seen an animal get into such deep shit only to surface smelling like a prize winning gardenia, than our dear friend, Betty. I don’t pick up a newspaper these days that I don’t see her in the company of Shane Simba. And then there's that cracker jack plum of a job at the television station."

"She seems to be sort of seeing him these days," I agreed.

"He obviously doesn’t mind having the size of his cock described in colorful detail in her book," observed Bertram.

"Well, since the description was quite flattering, I don’t suppose he does."

"You read it?"

"Of course. And you, Bertram? Did you read it as well?"

"Wouldn’t have missed it for the world. How are you and Lachlan progressing? We need to dine at my house next week. My French chef has devised a divine recipe for liver. It involves copious amounts of onion, mushroom and red wine. A dish to get drunk on. And Chad tells me he enjoys you and Lachlan a great deal.  So let's do that thing."

"We would love to join you. Lachlan and I are doing famously when we are able to get together due to our busy work load. I’m seeing him all next week. He is taking his much needed vacation. I will be off a few days when Ralph and Mildred visit Sylvia and Bernard in Mombasa."

Ralph had picked up the phone in his office to hear the voice of Bernard Cougar.

"I’ve missed you. I’m so used to seeing you every day. Let’s do some fishing," Bernard had teased.

"Berns, can we do dry land? Like in your beach house? You know water scares the shit out of me," roared Ralph to his dear friend.

"Okay, Ralph. We’ll do the house thing. You must bring Milly. We’re having Frank and Melba Tigeres and Dorian and Cynthia Cheetah will be in residence. It’ll be like old times."

"We shall be there, Berns. Thanks for calling. I miss you too."

The first thing Caroline Cheetah did as news director of the Masai Mara Daily was to dress down Lucy Cougar Simba for tossing her cookies in the news room. She chose to rant in front of some co-workers . Not a good thing. Unknown to the strident Caroline was the fact that Sylvia Cougar had loaned Bob Bushbuck the original money to buy the newspaper with her four billion dollar inheritance and foundation she had set up in memory of her late father, Nathan Leoparde. Lucy was feeling faint and nauseas these days due to early pregnancy. When Lucy went to Bob’s office in tears, the owner and publisher was incensed. He called Caroline into his office.

"Caroline, this is a young female that is pregnant. She is Bernard and Sylvia Cougar’s daughter and her mother loaned me the money years ago to buy this paper. But even with that, we don’t harass our pregnant females here. It is not our policy. We honor impending motherhood."

"Sorry, Bob. It won’t happen again."

Ralph One, the presidential 747 Boeing, was on the tarmac in the Masai Mara. News crews were surrounding it,  preparing to cover its imminent departure. Some lucky ones were to accompany the Vice President of Kenya and his party to South Africa to cover the summit. Among those media reporters that boarded the jet after the presidential party were Betty Chimpo and Wilda Wildebeest. Caroline Cheetah was also boarding as representative of the Masai Mara Daily. Little did Bob Bushbuck know that she had angered Shane Simba probably beyond repair that day at the sporting club. As the jet prepared for take off, drinks were served the main party and the reporters. Shane was in a jocular mood, kidding and joking with the various members of the press corps. When his eyes fell on Caroline Cheetah they went flat and he turned away from her.

    The 747 cleared the runway and ascended into a very heavy cloud bank, shaking the liquid in various glasses as it hit  the accompanying turbulence. It lifted above, turning to the south west and toward South Africa. Betty, who was seated not far from the vice president, gazed at the love of her life. He caught her glance and winked at her.

Betty had a midnight drink with Wilda Wildebeest and several other reporters in the elegant main bar of The Table Bay Hotel in Cape Town.  She had staged her news hour by remote, copping former American President, Bill Clinton as her main guest.  It was the first day of the summit and excitement was high.  Among those present were President Ralph Lyon who had made the opening address and then left for Kenya.  Betty was promised by Nelson Mandela that he would be her guest the next evening.  Even the old George Bush was in attendance.  Betty bid the others goodnight and took the elevator to her room.  She wanted to do some more writing on tomorrow's program.  She exited the elevator and saw, standing at her suite door, a Masai warrior. 

"Makuma Rais Simba wants to come to you," he told her.

"Of course," she told Shane's body guard.

    Shane went up the back service elevator to Betty's suite.  She opened the door to let him in.  He grabbed her tightly and covered her face with kisses.  She closed her drapes to preclude any agile paparazzi from snapping  photos.  Glinda Gorilla, the now very jealous entertainment anchor at WMM-TV, hadn't been on  the official plane but one could never discount her presence anywhere there was potential for a sexy scoop.  Shane took off his suit jacket and took a bottle of Scotch from her mini-bar.  He stretched out on her sofa and pulled her on top of him.

"Now, tell me where you got the  name 'Betty'.  Is it short for Elizabeth?"

"No. I was born in Gombe in Tanzania.  My family were part of the study group for Jane Goodall.  I am descended from her original chimpanzee study male, Frodo.  I am his great granddaughter.   My mother was drunk from fermented fruit always so I was not really clear on what she called me.  I took the name 'Betty' when I came to Kenya and the Mara.  Chimpo is just a kick off from chimpanzee."

"You sound like you were raised in a shit hole like me.  Thank goodness, my father was killed by poachers before he kicked Roy Lee out of the pride.  You, of course, know how he pulled us up from the boot straps.  We all lived in various trailers and holes in the ground when I was a cub.  I have very little memory of my dad, the old bastard.   He would get drunk and roar like hell, shining his ass in front of the other males in the pride.  He would get off on kicking dirt with his bare feet in Sam's and my face when we were little.  Sam would cry and I would try to nip his heels.  He always picked me up by the scruff of my neck and threw me to the side.  It got a big laugh out of the other reprehensible pride males.  One day, Roy Lee decided to clean up his act, got famous and married Janice Jaguar.  The rest is Mara history.  He educated us all and built our pride houses.  And here we are," he laughed. 

"And you, the vice president of Kenya," she said, running her fingers through his mane.

"And you are now a world famous author and television personality, thanks to me," he teased. "And your licentious descriptions of our raunchy indiscretions." 

They made love until the early hours of the  morning when he made his way back down the service elevator to his own suite. 

  I joined Lachlan in  Mombasa.  We had been pressed for time until now.  He was on vacation and I took some days off since Ralph and Mildred were here with their old crowd of friends.  During the sun filled days we fished from Lachlan's boat, grilling our catch at night.  We made love in the moonlight that filtered through both master bedrooms in our respective beach homes.  It was an idyllic week and I had a most pleasant surprise when I returned to the Mara. Christine Cheetah, whom I had feared was lacking in Catherine's creativity, was a winner in that department.  She had penned letters to her parents, the Simba Pride Corporation and other well heeled A-Listers, stating that the arts center needed a new theater so as to stage plays and ballets simultaneously.  She told of our desire to name the new addition after Catherine Cheetah Simba.  It was a brilliant idea.  The Simba pride and RUNNERS owned by the Cheetahs, in partnership with Gerald Giraffe, gave such huge donations that the cost was covered almost in its entirety. Lewis Lyon, in his continuing success and civic generosity, pledged to do the contracting free of charge. I was thrilled at my new director and she was very pleased with herself as she should have been. 

Christine Cheetah, new Executive Director of The Lawrence Leoparde Center For The Arts.