Maurice & Friends

The opening of Roy Lee Simba and Bertram Baboon’s play was a gala evening all around. The Lawrence Leoparde Center for the Arts pulled out all the stops in a festive and exciting first night performance. Superstar was an immediate hit. The star and director were given many curtain calls with bouquets tossed on the stage. Janice Jaguar Simba managed to attend despite her recent birth of three cubs. I was so pleased for my dear friend and former lover, Bertram. He had managed to ace films and now the stage with an original play.

Though Janice looked a little tired, the couple hosted a late night party at their estate on Leoparde Drive. This was after the cocktail dinner which follows the last curtain call at the center. There were some family members, close friends and associates. The group included Lachlan, Bertram, Gloria Chimpo and me. Betty and Shane Simba were present as well. The presidential couple had attended the performance, causing much interest, Betty resplendent in a maternity evening gown.

The President and First Lady at the first night of Superstar.....

“You’ve got to talk sense to him, Maury,” wailed Betty Simba.

We were in her office in the State House. Betty was terribly upset at the fact that her husband was going to Somalia to attempt a parlay with what passed as a government in that rogue state. Attacks had been made in Kenya on drivers in the bush country. Kenya shares a border with Somalia. Recently an American missionary had been killed. The attacks were becoming more frequent. Insurgents from Somalia had also caused trouble in our capital of Nairobi. These thugs are known as Shifta’s and can be very deadly on hapless citizens.

“I can’t dissuade Shane, Betty. He is determined and he is the president. I can only encourage him to take someone with him. He turned down my offer,” I told the distraught pregnant wife of our leader.

“Maybe Sloane will go too,” she sobbed.

She buzzed Sloane’s office and he came down right away. He saw that Betty was in tears and, naturally, inquired as to the reason.

“Shane is going to that horrendous Somalia to try to talk to whoever runs it. He’ll be killed, Sloane,” she wailed.

“I’m going with him, Betty. I wouldn’t let him go alone into that country,” assured Sloane.

“Oh, thank you so much, Sloane.”

The next morning, very early, the helicopter took Shane and Sloane to the government airstrip where they would take a small plane to the border of Somalia. A tearful Betty clung to her husband, almost failing to release him to go on his mission. Shane had asked me if I would come early that morning, knowing that his wife was stressed about this trip. As the helicopter lifted off, I tried to comfort the distraught Betty - to no avail. She was in such a state that I called the Exotic Clinic and told them of her condition. Dr. Frank Tigeres, that wonderful animal, came himself to sedate Betty. I spent the night in the guest room of the state mansion.

Three days passed without word of Shane Simba or his brother, Sloane. I was afraid Betty would go into premature labor at the misery she was undergoing. Newspapers and television shouted the news of our president’s brave mission to attempt some sort of cessation of the violence in Kenya as a result of Somali insurgents. Pictures of Shane and Sloane were all over the news. Finally, Betty spoke with reporters gathered on the front lawn of the State House. I spoke with them also. Caroline Cheetah Leoparde had arranged the press conference. I could sense her own stress in the fact that her true love, Sloane Simba, was part of the deal.

On the sixth day, a droning sound filled the air over the State House. I ran out to see the official helicopter descending to the landing pad. I called to Betty and Caroline. They joined me on the lawn. We all three, I can be sure, were holding our collectives breaths. Out of the helicopter emerged Shane’s Masai guards. I saw Betty’s hand fly to her breast. She looked frightened. Then Shane came into view followed by Sloane. Betty, though heavily pregnant, ran to her husband. She was followed by Caroline who grabbed Sloane around the neck, giving him a huge hug. You would have thought Caroline was married to Sloane Simba, not the pregnant wife of Leland Leoparde. Betty wouldn’t let go of Shane long enough for him to come to the State House. She stood there clinging to him and weeping tears of relief. He asked Caroline to call a press conference for that afternoon.

That afternoon Shane Simba told the gathered reporters that he was mobilizing pertinent units in the Kenyan military and placing them on our border with Somalia. Several of our warships were now off the coast of Somalia in international waters. Kenya also shares a coast line of the Indian Ocean with her neighbor.

“I tried to reason with them as much as possible but due to the fact that Somalia is a rogue state, I can never tell how much affect this will have,” he told those assembled. “When you have a nation like this on your border, you cannot be too cautious.”

When the press conference was finished, he called Lewis Lyon and gave him a government contract to build military bases and housing in two locations on our border with Somalia.

“Oh, Shane, I wish you weren’t the president. I fear for your life,” Betty told her husband as they sat in their bedroom with a cozy fire blazing to ward off the night’s chill.

“Betty, it is my destiny to be the President of Kenya. You knew this when you married me.”

“I suppose it’s the trouble with Somalia that makes me so frightened for you.”

“I think it also may be your being pregnant that makes you a little on the wimpy side,” he laughed.

“I just can’t ever lose you,” she said, moving even closer to him.

Caroline went home after the reunion with Sloane in his office. She made herself a strong drink and awaited her husband’s arrival. She watched television with her cub, Sunny, for a bit and tried to work past the melancholy she felt at not being married to Sloane Simba. Then Leland came through the door, putting his arms around her. Sunny rushed to greet his stepfather. Leland was so cheerful, upbeat and loving that Caroline’s aching heart melted. She made him a delicious dinner and they watched television together. The next day they went to check the progress on their new bush home.

Staci Simba sat on the plane between Juma Mnyama and Lisa Lyon Leo. The air was bumpy with roiling clouds. A newcomer was aboard. Lachlan Lion had given Dr. Cary Caracal a pass to go with the AIDS team to a village not too far from the troubled border with Somalia.

After a particularly bumpy flight the small plane put down on a poorly paved airstrip near the tiny village. The party deplaned and was driven to the village by jeeps belonging to UNESCO. During the middle of the night, Staci, sharing a tent with Cary Caracal, heard shots. Suddenly the village was in an uproar. More gun fire was heard and then all was quiet. Staci and Cary remained hunkered down in the tent. Juma Mnyama entered to check on them, giving them the news that Somalis who had crossed the border and raided the camp taking food supplies and morphine. The next day was a test of nerves for the AIDS team. They set up their stations as if no disturbance had occurred the night before. Staci assisted Juma with his injections and medications then went with him to the homes of the stricken that had no strength left to join the lines of those seeking treatment. The day after this, the Kenyan army entered the village to take testimony on what had transpired with the Somali attack. A battalion stayed behind to protect the UNESCO team and group of doctors and helpers. Shane got his daughter on the phone to make sure she and the rest of her group were unharmed.

“I wonder if your father will take Kenya into war against the Somalis?” wondered Juma one evening over a very sparse meal of what had been left after the raid.

“I don’t know. I really don’t discuss politics with him,” answered Staci in complete candor.

“The Somalis are a bad lot these days. Their people are suffering under this reckless bunch that passes for a government now. The Islamic extremists are getting a foothold there.”

A relieved Shane saw his daughter arrive safely with the rest of the AIDS team. He grilled her that evening at dinner about the raid. However, Staci, who had stayed safely in her tent, knew little other than what the villagers had reported the next day. She knew that Juma had tackled one Somali ruffian to rescue the morphine that was so badly needed for the dying and pain wracked.

In these days when Kenya was dancing around the edges of war with Somalia, Shane Simba was gone a great deal. He was flying around the country bolstering the esteem and morale of the armed forces. Sometimes he took me, others he would ask Sloane to accompany him. I could see the brothers’ bond tighten perceptibly. I often mused that when Sam Simba, Shane’s litter mate, was in that ministerial post, it had failed to draw them closer. When Sam resigned and was replaced by Sloane, the connection was almost immediate. I chalked this up to the fact that Shane and his half-brother were a great deal alike. Both were ambitious with a cutting edge brilliance and wit. On one such trip, Jane the lioness reporter from the Masai Mara Daily joined them. The threesome drank a good deal after the day’s activities. Shane and Sloane were given a deluxe barracks to themselves. The two brothers had a drunken threesome with the lioness who no longer went with Luke Leoparde. Jane, being a circumspect sort, failed to write that matter in her reportage of the trip. Although, if one had been aware they would have gotten a hint from Jane’s almost flowery descriptions of the president and his justice minister brother. Although having turned off citizens, Maude Hyena and Dodi Dik Dik Lyon, Shane Simba gained a devoted fan in the hard-bitten lioness reporter. From that day forward, Jane, who is the head of the news department at the Mara Daily, would only sing the praises of our second lion president in print.

Shane visits a naval base in Mombasa....

Betty would wait for her husband in the comfort of the state mansion, watching newscasts of his activities. She would go to an early bed, her hand on her swelling belly where his son lay nestled below her heart. She would listen for the sounds that heralded the approach of his presidential helicopter. On the weekends, they would take their family and go to the bush house or the new home in Mombasa.

Betty and Shane caught by the paparazzi in Mombasa

The Simba Garden Center, under the management of Sidney and Alexander Simba, was becoming quite lucrative. They had contracted to Lewis Lyon to landscape his building projects. Linking with Lewis was best of the best. Lewis Lyon had already surpassed the Leoparde family in wealth as reported by ANIMAL FORTUNE. Dr. Cary Caracal Simba was back at home with her husband, Sidney. She attended classes held by Dr. Juma Mnyama to enrich those working with AIDS patients. The new wing of the Lawrence Leoparde Memorial Mental Health Center was now complete and operative. This addition was for AIDS and HIV patients. Cary began that week as a counselor for those virus victims that were sent to the center to get help in facing the difficulties of living with the deadly disease. Being ensconced again in her vocation of psychiatry, Cary worked in dedicated fashion to build a marriage with Sidney, who was also happy in his occupation. Things were beginning to look up for the troubled couple who had wed and commenced their marriage under rocky circumstances.

Sloane Simba, accompanying Shane on most of his official trips within Kenya, had little time to grieve for his loss of Caroline. He and Shane were on a whirlwind tour of Kenya, rallying support for a possible war with Somalia. When he did lay his tired head on the pillow at night, thoughts were of Caroline but were swiftly lost in a deep sleep.

Shane, being wearied from his travels, was not much company for his wife these days. Most nights, exhausted from a day or overnight trip to Kenya’s villages, towns and military bases, he would drop into bed and fall asleep immediately. She would listen to his easy breathing and pray for these troubled times to cease so they could indulge in their coming first child together.

Bertram came to visit one evening. Lachlan was working late. I gave Bertram some delicious soup I had prepared for a tired Lachlan when he finally got off duty at the mental health center.

“These are trying times, Maurice. It looks as if we may have war with our neighbors.”

“It does seem that way. Shane is gone all the time now bolstering the country’s morale.”

“Yes, he is on the magazine covers, many times in one of his revealing Speedo swimsuits. One thing the world knows by now is that our leader is very well endowed.”

I had to laugh at this. Shane, being something of a hunky world leader, was often caught by the paparazzi in his bathing suit.