On the last afternoon, Samuel spotted something in the grass that the family had missed entirely — a shape so perfectly still it was almost invisible. He slowed the jeep to a whisper and pointed without speaking.
Twenty metres away, a lioness lay stretched out beneath a thorn bush. She was watching them with calm amber eyes, her tail moving slowly back and forth like the second hand of a clock. Behind her, two tiny lion cubs rolled over each other, batting at her tail.
Nobody in the jeep made a sound.
The lioness looked at them for a long, steady moment. Then she blinked, turned her great head, and nudged one of her cubs with her nose. The cub yawned an enormous, ridiculous yawn — all pink mouth and tiny teeth — and Aryan almost laughed out loud but managed to turn it into a squeak.
The mother lioness looked back at the jeep one more time, almost as if to say:these are mine, and I am watching. Then she lay her chin on her paws and closed her eyes.
Samuel drove slowly away. After a while, Priya spoke softly:"She looked at us the same way I look at you when you're asleep, Aryan."
Aryan thought about that. Then he reached over and hugged his mother with both arms, the way he hadn't done in a while because he was ten and thought he was getting too old for hugs.
He decided ten was not too old.