Simba: Meeting Stripe and Getting Settled

Here I present the next part of Simba's story. The conversation between the felines is obviously made up; however, I feel that there is some truth in what I imagine must have transpired between Simba and Stripe during their first meeting and later during their time together. Enjoy!

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When I woke up, the afternoon sun was streaming in. The sound of bugs buzzing and birds singing reached me through the open windows. I yawned, stretched, and rolled over. Everything was peaceful and quiet. I watched the dust specks floating in the sun for a while. Then I got bored, so I looked around.

The fire was out and the humans weren’t nearby. The grey cat wasn’t there either. I felt stronger and slowly, I stood up. My legs wobbled but I didn’t fall down. I took a few steps. I was on something soft. I walked over to the edge and looked down. Whoa! The ground was very far away and I felt dizzy. I must be on a soft wall, I decided. I had walked on walls before, with my mommy. They were always so high, just like this one, but they were never soft. I sat down and wondered if I would ever see my mommy again.

Suddenly, I felt that someone was watching me. I turned around, and not far, the grey cat was sitting on the wall and looking at me.

“Hello,” he said, casually. He sounded like a gentlecat.

“Hi,” I managed to meow back.

“I was watching you sleep. You look like you’ve had a rough time.”

 “I lost my mommy,” I said. And then I told him my whole story.

He didn’t make a single move. He didn’t even blink his eyes. He just listened quietly. When I finished, he said,

“I’m sorry. I know how it feels. I lost my mom too.”

I looked at him, wonderingly. 

He continued, “I was much older than you. But it still hurt the same.”

“Was it Meg who found you?” I asked.

“Yes. Well actually, no. It was more like I found her. But let’s not talk about the past. Tell me, are you hungry?”

I told him that I wasn’t. He asked if I wanted to see the place.

“Yes,” I answered, “But I can’t get off this wall.”

His whiskers twitched, and then he burst out laughing. He actually fell off the wall because he was laughing so hard! I did not understand. I looked at him questioningly.

“You silly fellow. This isn’t a wall. It’s a sofa.”

“Sofa?” I asked.

“Yes, a sofa. The humans sit on it when they want to relax. Sometimes they even take naps on it like me.”

I was very interested. I liked learning about new things. But the grey cat was still thinking about showing me the house.

“So you can’t get down. Okay then, I’ll go get Meg.” And he sauntered away.

A few minutes later he was back with Meg. I couldn't figure out how he made her understand what he wanted. I asked him, but he just smiled in a mysterious way and didn’t say anything. Meg sat down beside me.

“You’re finally awake,” she said, scratching my tummy. “Did you sleep well?”

I pulled at her fingers.

“Oh, you want to play, you little fur-ball. That’s a good sign. It means you’re getting better already.”

She put me down on the ground. “Let’s see you walk.”

I wobbled over to the grey cat. “Um, can I call you Mr. Grey?”

“You may if you want,” he said, with his nose in the air. “But Meg, she calls me Stripe.”

Meg interrupted us with a laugh. She clapped her hands and said,

“Friends already, huh? I knew that my Stripe has a heart of gold.” 

And she picked him up squeezed him in a hug. I wondered what she would call me. The same thought seemed to cross her mind because she called out to her brother,

“Jack, come see this little guy. He’s awake and it’s time we pick a name for him.”

The boy came and held me in his hands. He turned me over and tickled my tummy. Then he said,

“Look Meg, he’s got four little white socks on each paw. We’ll name him Socks.”

Meg liked the name very much.

“I think it’s a fitting name for this little warrior” she told her brother.

“What does warrior mean, Mr. Stripe?” I asked.

“Don’t worry kiddo. That’s human talk. And, you don’t need to call me Mr.” With that, he settled down on the sofa.

Over the next few days, I got to know the household. Stripe showed me all the rooms in the house. He knew every room, inside and out, and he taught me the names of many things that were new to me. He also told me about Meg and Jack’s mom and dad. He said that they were nice and that they accepted him as a member of their family.

I listened to everything he said. I wanted to learn as much as I could, and I wanted to remember it all. I was feeling better too. My body wasn’t hurting anymore, and my fur was all nice and shiny. Meg and Jack fed me warm milk every few hours, and I was never left hungry. Every night, Meg tucked me into a little, comfy box beside her pillow. I was very happy, and I felt like I was fitting in well with Meg’s family.

Stripe and I became very good friends. We spent most of the day together, wandering around the house and looking at things. He told me that when I fully recovered, he would take me out to meet the neighbourhood cats. Most of them were his friends, he assured me. I wondered about the ones who weren't his friends, but he distracted me with a promise to teach me how to catch fish.

“Fishing is a skill that every gentlecat must have, Socks” he said to me gravely, one evening. “Otherwise, how are you going to feed your family?”

Stripe was a very wise cat, and I respected him very much. He did laugh at me from time to time, but he never wanted to hurt my feelings. He was a good-natured fellow, although he did like to tease me. And he usually got away with it because I didn’t know as much as him. The good thing about Stripe was that he never tired of answering my questions, and soon, my head was full of all the new things he taught me.

One night, about a month after Meg and Jack had found me, Stripe and I were curled up on the window-sill, watching the moon. It was very bright, and it looked almost like the sun.

“Do you know why it looks like that, kiddo? It’s because it’s full.”

“What does it mean, that it’s full?” I asked.

“Ah, I don’t really know. But that’s what Meg told me when I was little. We used to watch the moon together sometimes, you know.”

I listened, as he drawled on, in the quiet night. I liked hearing him talk.

“She’s been a good mother to us both,” he went on. “Before I met her, I thought humans were not nice creatures. But she changed all that. I’m not so prejudiced anymore.”

I did not understand the big word he just used, but I was too drowsy to ask. I was slipping away into dreamland when he shook me gently.

“By the way, I heard her telling Jack that you are going to start eating solid food from tomorrow. That means tuna, and cream, and a whole bunch of yummy stuff.”

“Is it all that tasty?” I asked sleepily.

“Why of course it is, kiddo. You’ll love it so much, you won’t want milk anymore.”

“I sometimes see Meg give you milk in a saucer,” I reminded him.

“Oh, that, yeah. What I mean is, you won’t need milk every day because you’ll have other goodies to eat.”

“Now you’re making me hungry, Stripe.”

“Sorry.”

“Well, I’ll have some new dreams tonight.”

He laughed quietly and wished me goodnight. I turned around and went to sleep.

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So this is the first time that I created illustrations myself to accompany my writing; I'm quite new at drawing and I know that the pictures are not perfect, but it's a start, and I hope that they add to the charm of Simba's story. After all, it is a well-known fact that pictures always make reading more fun.

Yours truly,

Ellen Hamilton 💖