The Lion Who Stole My Arm Read Online Free PDF

put a radio collar on Anjani, not to kill him.
    “Renaldo will use the collar to check where the lion goes, and if it comes toward the village, he will warn us,” Issa said.
    “It’s a big opportunity for us,” Renaldo explained, “to study a lion we know has been a problem in the past.”
    “Yeah,” John said. “We want to see if they can be reformed. But I think you already reformed Anjani when you hit his head, Pedru.”
    Pedru didn’t smile.
    In return for the risk of leaving the lion alive, the researchers were going to help the village to keep safe from lion attacks in the future.
    “We will help build shelters and fences that can keep people and animals safe from lions,” Beth said.
    Pedru listened in silence.
What do I get in return for my arm,
he thought,
if the lion who stole it goes without punishment?
    Beth leaned around as she drew the Land Rover to a stop. “Are you OK, Pedru?”
    Pedru nodded, but inside, he told his lion,
I’m getting closer. And my spear is here, under my seat, lion!

T hey searched all day without seeing so much as a single paw print — only a few waterbuck 1 and some birds. That night they camped, cooked canned food over the fire, and talked. The researchers and Issa swapped stories about wildlife and the bush.
    Pedru half listened, half slept. He heard Beth say that she had raised an orphan lion cub when she was ten and John say that he was an expert at shooting lions with a tranquilizer gun. He thought he heard Issa say that he’d been chased by a herd of crocodiles. He thought he heard that Renaldo’s cousin was a rich soccer player who was going to build a safari lodge at Madune. “So people from the city can come and see lions,” Pedru thought he remembered Renaldo saying.
    But when Issa lay down in the tent next to him and Pedru asked sleepily if crocodiles ever chased people in herds, Issa just laughed, so Pedru knew he must have dreamed about Renaldo’s brother, too.
    The next morning, they struck camp before dawn, everyone quietly doing what needed to be done. Already, they were a team.
    “That John, he is a good man,” Issa told his son as they took down their tent. “He knows almost as much about the bush as I do.”
    As he put the tent onto the roof of the vehicle, John told Pedru quietly, “I wish I had half of your dad’s tracking skill. And you’re no slouch yourself.”
    Pedru smiled, but inside he felt bad. He liked John and Beth and Renaldo so much, but would they like him if they knew how he felt about his lion?
    Pedru had the best eyes, so he was put on lookout, clinging to the roof of the Land Rover.
    “Vultures!” he yelled when they were too faint and far for anyone else to see. Everyone knew that vultures could mean a lion kill.
    “That way!” Pedru directed Beth. She drove as fast as she dared — sliding, skidding, bumping.

    “Beth could have been a race-car driver in another life,” John said as she swerved to avoid a tree stump.
    The vultures were closer now. Everyone could see them, as well as a dark clump of animals on the ground below. Beth parked the Land Rover in the shade of a tree, and everyone got out quietly and climbed onto the roof with Pedru.
    “Take a look, Issa,” John said, handing Issa his binoculars. Pedru squinted into the light, impatient to make out what was going on under the spiraling wheel of vultures.
    “Here,” said Beth. “Have mine. I need to take pictures anyway.”
    Over the last day or so, Pedru had had some practice with binoculars, but he still spent the first few moments getting spider images of his own eyelashes. There! Now he had it. The thrill of being able to see faraway things so clearly made his heart race with excitement.
    Lions! Two of them. Young males with growing manes. They had killed a young waterbuck, probably just before dawn, but were now having to defend their kill from a crowd of hyenas. The two lions snarled and spat in fury, and the hyenas heckled and snapped, getting closer