But Lions aren’t lazy, are they? I hear you ask. The answer would be no, not normally, but there are always exceptions to any rule, and our friend Levi is it!
Levi’s pride lives not far from Geoff’s place out on the vast African savannah. As the only child of Lavinia and Lorenzo lion, Levi is quite spoilt and often gets away with a multitude of misdemeanours. He is impossibly disorganised and untidy, which is not helped by the borderline OCD of his poor mother who finds it is easier and quicker to tidy up after him herself rather than wait for lazy Levi to do it!
As you can imagine, Levi’s stuff is often to be found littered over a large area of the family’s territory as things tend to stay wherever he drops them…whether it’s an empty crisp packet or his hockey stick, there it lies until either Lavinia, Vince the vulture or some other more industrious creature picks it up. This often leads to much of his “dropped” stuff disappearing completely and his parents are quite at their wits end with constantly having to fork out to replace the things he’s lost.
And so it is that on this particular morning, Lorenzo, who is trying to rouse his sleeping son in order that he is not late for school yet again, doesn’t see Levi’s carelessly abandoned bicycle on the floor, trips and completely loses his balance coming crashing down close to where Levi himself is slumbering soundly. The huge thud produced by a 400-pound adult lion hitting the deck is enough to wake even Levi and he sits up in bed rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
“What on earth…” he mumbles sleepily, and then he sees the tangle of his father and the bicycle on the bedroom floor. Levi stares at the scene and is immediately hugely ashamed of himself, lazy and messy he may be, but unkind or insensitive he definitely is not.
“I’m so sorry Dad, are you alright?”
“Do I look alright?!” retorts an angry Lorenzo, trying to untangle his tail from the bicycle chain. ”For goodness sake Levi, tidy your room this instant and get ready for school!” he continues crossly. He has now freed his tail and is examining a large lump which has come up on the side of his head in the bedroom mirror.
Levi slinks guiltily out of bed and starts creeping round the bedroom slowly retrieving clothes, toys and other discarded possessions from the floor. He would really have to pull himself together and try to be more organised and less lazy. The thought that it was somehow his fault that his dad had fallen and hurt himself was very uncomfortable for Levi and in this moment, he vows to himself to try harder.
On the way to school a little while later, Levi is chatting with his mate Geoff, (our friend the Giraffe, in case you had forgotten!), who, Levi has noticed, seems to be much more organised these days and rarely loses anything.
“What’s the crack mate?” he asks his tall friend. “You used to lose even more stuff than me, and now you seem to be able to hang on to everything”
“Well, it’s much easier now I have these…” Geoff rummages in his school bag and pulls out his scarf and holds it up to show the cool name label his mother has stuck onto it for him.
“Look, it has my name and picture on it, so even if I don’t remember to pick it up, then at least the person who does will know it belongs to me so they can give it back” he explains brightly.
“That’s a fantastic idea and its such a cool label too!” Levi can’t wait to tell his parents about this new discovery.
That evening, we got the call from Lavinia lion and we quickly prepared and dispatched Levi’s name labels to her.
That was a couple of months ago now and there has been quite a transformation since then…not only has the lump on Lorenzo’s head disappeared completely, but Levi has also actually managed not to lose anything at all recently! He is still pretty lazy and somewhat untidy, but does make sure larger items are put safely out of harms way…so just maybe he is learning. We can hope…
