The striped Lion

There was something peculiar about this lion. It was not as if he was lazy, because he did hunt with the pride, but not always. He did hunt the wild boar, the gazelles and the wilderbeest. But when it came to zebras, he simply turned statue. It was as if the zebras held some kind of spell on him, as if they hypnotized him in some way.

And indeed they did.

It was not the way they gazed or the scent they gave off. It was their stripes. Ever since Rufus had set his eyes on his first zebra, he couldn't get the stripes off his mind. It was not a passing fantasy or a seasonal wish, it was a really, really serious wish: the zebra's stripes.

It was a strange wish indeed. A zebra's stripes for a lion! But that was his wish. So, when Rufus heard about the Wishing Tree, he knew he had to find it.

Word went round like it always did in the jungle, a hiding boar overheard Rufus telling a fellow lion, who in turn told the squirrel, who while hunting for nuts told the bird and so on, until it reached Bozo, the monkey.

Always ready to help, Bozo told Rufus that he knew where the Wishing Tree was and that he could help Rufus get there. So Bozo and Rufus set off towards the Wishing tree. Bozo chatted away all through the journey telling Rufus about other animals who had their wish granted: the elephant who had turned pink, the hippopotamus who could sing like a nightingale and the tortoise who could fly!
When Rufus and Bozo reached the Wishing Tree, Rufus saw a warning sign, which said, "Be careful what you wish for, because it might come true!" Strange, isn't it? A wish after all is for coming true, isn't it?

But Rufus didn't pay attention to it; he cleared his throat and wished his strange wish aloud. Rufus and Bozo waited with bated breath. Few seconds passed. But nothing. A few more seconds passed. Yet nothing. And a few more seconds passed. Still nothing.  
Then suddenly, Rufus felt tingling sensations. And pouf! Rufus' handsome lion coat and mane was suddenly transformed into zebra stripes! He roared with joy and Bozo clapped her hands in glee!

A lion with stripes! Well, you can quite imagine what a sight it was in the jungle of Banku. And you could say, Rufus' pride was written all over his coat! Strange as it was, everyone in the jungle admitted that Rufus' coat even outdid the zebra's! It shone brightly, as if someone ran a brush coat through it every day; the black and white stripes were perfect in symmetry and strangest of all, it did look good on a lion! As for Rufus, he couldn't stop grooming himself.

But you can't live on your coat alone, can you? A lion has to hunt after all. And that's where all the troubles began. It happed one day that the lions chanced upon a group of gazelles grazing peacefully. They approached the group stealthily, the tall straw-colored grass working as a perfect camouflage. Suddenly the gazelles noticed a stark black and white animal and off they darted. As you can imagine, Rufus' zebra coat had given them away! It happened once or twice in the beginning, and then it became more and more regular. And finally, the lions broke the bad news to Rufus: He couldn't stay with them anymore.

Alone in the jungle, it was not long before Rufus realized his foolishness. So, he went back to the Wishing Tree and wished his old coat back. But there was no miracle this time; a wish is a wish after all.

Rufus grew thin and weak until a herd of zebras accepted him. And thus, Rufus started a new life. He helped the zebras stay away from the lions and kept them safe, and they in turn taught him to eat grass! He had found a new family, never mind that they couldn't roar, had no pride or no mane.

But sometimes, when all was seemingly quiet in the jungle, he did miss the wide yawn, which really scared the zebras or the deafening roar, which would definitely make them wish they were dead and most of all, he wished he could exchange the boring and tasteless grass for a juicy piece of meat. And it was in those times that he remembered the warning sign on the Wishing Tree, which said, "Be careful what you wish for, because it might come true!"