A Crocodile's Journey

Chapter 14

"Yeah, or 'humans' if you prefer. They're creatures that live all over the world, and they rule most of it. Like you've probably seen, they walk on two legs, their backs are completely erect, and they have a uncanny resemblance to... primates, but they aren't covered completely in fur."

"All over the world? What do you mean? There are more of those creatures?"

"Millions of them distributed over the world. And like animals, there are different human types, or 'species' if you wish to call it that."

Kitwana was still terrified. "Why do they come to the Pride Lands to kill innocent animals for no reason at all? Or put them in small prisons and take them away?"

Jiji sighed sadly. "That's one type of men: the ones who don't care about animals at all. They're poachers, and they do that to earn money."

"What's money?"

"It's a sort of green paper Men use to obtain new stuff. It's what moves most of them; in a way they need it to survive. I can't really understand the concept either. Anyway, poachers sell those animals, or whatever body part they obtained from an animal corpse, to other men who wish for exotic pets, or to expose them in places called zoos, or for trophies."

There were lots of words the cat was using that made no sense for Kitwana. "What does 'pet' mean?"

"Animals who willingly live alongside humans as companions."

"Are you kidding? Which animal would want to live with those monsters?!"

Jiji raised an eyebrow, annoyed. "Me."

Oops. "S-Sorry, I didn't mean...! But... you're a pet?"

"Actually, you could say cats are in-between being a pet and being wild. There are other animals, like dogs, parrots, hamsters who are completely in the pet area."

"That doesn't explain what is this place."

"Like I said, this is the rehabilitation area. Injured wild animals are brought here to recover and heal, and when they're better they're released back into the wild, or put in a sanctuary if they cannot survive in the wild without human assistance."

"I thought you said poachers sold animals to other humans."

"Oh, right!" Jiji laughed embarrassed. "Indeed, but the men here are not the poachers. They are the opposite: rangers."

"Rangers?"

"Instead of hunting animals for sport or money, they make sure the poachers don't go around hunting and save any injured animals they find, whether they were injured by poachers or not."

Kitwana would have kept asking questions, but he felt his stomach growling. He was starving. "Hey, do you have some food?"

"There's food in there for you, in that plate." Jiji said, signaling to a round, silver object with strange brown pellets. "I must tell you, though, you'll probably not like it the first time, but it's special food for injured birds."

Kitwana approached the plate tentatively, took one of the pellets in his beak and swallowed it. He immediately spat it back out, sticking out his tongue. "It tastes like dirt!"

Jiji couldn't contain a chuckle. "You'll get used to it eventually. When you get even better, they'll feed you real food. But you won't get better if you don't eat."

Reluctantly, Kitwana ate a few more of the brown pellets, doing his best not to taste them. They did sate his hunger, though.

Jiji perked his ears when he heard the door opening, and saw his human coming in. He quickly turned to the chick. "Kiddo, my mistress is here. Trust her, she will help you."