Leila was a leopard cub. Like all children, she liked to draw and collect shells from the beach. And she loved basking in the shallow waters of the ocean, watching the sun set over Callipso Island where she lived.

Leila was a leopard, but she wished she was a cheetah. The problem was, leopards did not like cheetahs and cheetahs did not like leopards. That’s just how it was. Cheetahs lived on the other side of Callipso Island, behind the big, grey wall that was a hundred feet tall and a thousand feet long.

Cheetahs were rich and leopards were poor. Cheetahs had enough food to eat, and they lived in tree houses with rope ladders and slides and roof tops with swimming pools. Cheetah children had fun playgrounds with helter-skelter slides made of glass so it felt like you were floating through the air, and swings that whirled you through waterfalls and over cliff edges so it felt like you were flying with the birds. There were no playgrounds or tree houses for the leopards. Leopards did not even have enough food to eat.

Every morning, Leila would lick her breakfast bowl clean of milk, then climb the great olive tree by the giant, grey wall. The olive tree was very old. It was older than her grandfather and her great grandfather. The knobbly branches twisted and turned like a crooked staircase. From the top, Leila could see over the wall. She would watch the cheetah children having fun. Her chest would hurt, wishing so much that she could join them. Climbing down, Leila picked olives that her and her mother would squeeze into olive oil during the evenings.

Leopards were not allowed on the cheetahs’ side of the wall. Tigers and grown-up cheetahs policed it. They stood tall on four legs with sharp teeth and sharp claws, and they would roar fiercely if any leopard tried to pounce over.