I fell asleep somewhere along the way and woke up when the bus came to a stop. “Are we here?” I asked.

“Looks like it,” Kgalalelo said.

Peggy stood at the front of the bus. “Listen up. Each cabin takes four people. Group yourselves in fours, no mixed sex groups please. Modise?” She looked around for her assistant but he’d already got off the bus. She yelled out the door for him in a sharp way. Modise slowly made his way back onto the bus. You could tell from Peggy’s face that she didn’t like Modise to disobey her. “Modise, please register the names of the children as they have allocated themselves to cabins.”

I stood up and turned to Ndu and Adelaide. “Us three and my new friend, Kgalalelo? Okay?”

“Sounds good to us,” they said. Kgalalelo smiled at me.

We got off the bus and queued in front of Modise. I liked him already. I hated to see people bullied and you could tell Peggy bullied him. He was probably only about nineteen or so, only three or four years older than us.

I got to the front of the queue. “Hi. Your names please,” Modise said, smiling. He had a sweet smile.

“I’m Mimi, Mimi Warona. The other girls are Adelaide, Ndu and Kgalalelo.”

He looked for our names on his print-out. “Okay great.” He handed me a key. “It’s cabin ten, the one at the far end.”

“Thanks Modise,” I said, smiling. “We’ll see you later then.”

When we were away a bit Ndu pushed up next to me, jabbing me in the ribs with her elbow. “Already making moves on the assistant, eh? You don’t let up.”

I laughed. “He’s cute. We’ve got a month here; might as well make it worthwhile.”

The camp was right in the bush, no fence around it. There were twenty cabins in all, girls’ ten on one side, boys’ ten on the other. Ours was the very last one on the end of the girls’ row. One step out of our door and you were in Sir Lion’s and Madam Rhino’s sitting room. We were warned at dinner not to move around at night. They told us that though the animals mostly stayed away from the camp we should be cautious.

Our cabin had two sets of bunk beds. Adelaide and I took the upper bunks and Kgalalelo and Ndu the lower. I was just happy we were not in tents. Ndu locked the door. “Should I blow out the lamp?” she asked.

We were all exhausted from the drive and so much fresh air. We’d met the camp teachers and some of the other campers. Everything would start in earnest the following day, when we were meant to be up at six am.

Ndu blew the paraffin lamp out and used her torch to find her bed. When she switched it off the cabin was pitch black. Completely dark, and far too quiet for my liking.

I was just dozing off when I heard something. It vibrated the room. A deep, low, guttural roar. Adelaide turned on her torch. Her voice shaking, she said in a whisper, “What is that?”

“I think it’s a lion,” Ndu said from underneath her. “It’s far away. It can’t trouble us.”

I covered my head with my blanket and held my torch in my hand. It didn’t sound that far away. And what did Ndu know about lions anyway? It roared a few more times and then it went quiet. I must have fallen asleep for a bit.

But then there was a loud roar, much nearer now, and a crashing through the bush. The sound of branches breaking and rocks being kicked. And then two loud thumps against our door. The door rattled but it didn’t open. I stared at the door and held my blanket like a shield against me.

Then it was quiet. We all dashed to Ndu’s bed. The four of us sat huddled, unable to move, or speak. We breathed shallowly for fear of being heard. I was sure I could hear something waiting outside the door. Waiting for us to open for it. We sat like that through the entire night waiting; waiting for someone to save us in the morning.

***

Tell us what you think: How would you feel if you were in that cabin? What would you do?