The True Tales of Fib the Lion

After talking to a few readers of WWKNS, I found they wanted to know more about the lion that shows up in chapter two. So, after giving it some thought, I managed to come up with a little more about the lion:

I’d eat a student. I’d eat a student without barbecue sauce, extra cheese, a large drink, and seasoned fries. I’d eat a student without having to make it a combo. I’d eat a student with bubble gum in three-out-of-four pockets and homework in their backpack. Oh, give me one chance and you’d see that I’d eat a student.

Why?

I’m the lion. Not just any lion, but THE LION at Old Ending Preparatory. I’m qualified to eat students because it's what they brought me here to do, and it’s my job, but so far, I’ve only managed to snack on shoes and soggy sack lunches. For the record though, I’d eat a student.

The problem is that nobody wants to be gobbled up by a lion. I mean, I get fed by Mr. Quiet and the security guard named Tiny, but not one student has been willing to let me nibble on a nourishing kneecap or indulge on an incredible index finger. Oh, I’d eat a piece of a student like a student would eat a piece of a bird and a buttery biscuit. Too bad the students at Old Endings Preparatory are stingy with their limbs. Stingy.

Don’t think I’m being greedy or that I don’t care about students. I realize that if the shoe was on the paw, they’d do the same thing to me. Am I lying? Right, so that’s why I’m being honest when I tell you, I’d eat a student.

As you can tell by now, eating students pretty much explains my role at Old Endings Preparatory. I come out of my lair when the tardy bell rings, and my job is to encourage students to get to class on time. I guess nothing motivates students to be on time like looking at a leaping lion lunging for luscious legs. If I can get them to class on time, then my job is done. If they are tardy enough to become late-to-class casserole, then that’s their fault. That's where the perk of the job comes in for me.

During the time when I’m not trying to snack on students, I’m in my lair. Yes, I have a lair. Not a small den or a Man Cave, but a lair. See, a lair is tough to have in a regular house, and since I’m a lion, I can’t just live in a regular house. I can’t have a lamp on a night stand or cabinets in the kitchen because I’m the lion. It doesn’t matter if my house is made of hay, sticks, or bricks; a lion living in a house sounds pretty weak. So, I call it a lair, and I keep big bones on the floor by the bathroom door.

Most people just think of me as the lion that comes out when the tardy bell rings. They haven’t given me an official name or anything like that. For a while, I thought they named me AHHHHHHH!, but when I managed to get a glimpse of some folks riding the fake horse by the front door of the school, I heard them call the horse the same thing when they were flying off his saddle, about to hit the floor. That’s when I realized that AHHHHHHH! was not my name.

So, in case you care, aren’t afraid of lions, and/or refuse to ride a dangerous fake horse, you can call me Fib. Fib the Lion is what I go by, but my friends call me Fib for short.

With a name like Fib, I’m sure people could have a hard time believing anything that comes out of my mouth. Honestly, I can understand why, and it’s not for the reasons that you think. See, when I say I’d eat a student, I’m only kidding. The good folks that hired me at Old Endings Preparatory figured out I have issues with eating students, but they agreed to keep it a secret for as long as possible. No, it’s not that I care about students, or that I’d rather have a super-tasty zebra pastry. I’d love to have a student smoothie, but I kind of bit someone on an accident when I was at the zoo, and bad things happened right after that.

Now before you go feeling sorry for the guy at the zoo who climbed the fence and entered my lair, or go getting all upset about me biting one of your fellow humans, you have to understand that there were two bad things that happened that day.

#1) I got really sick. Yeah, I got a really bad stomach ache and I seriously thought I was about to die. I was moaning and groaning for days and nobody called a veterinarian to take me to the hospital and help me feel better.

#2) The guy you just felt sorry for ended up being just fine. No, he didn’t grow another leg to replace the one I ate. See, he had a fake leg, so I only ended up ruining his replaceable leg along with his day. The zoo’s insurance paid for the guy to get a brand new leg and he was fine.

Meanwhile, I had pounced on plastic and nearly died. DIED! Me, the King of the zoo, had chomped and chewed on plastic food and it took almost a week before someone found the courage to come into my zoo lair and see why I was so sad. Most everyone thought I was depressed because the leg wasn’t a tasty meat treat. Once the zookeepers realized I had the plastic in my stomach, they did as much as they could to help. However, it’s hard to get people to trust a lion that already took a bite out of someone’s leg. When you humans watched the story on the news, nobody ever mentioned that the leg was fake, or that the owner climbed into my lair. Nope, all they did was show pictures of me walking around my lair looking like I’d bite a brand new baby boy. If they could read a lion’s facial expressions, they’d know I wasn’t mad, and that I just had an upset stomach.

After the leg biting incident, I kept thinking that since the leg wasn’t really real, they would let it slide, but nope. Instead, they did what they had to do to find me a new home. It took a few days, but one day I woke up in my new lair at Old Endings Preparatory, with big bones on the floor by the bathroom door.

Well, that's enough for now. I’m Fib the Lion and I’m not lying.