THIS DIARY BELONGS TO: FRANKIE LION.
Who never ever learned to read or write so well
But he could play a guitar just like a-ringin' a bell
- Chuck Berry, Johnny B. Goode.
Usually, I write whatever for these diary entries, because I gotta. But this is the first time I actually wanna say something. Since the day John almost accidentally shaved my head. He had to forget how much effort goes into my mohawk. I don’t risk looting the good hair products, just for John to ruin it, because he’s clumsy with electric razors. Or clumsy in general. That survival class he takes isn’t electoral.
Earlier today, the posse and I had a substitute teacher in advanced hunting. I guess since we’re lions and so good at it, they gave us an entire period to ourselves, so students don’t feel bad. This sub clearly didn’t wanna be there. She was a prey species, with an addiction to those public access shows. So, when class was in session, she just turned on the TV in the corner of the room and said we could do whatever.
We knew how to spend that period. It’s ninety minutes long. More than enough time to sneak out, mess around in the city, and be back before music class. That one, we never want to miss. I don’t mean to brag–okay, I do–but me and the boys are whizzes in music. We can play great, and sing great. I’m the best singer, though. Carmine’s the best rapper, he deserves that title, but when it comes to straight singing, that’s my place. Everyone in that class is jealous of our talent, our skills, and our chemistry. Outside music class, however, instruments are hard to come by, or keep in one piece.
While we were out, the boys and I wanted to stop by this one music shop. It has no cameras, and the staff are the type of humans who become hypnotized because they think we’re cute. So much, they’ll let us take a couple things at a time without paying. House cats really warped how humans view us lions, to our benefit.
We slipped out through the double doors that lead to the staff parking lot. Bull Sharkowski’s little lackeys were hanging out there, Brandon Capybara and Harry Bat. A pair of punks who’d be nothing without their boss. We ran past them and out of nowhere, Brandon shouted, “hey, Pride Posse! Where you goin’? To make out with each other?”
Every now and then, someone hits us with a joke like this. The gay lion coalition jabs. We weren’t having it, especially from a grunt like Brandon. The boys and I spent a good minute pummeling him. Harry flew off, because Brandon had it coming and what could he do to stop us?
I had no idea what possessed him to say that. Not until Carmine asked us, while we were taking out picks from the music shop. The staff just fawned over us the whole time, again. Then, John remembered something he heard the day before. Brandon was boasting about his new girlfriend. Explains why he got cocky. But get this, his girl is an online girlfriend. He hasn’t even seen her face! Chances are she’s a catfish. Or worse, a real catfish! John learned that the hard way, when he once chatted with a so-called cougar.
But, Brandon’s patheticness made us realize something. None of us have had a girlfriend. Not because we do swing that way, but I suppose we’ve just been busy doing our things. And there are actually no lionesses who attend our school. Not even tigresses. That was great, because if Brandon’s online girlfriend became serious, I’d be going into high school a freshman without a past girlfriend. It’d be like grade school, with Bobby Lion all over again. Before Carmine and John established dominance. Only this time, we’re not fighting cubs and pups.
We returned to hunting class with a heavy tow and twenty minutes to spare. All of which we spent brainstorming who could be our future girlfriends. A lot of students wanna be us, but we drew blanks on who wanted to be with us.
When music class rolled in, I came up with something. We tried playing music our girl classmates love. Carmine had a go at some poppy hiphop with an acoustic guitar. Some of the girls liked it, but weren’t interested. I tried some of the romantic punk songs from my collection and uh, nobody cared. John, of course, didn’t get the memo and shook the classroom with death metal. He grabbed one girl’s attention, Laura Owl. One of the geekiest girls in the school.
I couldn’t even tell John his idea stank, because at least he attracted somebody. My love life was looking worse than Principal Pixiefrog. Every guy in the school faculty has dated Windsor Gorilla’s mom, even PF, but that still counted.
We were so embarrassed by lunchtime. I could barely eat the meat we packed (bought something from Mrs. Tusk’s kitchen in sixth grade. Never again). Carmine and I were reassessing our options in desperation, when I spotted a bunch of students and staff in a line that stretched into the hall. It started at Lyon and his friends’ table, where this giant sign flashed overhead, reading THE LOVE DOCTOR IS IN! It had a big arrow, pointing at Lyon.
Earlier that day, Lyon set up his friend Lupe, the really annoying toucan with the accent, in a happy relationship with a random parrot. She and her boyfriend, Corey Vulture, must’ve broken up again. They’re on and off. I think they’re on breakup four or five now. From what he could see, Lyon turned out to be some kind of love guru. Otherwise, why was half the school flocking to him for a date? And the three of us were super desperate. So uh, we might’ve gotten in line. We spent about twenty minutes waiting, before we reached Lyon’s table. He wasn’t excited to see us, but he took our money when Jake told us we had to pay, and got it over with. He thought for a few seconds, then matched us with the Pretties.
We actually forgot about those girls. None of us have had classes with them since seventh grade, when John shared a Japanese class with Margaret Rhinoceros. Who was also the girl Lyon paired me with. I knew nothing about her until a second later, because the Pretties were close behind us in line. We heard them running before we saw them, then felt them pick us up to bear hug us out of breath.
Margaret had me in hers and was like, “oh, you’re Frankie? I remember you from last year’s talent show! Your singing was awesome! I love your hair. Did you do it yourself?” She was flooding me with questions. And I loved it. “Oh yeah. Margaret, right? Me and my boys felt real proud of that show. I actually forgot some of the notes, so I winged it. Still turned out great, I know. Oh yeah, I made this hairdo all by myself. You’re looking snazzy, too.”
Margaret got all flustered from that compliment. Just as much as I was. And next thing we know, we were riding on their shoulders all over the school.
Let me tell you, I wasn’t expecting us to get along as good as we did. She likes anime as much as I do. It’s harder for her to watch it, because her family only has one television in their exhibit, that everybody uses. I promised her if she ever stopped by our exhibit, she could watch it on the TV I stole for myself. She’s into some of the genres we make. We’ve had our first fan, right under our noses. She wants to win the next prom queen contest. I’ve been wanting to score prom king before I finish middle school. I couldn’t do that with any girl, but Margaret isn’t any girl. We both believe we have the looks, and we could snatch the coolest outfits from the mall. Me and the boys might be lions, but we’re not adults yet. We’re not that strong yet, not even John’s iron skull. We can’t break into everything. But with the Pretties on our side, we could!
Carmine and John were kicking it off with their girls, too. Carmine had butterflies in his stomach, and not literally this time. But he got over it when Latanya complimented his piercing and hat. Then, he was beaming, showing off and calling Latanya baby girl. Dropping a couple bars, because they’re both hiphop kids, that she found to be fire. Joanie and John were a match, too. One’s a valley girl, the other is a metalhead who head-thrashed half his brain cells out his skull, but uh, they’re both not the brightest of our posses. Joanie was treating John kind of like that stuffed lion he has back at our exhibit. He cherishes that thing, so it’s the last of his old toys that didn’t become a chew toy. Joanie gladly threw him a month’s supply of those.
Joanie wasn’t so much into John’s favorite genres of music, but John might be a metalhead, but he’ll take a liking to the most random genres. Like the girly pop music she played on her battery radio. Carmine and I tried so hard not to laugh. Margaret did, too, but Latanya didn’t find it funny. She asked what Carmine had against it, and he knew better not to argue. Just straightened himself up and apologized. Then Latanya had him sing one of the songs with her. And dance, but the hallway we were hanging out in started to shake, and that orangutan art teacher threatened detention if we didn’t leave.
You couldn’t separate us for the next few days. The girls visited our exhibit after school a couple times. I got to have Margaret watch some shows she’d been wanting to catch up on. She already knew some parts, because she’d read the manga. I didn’t even know those anime came from books. Which sparked a trip to the mall. The girls have money, but not a lot. None of the zoo animals get that much. So, we also got to have the girls assist in nabbing some stuff from the inventories of certain shops. Distract cashiers and employees, or hide from them behind our girls, while we swiped stuff off shelves. Carmine glamoured up Latanya with what they took. Joanie gave John the most expensive bath I think the zoo’s ever seen. Was necessary, because John’s never bathed enough. Margaret set me up with manga for shows I knew, or never knew existed.
The boys and I are on the school soccer team. The other day, we had a match with some humans from Lyon’s old school. What were the adults thinking, pitting their kids against us? Okay, they had some kids who knew how to play, but we got a lead and kept it all game. The Jungle Squad, the CDMS cheerleaders, cheered us on, and guess who was part of them? Our girls. They were hyping us up even more than we were hyping the crowd with our moves. Even Latanya made Carmine, our goalie, sound cool.
After we swept those twerps, we all stopped by this ice cream vendor not far from the school. Margaret was gushing about how I carried the game. John and I are equals at soccer, but I did better this time. John argued against it, but I reminded him somebody was recording the match. The cameras don’t lie. Carmine told us to pipe it, and John reminded him about being the goalie. Then, Carmine had Latanya hold his ice cream while he trickshot John across the street with a soccer ball, and said, “not because I can’t kick.” John already scarfed his cone down, but Joanie bought him another because that kick left him aching.
Though, I confessed to Margaret I wasn’t so sure how well I could do, going in. Then, I was wondering what the crowd thought of my performance, without the Jungle Squad making us sound good. Then, I started worrying, because my rep matters to me. Turns out Margaret’s is too, because she started worrying what the crowd thought of her cheerleading. She’s been anxious deep down, ever since Lyon botched a report on rhinos that mistook her for a rare species. Her got her hopes up and crushed them. It's like if I were mistaken for, like, a barbary lion, getting painted up to be one, and then it turns out I’m just another African lion!
But yeah, Margaret and I? We really do have a lot in common. It's like I've known her since we were moved to Glendale, but we only just started talking. It's hard to explain. I just know we got a good thing going on.
We were feeling on top of the world. We’re one of the most respected students in school, and now we had some of the coolest girls dating us. After crushing in that soccer match we were feeling kinda invincible. We would be going into freshman year at MPWH with so much under our belt (well, my belt, because Carmine and John don’t wear those), we’d be bullyproof! Yep, we had all we wanted. Until this morning.
Me and the boys woke up at dawn. The girls get up early, cause they like hanging out or buffeting before school. And Garson was drinking yesterday. So much, he passed out in the zookeeper’s lodge. We didn’t need to check to be sure he was hung over. Garson wasn’t coming out until noon. Knowing that, we’d set the alarm clocks on our phones to five. We had free rein around the zoo with our girlfriends, with no worries of being rounded up.
We tracked them down with my nose. I lent Margaret one of my favorite hairspray cans the day before, and she'd used it this morning. My nose led us to this human restaurant inside the zoo. They have these huge windows on the front and sides, so human patrons can watch the nearby exhibits. But they serve the zoo animals, too. We saw the girls at a table beside the front windows, placing orders to the twenty-something human waitress, Constance. She’s actually cool, for a human. Unlike the chef, this anxious wreck named Hewie, who’s fresh out of some culinary school. He doesn’t mistreat us, but he’s really annoying. Spazzes out over the littlest thing. The Pretties order half the menu when they dine there, so, when we entered, Hewie was having a panic attack in the back, dropping pots and pans.
The girls noticed us coming in and called us over. It was cozy on the benches, but we made it work. Once we were sat down, we were ready to hang, but uh. What I was getting at earlier. The girls were meaning to talk to us today. We didn’t see it coming at all, so we thought they were just as excited to see us. Then, Latanya broke it to us.
“You boys are great, but me and the girls feel like we’re going too fast,” she told us. I’ve never seen a smile on Carmine’s fast drop so fast.
Of course, John wasn’t sure what she meant, so Joanie spent it out for him. “We don’t think we’re ready for relationships yet,” she told him.
“We’re so sorry,” Margaret apologized to me. “I hope you understand.” They had some good points, but she spoke so sincerely, I would’ve believed her just off that.
They also went into the details. As much as the girls were enjoying it, they got some advice from Latanya’s mother, Gloria. Me and the boys thought Gloria thought we were bad news. Didn’t want them around us, because we’re lions. But she actually had no problem with us. She just said what Latanya said, about rushing into it. Also, that they we all are a bit too young to be diving head first into, from what she’s seen, was becoming a serious relationship. I figured she’d noticed us the other day. We were hanging outside our exhibits while Garson guided a class of elementary school humans. Since our parties were on opposite ends of the zoo, we weren’t trying to be quiet.
On second thought, our relationships had been moving pretty fast. Me and the boys weren’t thinking much of it. We were just letting it happen, I guess. But looking at what I just wrote, maybe she does have a point. We were just off to an amazing start, and it was our first real love. But all of us are only fourteen. But we’re not little kids anymore… I don’t know.
I don’t have to say it. We were whiplashed and heartbroken. Carmine tried to play it off like it was cool. But even he wasn’t prepared for this. He was hiding his face with his cap. He does that when he’s upset, but doesn’t wanna show it.
“You don’t need to do all that, Carmine,” Latanya assured him. “We’re still cool.”
That made John and I shoot up. He said, “you still wanna hang out with us?”
“Of course,” Joanie answered like we should’ve known. “You guys are some of the coolest kids in the school, besides us.” That put a smile back on John’s face.
We were still upset, but not enough to leave. We stuck around and chatted with the girls. Even with the breakup, we had a nice time. Joanie and John gossiped about the faculty. Carmine and Latanya talked about sports. Mostly football, which Latanya’s been getting into (I’m sorry, John, who's also into football). Margaret and I talked prom again. We might not be together anymore, but we still want to be king and queen. When Constance brought our orders out, Hewie was actually calming down, because he got it all perfect. Then, John faked his shake he ordered tasting funny. Hewie flipped out, and you should’ve seen his face when John said he was kidding. The girls and us, even Constance, broke out laughing!
So, we were over. For now? But you know what? Us and the Pretties lasted days longer than the other failed relationships. And we didn’t leave it on a bad note. None of us noticed this before, because we were too busy having fun. Most of the kids who took Lyon’s advice were asking for refunds. He wasn’t really a love guru, and all that happened because of some stupid accident with the parrot. Who wasn’t even sapient like us, and he was Jake's pet!
Even then, we wound up not asking Lyon for our money back. The money was well spent, even if that kid was pairing us at random and got lucky. Because we got lucky.
Mr. Mandrill swung by our table today at lunch. Somehow, he knew the whole story. Gregory and Kaku must have been spying on us, like they do. We don’t think they even got a date. Meanwhile, we landed the best matchup. Maybe they’ll be the ones making out with each other? But, Mandrill didn’t say much about us and the Pretties. We expected some crummy advice, but he just told us, “keep navigating your feelings at our own pace. All this is normal for animals your age.". This sorting out hasn’t felt bad so far, so maybe he’s right for once?
I had to ask about his love life. I’ve never even heard of Mr. Mandrill in a relationship. He admitted he hasn’t been in one in forever, but is looking. He looked away and smiled this smile. The type that said he has his eyes on someone. Oh, boy. We have no clue who he could be interested in, or who might be interested in him. But none of us have felt nosy enough to sniff around. That, and we’ve still got heat on us for making Lyon almost leave the school.
What a week. I never thought what love might feel like. It feels… amazing. But it hurts when it’s over. “Welcome to heartbreak,” Carmine told me. I could tell Carmine was hurt the most, no matter how hard he pretended. I couldn't hide my heartbreak if I tried. Being in the same zoo as her makes it a little better. If we make up, we’re just a minute of me skateboarding through the exhibits away from each other. That’s assuming we get back together at all. If not, we're still friends.
And girlfriend or not, talking with her has been sweet. It’s nice to find someone who gets you, you know? And I think Margaret feels the same.
