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For a moment, I thought it was working. Maybe I reallycouldspeak big cat. The more I sent out the thoughts to her, the more her muscles seemed to soften along with the look in her eye.
But then ...
Then she launched forward with a loud snarl followed by a scream so sharp and eerie that it rumbled through my skin.
“She’s charging!” Ndungu shouted as he jumped forward, raising his arms above his head as he shouted. “Get big! Make noise! Now!”
Even though the charging jaguar scared me frozen into my tracks, I finally managed to move when Marge started roaring and leaping beside me.
“Rarrrrr!” she growled loudly.
“Haaaaaa!” Sylvie screamed as she started flailing around like she’d stuck her finger in an electrical socket.
“Ya ya ya!” Doris yelled as she started doing jumping jacks.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhh!” I belted out before my body took over in a strange, spastic blend of dancer’s leaps and kicks like I was doing my routine in fast forward. I hadn’t planned on using dance moves to scare it off, but they were so ingrained in my muscles, it was apparently all my body could offer while I was frozen in such fear. I fell into the finale routine of myGammyshow, and as the jaguar rushed towards us, I danced even faster.
The jaguar paused her charge while the Widows and I screamed and yowled, kicked and leaped, staying close together as Ndungu commanded so we looked like one large, horrifying animal.
“It’s working!” Sylvie shouted. “Keep going!”
“Grrrrr! Rarrr! ROAR!” we kept on as the stunned predator flattened against the ground again, staring at the strange creatures in her path.
Finally, after we turned up the volume and increased our antics, she turned and scurried away. We kept going for almost a minute after she disappeared, and it seemed like we were all too scared to quit. But finally, Ndungu stopped moving.
“You can stop now. She’s gone,” he said.
I did one last hitch kick, landing with jazz hands high above my head. “Holy shit,” I panted, placing my hands on my thighs as I puffed out the breaths I’d apparently been holding.
“Did that just happen?” Sylvie asked breathlessly.
Marge pumped a fist in the air. “Did we seriously scare off a jaguar with our badass selves? Hell yeah, we did! Wow! Freaking awesome!”
“I thought we were goners for sure!” Doris whimpered. “I’m so scared! I don’t like it out here at all.”
“Me neither,” I agreed as I rose to standing. “I freaking hate it here!”
“Hey! This is your wish!” Marge said. “You wanted an African safari. We areonan African safari!”
“No! I wanted to stay at a luxury resort in Africa and, from the safety of a vehicle, see some wild big cats! At no point did my wish involve hiking across the African plains fighting off predators with our bare hands!”
“Well, we haven’t had to fight them off with bare hands per se. So far, it’s only been a lot of swimming, running, and apparently in your case, Alice, dance battles. You did have some killer dance moves there,” Sylvie teased. “I mean, you basically just had a dance off with a jaguar. That’s pretty cool, right?”
“Like West Side Story.” Marge snorted. “We were all screaming and yelling like banshees, and Alice is in a freaking dance battle.”
“Shut up,” I said, but then laughter started to follow the simple words as I pictured how I must have looked.
Marge started mimicking me, adding in fight sounds with the dance moves.
“Shut up!” I said louder, but I couldn’t help but burst into laughter at the sight of Marge’s moves and the vision I had in my head about how I’d gone full dancer at that jaguar.
“Alice’s wish ... have dance off with jaguar. Check!” Sylvie laughed.
The more they started laughing, the more I couldn’t hold mine back. Yes, this was not my wish. Yes, I was horrified to be stranded out here in Africa. But damned if those little Widows of mine weren’t helping me see the bright side of this shit situation.
We still had each other.
After they finished teasing me for my dancer’s reaction by high kicking it all around me and shoving jazz hands in my face, our laughter petered off on a sigh.
