The Lion Guard: The Northern Crocodile

Chapter 25

As the day progressed, the sun rose higher in the sky, burning the scales of every crocodile present in the clearing. Except for, of course, Makuu and Kiburi, who were napping the day away inside the cool-aired cave. As far as they were concerned, they had nothing to worry about.

"Come on you two, wake up!"

Makuu grumbled under his breath in annoyance, but obliged to the command anyway. When he arose from his slumber, Makuu spotted Tuma standing at the entrance to the cave, looking quite impatient.

"What's got your scales in a twist this time, Tuma?" Makuu begrudgingly asked, irritated at having been woken up by the Valley crocodile.

"I'm already stressed enough as is, Makuu. I don't need your temper to make it worse."

"How ironic."

"Just wake your friend up for me, okay? Is that too much to ask of you?"

Makuu wanted to argue, but knew he wouldn't get anywhere with Tuma, so he decided to keep his jaws shut and do as instructed. He swam over to Kiburi, who was still very much asleep.

"Do you mind telling me why you want us awake so badly?" Makuu asked.

"Wake your friend up and I'll tell you," Tuma responded.

"Let's hope you'll tell the truth."

"I'm not at all surprised that you said that."

"You shouldn't be, considering what you and Nkiru did to me."

"I was following orders!"

"Yeah, and remind me whose orders those were, exactly?"

This made Tuma go quiet.

"I thought so. Now, if you will excuse me..." Makuu cut off his own response by grabbing Kiburi's tail in his jaws and clamping down hard.

Just as before, Kiburi burst wide awake, but since Makuu knew what was coming, managed to avoid having his head smashed into the stone, again.

"Makuu! I was trying to sleep! What the hell is so damn important?" Kiburi snapped.

"Hey, don't look at me!" Makuu exclaimed. "I wasn't the one who wanted to wake you. Tuma just asked me to do it for him. So, if you want to blame anyone, then blame Tuma, not me."

Kiburi wasn't happy about being woken up, again, but he was even less so when he learned that Tuma was paying them a visit.

"Alright, Tuma, what's the big deal about waking us up?" Kiburi asked.

"To make a long story short, an important meeting is going to be held here soon, and I want to make sure you two know about it before you may or may not decide to say or do something stupid during it," Tuma explained.

"So why tell us?"

"Like I said, I don't want you two waking up during the meeting and interrupting everything. Also, Zula wanted me to give you guys the message for her. Don't ask me why because I don't know. I don't even get why she's so interested in you two, but whatever. Just don't do anything stupid, and I am sure that we won't have any problems. I'm pretty sure you two understand."

With nothing left to say, Tuma turned around and stalked off towards the opposite end of the clearing, where his sons Adisa and Zuberi were hanging out under the shade of a tree. As soon as Tuma reached them, the boys surrounded him and barraged him with conversation. For Makuu, and probably for Kiburi as well, it was surprising to see Tuma smiling, enjoying himself as he chatted with his sons.

{Tuma may be a huge jerk, but I guess he's okay as a father. I mean, his kids at least seem to like him, so he can't really be that bad.}

"So, any guesses as to what's so important about this meeting?" Kiburi asked.