Ododo Lehita was beyond reasonable doubt a pampered cub. At the age of seven when cubs are able to hunt small prey, Ododo was not only unable but also ravenously greedy. Frail and ailing Letela had toiled to gratify the lust of the lazy Ododo. Her attempts to tutor him in essentials of hunting hit the wall. Letela Lehita had died of struggles and broken heart, leaving Lehita to face the cruel world.
His siblings had scattered throughout Leopardom, aggressively hunting fat prey and enjoying the meat while Lehita, like Hyena, solitarily rummaged through shrubs for carrion. Whereas his contemporaries mastered lixapata, the tree-climbing feat, Lehita just roamed the ground like tiger and ‘the scumbag.’ Subsequently, it proved impossible for him to store his scanty booty away from Tiger’s reach. Irasale tigers, which had migrated to Catdom to flee drought, had remained so aggressive that Lehita could not get a meal for weeks.
In spite of his many weaknesses, Lehita Ododo nursed great ambitions. He aspired to become the best lepatara in Leopardom. It was a title given to the most accomplished ground hunter in Leopardom. The prize was given to honour a leopard, which leapt at least twenty-five yards in the air with an antelope in his mouth. The knack had to be displayed at least once in a month. Given that, Tiger was a bad climber; she offset it through ground leaps and lepatara revolved more often from one tiger to another. If Leopards with a flair for both Lipatata and lixapata could not behold the award then it was utter fantasy for the amateurish Ododo to desire it.
Not less than fifty times he had skulked about straining his gaunt body in desperate attempt to display, the first-rate feats but always received scornful responses from his audiences. The tigers could purr that the performances were mediocre. That since he fed on carrion, he was too scraggy to go for lepatara. Hencefoth, Lehita Ododo nurtured hate against Irasale Tigers.
Their inherent prowess in plain ground hunting and tendency to eat his booty escalated his hate against them. For the first time, the young Lehita realized that his unwillingness to listen to his late parents was a big barrier to his success. He regretted. Opportunities had passed him.How could he get his daily bread without mastery of lixapata and lipapata. How could he get lepatara without elementary rules in lipapata? He resolved to join lemo, the poorest class of Leopo, where he staged his shoddy feats for carrion to survive.
Indeed Lehita Ododo was extremely ambitious though untalented. His parents were not to blame; it was his unwillingness to learn. He grew up to become a grumpy and scraggy leopard with streamlined jaws. The poverty of his situation compelled him to loiter at the fringes of society. Among the lemo, he afforded a scant living that augmented his resentment against tigers.They had always been a scornful audience to his feats. Lehita Ododo was changing for the worst.
The era of witchat 1 and Nov had been a period of anxiety and strife. These had dwarfed production; hence economic growth in Catdom. The wrangling animals, the rising populace and waning production weighed heavily on Catdom. These hardships inspired insurgents in Beardom, Hyenadom, Liondom and Leopardom. Vledoma overthrew the king and established a pagan regime in Beardom and Nov expelled Hyena from Leopardom. It was at this time that Lehita had joined the Leonov to expel Hyena. He earned his place on the sun.
