Notes From a Liar and Her Dog (7 page)

Now Mary-Judy walks to pulley number 2 and does the same thing. When all the lions are out, she is all business again. “Carol, I think I have a couple of clean shirts hanging in my locker. Why don’t you have Ant and Harrison put those on. I’m going to check the birds. I’ll meet you at the African exhibit. We’ll clean here after break.” Mary-Judy picks up the bucket of rats and the bowl with the fruit and worms, then she waits for us to leave the night house first. When we are out in the bright sun, she wraps the heavy chain around the door and locks it with the kind of padlock Harrison uses on his bike.

H
arrison and me didn’t really get much pee on us, but we’re not about to turn down the chance to put on khaki shirts that say Ziffman Park Zoo on them. These are the kind only the real keepers get to wear. Of course, I have to cover mine with Pistachio’s jacket, which is the only part of me that actually got wet. I roll the sleeve up where it got a little pee on it and try not to get grossed out about it. I wonder what Your Highness Elizabeth would do if she got lion pee on her. This makes me laugh.

When Harrison comes out of the rest room, he looks almost like a real keeper. Harrison is kind of small, so the sleeves are way too long. I help him roll them up, then we crowd in front of the scratched-up old mirror attached to the inside of Mary-Judy’s locker and admire ourselves.

Just Carol sticks her head in the locker room. “All right, you’re both gorgeous. Now come on, you two. We’ve got a lot to do before lunch.” I jump when I hear her voice, afraid for a second Pistachio is out of
my pocket. But he isn’t. He is curled in a little ball against my hip. I wish again I’d left him home.

When we get to the giraffe exhibit, there are pigeons everywhere—on the ground, in the mangers, under the wheelbarrows, and clustered in the doorways of the giraffe night houses. Everything is really tall here, like it was stretched in a fun-house mirror. The only regular-size part is the feed shack, which is lined with shiny silver trash cans and smells like hay and gingerbread.

The giraffes are already out in the exhibit area, and Mary-Judy is busy filling big black buckets with water and yelling at the pigeons. “Get out of here, you stupid birds.” She squirts them with her hose and they scatter, making funny gobbling, cooing noises. When she sees us, she calls out, “You know, I thought maybe you and Harrison might feed Kigali. The bucket is ready. You show them, Carol.”

Just Carol laughs through her nose. She shakes her head. “You two sure won her over. Getting to feed Kigali is a
huge
treat. Come on,” she says, and leads us back around to the little feed shack. She opens the lid of a shiny new trash can and pulls out a blue bucket half filled with little green pellets. “You gotta hide everything here or the pigeons will eat it,” she explains.

We follow her to a steep set of wooden steps that lead to a platform attached to the side of the exhibit area. Harrison gets his turn first. He climbs the steps with the awkward bucket banging his chin. When he
gets to the top, three giraffes hurry toward the platform, their necks bobbing with each step. Up close their eyes look as if someone has applied thick black eyeliner to them, and their top lips hang over their bottom lips, like a bad case of buck lips. But it’s their long necks I notice most—how elegant and graceful they are and how they move in directions my neck won’t go. Squat-neck Elizabeth would be so jealous.

“Don’t feed the others!” Carol warns Harrison. “Only Kigali. She’s the old one with the blind eye. See her?” Carol calls. “The rest of them don’t need extra food. Put the bucket behind you, Harrison, until they go away.”

When Just Carol says this I wonder how we will know which giraffe is old. But then I see Kigali and I understand. Her bones poke out and the skin sags between them. Her coat is dull. One eye is a perfect white ball, as blank as the moon and all runny around it and stuck with dirt. She moves stiffly and her bones creak when she walks.

“Sometimes she’s a little scared at first,” Carol calls up to Harrison.

Kigali sniffs Harrison all over, almost like a dog. Her good eye seems to be inspecting him.

“She’s checking him out,” Carol whispers to me.

And then, all of a sudden, Kigali decides Harrison is okay and dips her head into the blue bucket. Now all I see are her horns, like big brown Q-tips sticking out. When she comes back up, she has a mouthful of tiny green pellets, which she chews in great circle motions.

“I think she likes me,” Harrison calls down. He’s smiling so wide, you can see his gums.

When it’s my turn, I climb the steep ladder partway up. There’s not really room for both of us on the platform up there.

“Hey, sweet Kigali, are you the nicest giraffe in the whole world? I think you are, Kigali. I think you are,” Harrison whispers. Kigali’s tongue is black, as if she’s been eating licorice, but her spit is all slobbery and green.

“Is that good, sweetheart?” he asks.

I have heard Harrison sweet-talk his chicken this way when he doesn’t know I’m around. He has forgotten it’s my turn now. I put my hand in Pistachio’s pocket and pet him. He’s sleeping, I think. Apparently, nap time is nap time, zoo or no zoo.

Kigali and Harrison seem to see me at the same time. Kigali pulls her head out of the bucket, faces her good eye at me, and backs away. Harrison seems very sorry I am here. He doesn’t let go of the bucket.

“Just let her come to you, Ant. Harrison, you can come down now. It’s Ant’s turn,” Just Carol says.

Usually Harrison does anything Just Carol says. But not this time. Harrison doesn’t move.

“He’s got to stay up here, too. Kigali trusts him. She won’t come over unless he’s here. And besides, I’m afraid of her,” I call down to Just Carol as I edge my way onto the platform with Harrison. It’s squishy with both of us up here.

Harrison smiles at me. Just Carol snorts. All three of us know this isn’t true.

I let Harrison hold the bucket and Kigali approaches again. Kigali gives me a once-over with her good eye, then ducks her head back in the bucket.

“Ant, think my dad will let me have a giraffe?” Harrison asks.

“If anyone would, it would be your dad,” I say. I take his free hand. I can feel the callus on the side of his middle finger where he holds his pencil tight. I squeeze his hand, then I let go. My face feels hot, and I hope Just Carol didn’t see. Harrison will understand I didn’t mean anything by this, but no one else will.

H
arrison is still at the giraffe exhibit. Mary-Judy said we had to split in teams. We tried to get her to let us be a team together, but she said no way. She did say we could choose who would go where, though. Of course, I let Harrison stay with the giraffes and Just Carol and me head back to the lions’ night house.

I stick my hand in my pocket. Tashi is quiet. He’s probably on overload from all the smells. I pet his fur with my finger and feel his hot breath on my hand. He is going to need to pee pretty soon, so I’m going to have to come up with a reason to sneak off by myself. I guess I’ll say I have to go to the bathroom. They won’t follow me in there, that’s for sure. He seems peaceful right now, though, so I’ll wait until he gets antsy again.

Just Carol has a dustpan in her hand. She hands it to me and pulls another one off a nail on the wall. “Scoop up the poop and the old meat, then put it in your bucket,” she explains. “I’ll take the front. You take the back. We’ll meet in the middle.” I nod and walk back to lions’ cage number 5, trying to pretend I
do this all the time. I look at the pulley that operates the metal door leading to the exhibit area. I know I’m safe so long as I don’t pull it. Still, it feels spooky being caged in a cell that only a little while ago held a lion. I look at the metal door. There is a gap between the door and the floor. I see four lion legs walk by, close enough for me to touch. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up like little antennae.

From the inside, the cage looks like a cartoon prison cell. There is one long wooden bench, and that’s it. The cage is just wide enough for a twin bed. I imagine the place all decorated with furniture and pictures. I wish I could fix it up, because it feels cold and empty the way it is. It makes me sorry for the lion who has to spend her night here.

In the corner there is a pile of poop, which looks like extra large dog poop, and at the other end, a scattering of old meat that smells like raw turned food. A bone the shape of a heart sits on the bench. I wonder what animal it has come from. The bone feels heavy in my dustpan the way a big rock would. I dump it in the bucket. The bucket smells so bad I have to hold my breath when I’m near it. After Just Carol and I get all the big pieces up, we turn on a black hose and spray the rest down a drain in the low center of the cement floor. The water sprays hard, like a fireman’s hose. I like this part a lot.

I like working with Just Carol, too. She shows me what to do, but she isn’t all teachery about it. She acts as if we are even-Steven here—like I am really a person, not just a kid. My mom is never like this. She is
always the boss. Her job is to point out my mistakes, and as far as she is concerned, there are a million of them. I am wrong, even before I do anything. For one thing, I don’t look right. She thinks I look like my aunt. And the way she feels about my aunt, this is like saying I look like a big blackhead. But she is wrong. I’m not ugly, I just don’t fit in the same neat little box she and Your Highness and Kate do. I’m tall and dark. I have brown eyes and thick, thick hair that won’t stay inside the hair baubles Kate and Your Highness wear. My nose has a bump on it, which is another thing that really bugs my mom. I think she would sand it off if she could. Your Highness and Kate both have small freckled noses “the size of rosebuds,” my father says.

Sometimes my mom buys dresses that match for her and for us. They always have puffed sleeves and sashes and flocked flowers. I don’t like them. I like my flannel shorts or my brown plaid pants or my orange jumper with all the zippers.

When I was little, my mother used to dress me in Your Highness’s hand-me-downs. But now I’m taller than Your Highness, so my mom can’t do that anymore. This is good, because I’d rather drink pee than wear Your Highness Elizabeth’s clothes. My father says that Your Highness and I have normal “sibling rivalry” and it’s because we are only one year apart that there is a problem. But this is not true. Even if we were ten years apart, I would still hate Your Highness Elizabeth. The only way we’d get along is if she died before I was born. Even then, I wouldn’t want to wear her clothes.

Elizabeth never tries to be nice, but I think sometimes my supposed mother does. It’s just that she can’t. She sees a weed growing in the lawn and even if she’s dressed in her best black dress, she can’t stop herself from swooping down and snatching it out. And no matter what I do, I will always be a weed to her. I am all wrong. I set the table forks first. I keep my socks in my jeans drawer. I do the dishes sitting down. I eat in the bathtub. I read on the floor. I write notes on my hand or sometimes my leg. “This isn’t the way people do things,” she tells me, shaking her head, as if she is the keeper of the right ways to do everything.

It feels strange to squirt the lion’s cage down with water and not be told I am doing it wrong. I wait to hear those words. My back is stiff to brace against them, but Just Carol seems only to make encouraging noises. “Hey, that’s good, Ant. There, we got it. I think that’s it, my dear!” she says. And suddenly I feel as if I might cry.

We are done cleaning the cages now. Carol opens the door of a refrigerator that sits against the side wall of the lions’ night house. The refrigerator looks like ours at home, except there are no shelves inside. The only thing in it is an enormous piece of raw meat, which still looks like the cow it was. Just Carol saws off chunks with her knife. I feel queasy.

When she’s done, there is a plate of neat red meat cubes. We take the meat and the cutting board outside so we can finish the rest of our work in the sun-shine.
We sit down on a bench in the shade of a big palm tree. I sit carefully so I don’t bump Pistachio.

When I’m settled, Just Carol shows me how to cut a small hole in the meat and hide a white pill inside. “The lions take medicine for lepto…leptospirosis,” she explains. “We put the pills inside the meat, then Mary-Judy feeds the meat squares to the lions on a long shish-kebab stick.”

“Oh,” I say, sticking one pill in a cube. I think I have it, then the pill pops out the other side and I have to dig another little hole for it. “So how come you work here every Saturday?” I ask as I pick the pill off the ground.

“Being around animals puts me in a good mood. It helps me keep things in perspective. It reminds me of when I was a kid and I wanted to be a vet.”

I look at her frizzy yellow hair and her bright green eyes. She looks younger today than she normally does. She doesn’t look like a teacher, either. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was an ordinary person.

“How come you didn’t become one?”

“Too hard,” she says.

“Really?” I’m amazed. Teachers never say things are too hard. Teachers make everything sound like it’s supposed to be easy. Like writing a ten-page history report is more fun than a day at the beach.

“I’m not good at science,” she says as she tips a pill in with the point of her knife.

“But you’re a teacher,” I say.

“I’m an art teacher. I did pretty well in English,
history, and art, of course. But not science. Chemistry—” She shakes her head. “Forget it.”

I’m so surprised, I stop what I’m doing. She notices this and looks over at me. “Not everyone’s as smart as you, you know,” she says.

The smile comes to my lips before I can stop it. But as soon as I feel it there, I push it away. I don’t want her to know how pleased I am. Still, I hope she will keep talking more about this. More about me and how smart I am.

“At least, that’s what Sam Lewis says.”

“Cave Man?”

Carol laughs a funny laugh, kind of a snort. “I guess I should feel lucky that I’m only ‘Just’ Carol and not something worse. Anyhow, Sam Lewis says you try to pass your work off as Harrison’s. He says you even try to copy that weird handwriting Harrison has.”