The Zoo at the Edge of the World (15 page)

30.

“T
hat was a snake,” Olivia said in shock.

We'd landed on the grimy stones, and she was underneath me. Her face was red and dusted with dirt. Little streams of clean skin descended from her eyes where she'd been crying. I shuffled off her and pulled us both up to sitting. She looked disoriented and had trouble focusing on me.

“AAh-AAH-O—livi—a,” I stammered, putting my hands on her shoulders. She turned to me and her mouth opened in a soft shape, but she didn't say anything. She looked at me, uncertain.

I hugged her and she sighed. “Ehh—It's ah—okay,” I said. “Okay.” Her arms came around my back and pulled me tighter to her. I regretted acting angry with her the night before. Both of our fathers had done terrible things, and she couldn't change what hers had done any more than I could mine.

“It's scary out here, Marlin,” she said with her chin on my shoulder. “The animals broke their cages.”

“Ah—I ne—ne—know,” I said.

“What were you doing locked in there?” Olivia asked, pulling away. “That thing could have killed you.”

“Ma—My ffff—father.” I lowered my head.

“He put you in there?” Olivia asked. “I don't understand, Marlin. Why would he do that?”

I couldn't answer her.

“My mother and father are missing,” she said. “Everyone went to the Great Hall to hide, but my parents never arrived. So I left to look for them. Kenji came up to me with these keys, and she started pulling at me and screeching and led me here. How did she know you were in trouble?”

I turned to Kenji and put out my hand. She scampered over and scaled my arm to my shoulder. I kissed her on the cheek and said, “Thank you, my friend.”

“Of course!” Kenji shrieked. “Kenji went to get help. What did you think I was doing?”

“Getting help, of course.” I laughed. “I knew you wouldn't leave me.”

“Yeah, you better know that!”

Olivia looked at Kenji and me. “What are you doing?”

“Uh . . .” I turned back to her. “N—n—nnn—nothing.”

“We should really go, Master Marlin,” Kenji whispered to me. “Chimps are prowling.”

I nodded and helped Olivia to her feet. “Guh-Guh—Great Hall,” I managed, and tried to pull Olivia westward, but she pulled back.

“Marlin, I have to find my parents.” She was scared, but the fight hadn't left her. She wouldn't leave without them, and I wouldn't leave without her.

“Ah—ah—okay,” I said. So we turned south, up the Golden Path, into the zoo.

31.

T
he spectacled bear cage was open and empty, with no sign of where Mala and Bashtee had gone. Likewise in the Boar Den—Tuskus, Gray Beard, and Belly Wart were gone, and the door to the pen was swinging in the wind. But the bush dogs exhibit was untouched. All five dogs howled at me. “Let us out! Let us out, too!”

The gate to the Tapir Pond was still bolted, and Bottleby and Longsnout half hid themselves in the water. There seemed to be no logic to it.

“Ahoy, down there, Marlin!” came calls from above our heads. I looked up to see Eddo and Bill, the two toucans, circling my head along with Tappet, the bird of paradise.

“Be careful there, Marlin!” Tappet chirped.

Olivia was looking up at the squawking birds as well. She already seemed a little scared of the attention they were giving us, and I couldn't blame her with the state the zoo was in.

“Hey you guys, come down here!” Kenji hooted, throwing her hands in the air. “Master Marlin needs your help!”

The three birds spiraled down through the air and landed on the ground in front of us. Olivia jumped back at the strange sight as Tappet and Eddo hopped forward. “What can we do for you, Marlin?”

“Yes,” Bill echoed. “We owe you one after you helped out with him.” He cocked his head toward Tappet.

“Helping out with who?” Tappet demanded, jumping up and down.

“No one!” Eddo said.

“No one!” Bill agreed.

I didn't want to frighten Olivia further by chatting with the birds right in front of her, but there were chimps on the loose, and I didn't know what else to do. All our animals could be dangerous when panicked, and panic was ruling the day. Explaining myself to Olivia would have to come second.

“We're looking for some people,” I said.

“People? We've seen people everywhere,” Eddo said.

“They've been making a racket worse than him,” Bill said.

“Worse than who?” Tappet squawked.

“No one!” said Eddo.

“No one!” Bill repeated.

“Listen to me!” I shouted at them. “I'm looking for a man and a woman. The man is big, with a pointy silver beard. The woman . . . well she looks like her, but taller.” I turned around and pointed at Olivia. I don't know what kind of a madman I must have seemed to her, but I didn't care.

“You sure that's not her, right there?” Tappet asked.

“Yes, I am,” I said. “But she looks like her.”

“Hmmm . . . ,” said Eddo, turning to Bill.

“Hmmm . . . ,” Bill responded.

“Sorry, but no!” they both said together.

I stood up and looked at Kenji, shaking my head. “Marlin?” Olivia asked me delicately. “What are you doing with those birds?”

Before I could begin to summon up an answer, a trumpet call cut through the night. It was accompanied by the stomping of feet on stone that grew louder and nearer from behind a stand of trees.

“What's that?” asked Eddo.

“What's that?” Bill echoed him.

“That's an elephant, I think,” said Tappet.

“An elephant?” Bill and Eddo repeated, jumping into the air.

The birch trees lining the path next to the empty Boar Den burst into splinters. Dreyfus smashed through them in a frenzied gallop. He barreled down the path toward where we were standing, rattling the stones underneath him with every thundering step.

He trumpeted in panic and shook his wide gray head. A flaming torch was tied to the end of his trunk, swinging side to side and setting trees aflame.

Olivia screamed as he charged us, and Kenji scaled my back and wrapped her paws around my neck. Bill, Eddo, and Tappet scattered in all directions. Dreyfus galloped right at us, and Olivia tried to pull me off the path, but I pushed her away. “G—go!” I said.

Dreyfus broke his stride within inches of me and reared up, kicking his forelegs in the air as smoke streamed from his trunk.

“Dreyfus!” I shouted. “Stop!” His dirty toe caught me in the chin and knocked me back onto the path. He was standing at his full height above me, and a tower of smoke extended to the sky. He looked like an enormous puppet being held up by a string. When he came down, I had to roll between the wrinkled pillars of his legs to avoid getting smashed.

“Tim's trick!” I called to him, remembering the circus bit they'd performed. “Let me up!”

Dreyfus bent his knee and lowered his head. “Marlin, help me,” he gasped.

The burning torch was under his face, and hot smoke burned his eyes. I climbed his knee and grabbed hold of his tusk. A smoldering piece of ash touched his skin, and he reared back in pain, nearly tossing me.

I lifted my stomach onto his tusk and put a foot in his open mouth to hoist myself over his head. When I was up, I lay flat on my tummy between his eyes and secured my feet in the crooks of his ears.

“Take it off!” he moaned as the torch shifted up his trunk. It'd been lashed there with a length of hemp and was now riding up the trunk.

I unhooked my toes from the crooks of his ears and took a bumpy ride down to the end of his trunk. Smoke was streaming into my eyes now, and I had to reach around the flame to feel the strands of hemp wrapped round each other. The heat hurt my face, and my right palm was screaming with pain. Still, I probed behind the torch with my hands while my legs were wrapped around his trunk, my feet in his mouth. I tried to lift the torch away from his skin but couldn't find a loose end in the hemp. Still, I sensed it had some give.

Desperate, I pulled the torch farther up his trunk and let it fall on Dreyfus's skin.

He shrieked, but it gave me the slack I needed to pull the tangle of hemp onto the fire. It crackled and in an instant burned away, dropping the torch and me to the Golden Path below.

I fell on my back as Olivia stamped out the flames with her boot sole. She pulled me up, and my vision was spinning slightly. All the trees along the Golden Path were now raging with fire. Red smoke clouds formed in the sky.

Dreyfus collapsed and extended his trunk to me.

“What happened to you?” I gasped.

“The apes,” he moaned. “They opened my gate, and when I wouldn't go with them, they tied the torch to me and lit it.”

I clamped my aching right palm beneath my armpit and leaned against him. “You have to get out of here,” I said. “The apes have gone mad. It isn't safe.”

Dreyfus blinked the smoke out of his teary eyes. I saw the sensitive skin on his trunk turning red and was relieved I'd gotten the torch off before the burn was too serious. His skin hadn't made contact with the flames for long. It was mostly the smoke and the heat that had panicked him.

“Marlin!” a voice called from the air. I looked up. It was Tappet. “I've found them! I've found the woman and the man!”

“I have to go now,” I said to Dreyfus, gently stroking his snout. “Promise me you'll get somewhere safe.”

“I will,” the elephant said, getting up and shaking out his ears. “But where are you going?”

I turned to Olivia, who was now standing at my side, shaking. I took her by the hand and said in the animal tongue, “We have people to find.”

32.

W
e trailed after Tappet at a sprint, breaking off the Golden Path and dodging between buildings and exhibits. The destruction Dreyfus had wrought was everywhere: smashed trees and fences, fires spreading through broken branches and wooden structures. I was thankful that our animal exhibits were all metal and stone and wouldn't burn, but the trees and fences all around gave off a monstrous heat and plumes of smoke that drove the animals still trapped in the cages mad with fear. They called for me to help them, but Father had taken my keys when he'd locked me in the Snake House.

We followed Tappet down the pyramid to a heavily wooded park at the base, which was dominated by fifty-foot-tall bitter berry trees. The shrubs at the edges of the park had caught fire, and the wind whipped the flames high. We heard a moaning growl and human screams from within the park.

Tappet chirped, “In there!”

Olivia saw them first. “Mum! Dad!” she shouted, and took off. Kenji and I followed her, trying to see where she was headed, but we were too far behind. A roar sounded, and Mala, our two-hundred-pound spectacled bear, appeared before Olivia and swiped at her. Olivia stopped short in time and dodged it. That's when I saw them. The duke and the duchess were partway up a tree, clinging to the branches for dear life.

“Olivia!” the duke bellowed.

“Darling!” cried the duchess.

She scrambled away from the bear and back toward me. Mala charged her for a few paces and roared. Spectacled bears are mostly vegetarians and wouldn't think of hurting a human even if they were starving. But Mala foamed and roared and reared up on her hind legs. When Olivia was far enough back, she turned around and refocused herself on the tree the duke and duchess were in. Mala screamed, “Get away from him!” and leaped up on the trunk. She tried to climb to where the duke and duchess were cowering, but all around the base of the tree were stumps from broken branches, and the bear couldn't get a foothold.

“Run away, Olivia!” the duchess screamed.

“Go!” called the duke.

Mala roared and clawed at the base of the tree. “You get away from him!” she bellowed. She leaped up against the trunk and gained traction with her claws, snapping at the duchess's feet and pulling off a white leather boot.

“Mala, stop!” I shouted, coming up behind her.

She turned to me and snarled. “Leave me alone, Marlin!”

“Where is Bashtee?” I called to her.

“What are you doing, boy?” the duke shouted at me. “Get Olivia out of here!”

“Bring help!” the duchess shrieked.

I went up closer to the tree. The flame from the shrubs had caught onto the bitter berry trees at the edges, and the smoke was clouding the treetops.

“Is Bashtee up there?” I said to Mala as she chomped at a branch below the duchess's feet.

“The boy is mad,” the duchess cried. “Olivia, you must run!”

I heard twigs cracking behind me and then Olivia was at my side, Kenji perched on her shoulder. “Marlin will help you, Mother,” she said. “You need to trust him!”

I turned to look at her. She didn't think I was crazy.

“Please, Marlin,” she begged me.

I nodded and ran to the base of the tree below the bear. “Is Bashtee up there?” I called to Mala, who had climbed up a few feet above my head. She looked down at me and roared, “Go away!” I couldn't see the top of the tree because of all the smoke, but I knew the only thing that would drive her to this. I grabbed hold of the broken stub of a branch and pulled myself up onto the trunk. There was splintered wood everywhere, but the tree was sticky with sap, and it made my grip stronger. I pulled myself higher until my head was at Mala's belly. When I reached the level of her face, she snapped at me.

“Marlin, stay away from him!” Her jaws clamped on a branch where my hand had just been. She clawed at me and tore the shoulder of my shirt, drawing blood.

“I will not hurt Bashtee!” I screamed at her. “When you thought he was lost, that he wasn't your cub, I found him for you. I brought him back for you.”

The bear's face contorted for an instant in recognition. It was the second I needed to grab hold of the duchess's bare foot and pull myself up to a higher branch.

“Oh!” she screamed, kicking at me with her other heel.

Mala's mothering instinct overpowered her again and she swiped at me, barely missing my guts.

“Help him up, Mother!” Olivia screamed furiously from below. The duke grabbed hold of my collar and hoisted me up to the branch where they were teetering.

He lost his balance, and I grabbed his belt. For a moment, I entertained the thought of letting go. It would be a better world if Guiana had one less ravisher. He looked at me fearfully and flailed for support. His fate was in my hands. The animals would be saved, the jungle preserved, and my father avenged.

And, like my father, I would be a murderer.

I pulled the duke back toward the safety of the tree trunk and grabbed the branch above me. I hoisted myself up above the Duke and Duchess of Bradshire but made sure to put a foot on each of their heads for a boost.

“Ow! Watch it!” they cried, and I ascended, smiling.

High up in the tree, through the haze of the smoke, I saw Bashtee. He had climbed far up into the tree to get away from whatever had scared him, but he let me lift him off the branch and tuck him under one arm.

The Bradshires made for excellent ladders on my way down. My boots marked their white clothing brilliantly.

“My baby!” Mala moaned as I handed Bashtee down to her, setting the cub gently on her head. She dropped off the trunk of the tree, picked Bashtee up by the nape of his neck, and trotted off with him through the trees and away from the fire.

The duke and duchess slid to the ground, much less gracefully, and Olivia ran to them. The family pulled together, all crying with relief. Kenji and I surveyed the scene from a respectful distance, but I did overhear Olivia comforting her mother.

“It's all right,” she said. “We're with Marlin now.”