The Zoo at the Edge of the World (12 page)

Fourth Night

This will be a night to remember. All the wonderful sights you've seen and the friends you've made will come together in a last hurrah!

It's the Closing Gala, and it will end your adventure at the Zoo at the Edge of the World just as grandly as it began. The band will play, the wine will flow, and we'll dance the hours away across the ballroom floor.

Every table will be set with mementos of your time here that you may take home and display proudly, making you the envy of all your friends and relatives. But don't start reliving the good memories yet. There's still time to make new ones.

All exhibits close early so the staff can prepare the gala. But don't worry, your favorite animals will still be there tomorrow, right in the places you've left them.

22.

“W
hat this is for you is a lesson in management.”

Father sat across from me at the small wooden table, chewing his beef. We were eating dinner at home tonight so Father could skip the meal at the Closing Gala. He said he'd have a lot of talking to do.

“You're seeing all that goes into an operation like this. It's big, it's complicated, and you have to play the cards that are dealt to you.” Little flecks of beef had caught in Father's mustache, and he licked them out as he spoke. I hadn't touched my meal. Meat wasn't for me anymore, I decided, but I knew this wasn't the right time to mention it, so I slipped bits to Kenji under the table.

“Look at what's happened with the jaguar. There's a man-eater on the loose in the jungle,” he said in mock terror. “Terrible, isn't it? No! We catch him and bring him back here, and now we've got the most amazing creature in all the wild. Everybody's mad for him. But I'm not going to just leave him in a cage for folks to gawk at. I put him in the circus show, front and center. And we give him something spectacular.”

Father squinted his eyes and looked off into the distance. I suspected it wasn't just coffee in his cup.

“Of course, that didn't work out the way I'd planned. Sabotage threw us for a loop.” He scowled bitterly at some imagined person over my shoulder, and I tensed up.

“I thought the jaguar was perfect for this place,” Father said ruefully. “He would show the people I could make the jungle safe for them. Show them that the wild parts are what's beautiful about it, so they'd care, and not want to burn it all down to make a piece of silver.”

He looked at me, but I wouldn't meet his eye. He spoke in a softer tone. “I don't want to do it, Marlin. But I have to. The workers want the jaguar dead; the guests do too. You saw them at the boat—I had to give them blood. Our job is to give the people what they want. If we don't do that, we go out of business.”

I thought our job was protecting the jungle.

Father took another swig from his mug, and I passed Kenji a strip of beef.

“Don't feed that monkey at the table!” Father bellowed. He slammed his mug down.

I'd spent that afternoon in my room, alone, reading the book Olivia had given me,
The Amazing Adventures of Ronan Rackham
. It was a quick read, and the stories were familiar to me. Father's heroic passage to South America. Father's heroic exploration of the jungle, and the building of the Zoo at the Edge of the World. Nothing about the death of my mother, or my stutter, or Tim's sadism. Just Father's best moments, the stories he tells over and over.

One thing in the book stuck out to me. Again and again the author described Father as “Ronan Rackham, Conqueror and Protector of the Jungle.” Almost as if that were a title he'd been given by a king.

Father breathed heavily. “This is what we have to do.”

“S-s-S-sa-SA-sooorr—y,” I stuttered, without emotion.

“That's all right, my boy, that's all right.” Father loudly pushed back his chair. He crept around to my side of the table, leaned over my plate, and wrapped his arms around me. His elbow was in the beef. “You're who I've got now,” he said, his voice raspy with drink. “Just me and my little boy.”

Ronan Rackham, Conqueror and Protector of the Jungle.

He hugged me so tight, I had to hold my breath.

23.

T
he gala was a strange nightmare of music and colored lights. Father entertained the guests all night, flattering the ladies and joking with the men. To everyone who visited our table he said, “You'll be at the Sky Shrine first thing tomorrow morning? It's going to be quite a show!” The guests would laugh and squeal and grow faint with excitement.

I sat there and listened to it all. Some guests wanted to know what method Father would use to dispatch the Jaguar. A gun? A spear? Some said it served the Jaguar right, attacking humans. Some were so thrilled at the chance to see a real execution that they were speechless and simply thanked my father for a wonderful week.

Out of the dozen or so dining tables set up in the Great Hall, there were only two fashionable places to be: visiting our table by the big window, or the duke's family table on the other side of the dance floor. Every guest paid a lengthy visit to each and listened to either my father or the duke hold forth. The two men tried their best to ignore each other.

While Father was entertaining a pair of blond sisters with stories of days in the jungle, I decided to leave. I quietly turned out of my chair and walked across the dance floor to the big double doors.

Olivia caught my sleeve in the garden by the exit.

“Marlin,” she said, looking less than happy in her party dress. “I've got to say I'm so sorry about everything. Whatever's going on between our fathers, I need you to know it has nothing to do with us.”

I turned around and looked at her skeptically. She was the one who'd been raving about her daddy's sugar forest. “Please, Marlin,” she said. “I know you're upset about your brother. It's terrible what happened to him. That jaguar is just evil.” She said it with such innocence. The Jaguar was the fairytale monster. Tomorrow he'd get what he deserved.

My eye twitched, and the new skin on the palm of my right hand felt raw. “N—nnn-NO!” I said. “No!”

Olivia pulled back, scared. Tears streamed down my face. She reached out to hold my hand, but I turned from her. I walked toward the Golden Path and didn't look back. She called after me, but I ignored her.

The house was dark when I got there. No one was home, not even Kenji. I lit a lamp and wandered the halls of my house like a ghost.

Eventually, I found the thing I was looking for.

24.

“I
f you're my guard for the evening, where's your rifle?” the Jaguar asked.

“There's no guard tonight,” I said, closing the broken door as best I could. I turned the spark stone in the lamp and hung it in the center of the room. Light danced in the colored glasses, and the Jaguar purred.

“For some reason I thought I'd never see that again,” he said. “I'm glad you're here.”

“Jaguar, this is very serious.”

“Where's your father?”

“At a party.”

“Ah, yes. I can hear music, just like my first night.” He sighed. “And your brother?”

“On a boat. Back to Georgetown.”

“Music is the one human thing I am fond of.”

“Father's going to kill you, Jaguar.” I said. “In the morning.”

He pricked up his ears and was silent. His massive frame slumped slightly.

“Just when I was beginning to enjoy things here.”

“I hate this!” I shouted. I kicked the door of his cage and banged my fists against the bars. They didn't budge.

“Careful, little one,” the Jaguar said. “I've tried that already, and it hurts.”

“Why'd you have to hurt Tim?”

“He was going to kill me. I should have let him?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

“You never should have come,” I said. “Never should have spoken to me. Never given me this.”

“I didn't come by choice.” The Jaguar leaned his head against the bars of the cage, and his thick, black fur pressed through. It was soft, and I could feel it warm on my hand. “Looks like I'll die here anyway,” he continued. “You want your gift to die with me? Go back to being as you were?”

“I don't know.”

“You could be daddy's good boy with the broken mouth. You could be having a grand time at the gala.”

“Gnats to a flame,” I said bitterly.

The Jaguar laughed. “That's good. I'm glad you can speak, if only because I like talking to you.”

“Is that true?”

“Well, I am a captive audience.” The Jaguar chuckled. “So you wouldn't know either way.”

My head was spinning, and I sat down on the stones. The world felt very wrong in that moment. I was talking to a jaguar while Father and his guests danced in the middle of the jungle.

“I don't know what to think anymore,” I said. “I don't know what I want.”

The Jaguar's lips curled into a smile and his eyes went wide. “You want to let me out,” he said.

I sat quietly for a moment on the stones. “You're a man-eater,” I said halfheartedly.

“I am no such thing.”

“Even so, there's nothing I can do.”

A light wind whistled through the shot-out door of the Ruby Palace. The lamp twirled on the hook and the colored lights spun.

“I can smell a liar,” the Jaguar hissed. “If you leave me here to die, the least you can do is tell the truth.”

I put my right hand to my back pocket. The hard metal bulge pressed against the sensitive skin on my palm and gave me shivers. It was the key to the Jaguar's cage, taken from Father's room that night.

It had always been with him, in his pocket or on his bedpost. But he'd been talking to me as he dressed for the Gala, and when he'd changed his work clothes for a dress suit, I'd seen that he'd left the key on his belt. The rum had made him careless.

Stealing it was easy. I told myself it was nothing to take a key. It wasn't as though I intended to use it. But now, it was between my thumb and forefinger. The shining brass reflected the multicolored light. The Jaguar stepped into the shadowy corner of his cage. The room's air seemed to tighten around me like a boa constrictor.

I slid the key into the lock. The tumblers must have clicked into place, but I didn't hear them. Two different worlds were open before me.

Turn the key to the right, and the door stays locked. I am my father's son.

Turn the key to the left, and the door opens. The Jaguar. The unknown.

The key was in the center, cutting my future in two.

Left.

Click.

CRASH!

The cage door burst open.

The hot, black mass knocked me to the ground.

Wind howled through the open door.

The Jaguar's cage was creaking, empty.

I stood shivering, mystified, and alone.

Final Day

As you walk the grounds this morning greeting your new friends, accepting compliments from our cheerful staff, bearing witness to the peaceful splendor around you, take a moment and consider that tonight this will all be gone, living only in your memories.

Immerse yourself on this final day. Enjoy a special breakfast with your humble host, Ronan Rackham. He's handing out awards to the winners of the many parlor games held in the recreation room this week.

Special lectures will be held at various exhibits throughout the morning. Hear the inside scoop on your favorite animals from the men who spend their lives caring for them.

A valet will be sent to your room to assist you with packing. Our employees are always here to help.

You've faced many challenges on this adventure, but the hardest of all will be saying good-bye.

25.

I
woke up with a knot in my stomach that day and knew exactly what to pin it on.

I'd been dreaming of the Jaguar's den. It was difficult to orient myself to my bedroom or even to remember walking back to my house.

I could only recall entering the front door and realizing I hadn't locked it when I left.
No robbers here,
I thought,
only mice.

I laughed out loud and scared myself. I was sure to double-bolt the door.

I fell asleep the moment I got into bed, not realizing how tired I'd been.

And even though I had plenty to worry about, I felt a strange sense of peace.

It was over. Until the next day, at least.

And that's what the knot in my stomach was. The next day was here.

 

On the Golden Path near the bottom of the hill, Heppa and her son, Jarro, were talking to the lady with the red hat and a man who looked like her husband.

“You can have everything I've got on me now,” the man bellowed, “and when we're back in Georgetown, we'll go to the bank and I'll give you more.”

Heppa considered him sternly. The warm crinkles around her eyes were gone, no hint of a smile. She took Jarro by the arm and tried to walk around the couple, but the man stepped in front of them.

“I'll pay you a thousand pounds,” he blurted out. “Two thousand! Just for a day!”

“We are not going back,” Heppa said seriously.

“Please,” said the lady in the red hat. “We can't find anyone to take us. We're very afraid. This is no place for people like us.”

“I agree,” Heppa said softly. “But here you are.”

“Please!” the lady in the red hat begged. “You're supposed to help!”

“I am not your painting teacher now,” Heppa said. “I don't want you to be hurt, but I will not put a
mishin
over my son.”

Heppa's face crunched up like a fist.
Mishin
was the word our workers used for guests. It also means “dead fish.”

“We are going alone,” Heppa added with finality. “You stay until the boat comes—that is best. Do not bother anyone else. The jungle has a place for our people, but not for you.”

The woman in the red hat looked shocked. She had probably never been denied by someone she thought inferior.

“If we stay here,” her husband said cautiously, “how can we be safe? With the jaguar loose?”

Heppa sighed and shook her head. “Stay close to Ronan Rackham,” she said, exchanging a glance with her son. “But not too close.”

It was then that Jarro spotted me.

“Marlin! What are you doing here?”

I walked down to them and noticed that there were no guards posted on the walls. I searched the path on the pyramid for workers making rounds but saw no one.

“You should be with your father,” Heppa said. “He should have sent someone for you.” She waved away the anxious guests and ambled partway up the hill to me. She reached out and put her hands on my shoulders. “All of us are leaving. The jaguar escaped, and it's not safe for anyone.”

Jarro touched her arm and said something in Arawak. Then he turned to me and said, “You should get inside.” He adjusted the two cloth sacks draped over his shoulders, carrying what looked like all of their belongings. They really weren't coming back.

“Woo—wa—where?” I managed to ask.

“One of the villages, the other side of the river. We will be safer there . . . ,” Heppa said. “I don't know if they'd take you.”

“The curse is on his family,” said Jarro.

“That's what they'll think,” Heppa replied.

“It's the truth!” Jarro said.

“I don't know,” she whispered. “But Marlin, go to your father. Whatever your fate, it is tied with him.”

She gave me a parting hug, but there was no comfort in it. I knew she was right.