Arnold

by Ray Jones

  ARNOLD AT THE ZOO

  “You need some new shoes for school,” said Mrs Tibbs to her ten year old son Arnold, “but I’m so busy I don’t know when I shall have time to go and buy them.”

  “I could buy them myself,” said Arnold. “You don’t need to come with me.”

  She looked at him doubtfully. “Black ones,” she said. “You’ve got to have black ones. You know the school won’t let you wear trainers. Get them from the Co-op. I’ll write the size down for you. Try them on and make sure they’re a good fit. You can get yourself a T-shirt as well while you’re there; they’ve got some nice plain blue ones.”

  “And can I go to the zoo?” said Arnold.

  “If there’s enough change left over. But get the shoes and the T-shirt first.”

  Arnold bought the shoes as his mother had instructed him, but he didn’t buy a plain blue T-shirt. He saw a bright pink one with a picture of a spaceship on the front and bought that instead, reasoning that he was the one who would have to wear it and not his mother.

  With his shoes and his T-shirt in a carrier bag and joy in his heart Arnold made his way to the zoo. There his imagination took flight. He stood staring into the wolf enclosure and he became a trapper in the Yukon, driving his sledge and dog-team across the frozen plain, set upon by a pack of starving wolves.

  One of the wolves, annoyed by Arnold’s stare, wrinkled his nose and bared his fangs.

  “See that,” said Arnold to no one in particular, “that means he wants to eat me.”

  A small boy came and stood next to Arnold. He wore a dazzling pink T-shirt with a picture of a spaceship on the front. Arnold took an immediate liking to him.

  Arnold wrinkled his nose and bared his teeth at the wolf, then he let out a blood-curdling howl which was so sudden and unexpected that people nearby were alarmed, thinking he was in pain. The small boy also howled, then they took turns to see who could howl the loudest and the wolves, not to be outdone, also joined in

  “That means they’re hungry,” said Arnold, excitedly. “They always howl like that when they’re hungry. If they got out they’d eat us. Human flesh,” he added with relish, “is their favourite food.”

  Arnold moved on and the boy with the pink T-shirt went with him. They enjoyed the animals as only small boys can. In their imagination they shot buffalo with bows and arrows, rode elephants through steaming jungles, fought lions with their bare hands, tracked polar bears across the arctic, and cavorted with penguins in the Antarctic. They chattered to the monkeys, honked at the sea lions and squawked at the parrots. They ran in mock terror from the crocodiles, shuddered at the snakes, and stared open-mouthed at the giraffes, unable to believe that any creature could be so tall.

  But their greatest pleasure was at the ape-house. They watched the orang-utans climb trees; swing on tyres suspended from ropes and slide round their enclosure on plastic trays, and were delighted by them. The chimpanzees were even more entertaining. They ran round and round their enclosures at great speed, climbed up and down the trees and called out, ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh, with mounting excitement, as though singing a musical scale, while beating their chests with their fists.

  The gorillas were not as amusing as the other apes. They looked at the two boys with mournful eyes.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Arnold. “Why are you so miserable?”

  “They can’t understand you,” said the boy with the pink T-shirt.

  “Course they can,” said Arnold. “They can understand anything.”

  “Why can’t they talk then?”

  “They can talk. They don’t understand English that’s all. They come from Africa so they talk African. I bet they could talk English if they learned English.”

  “Course they couldn’t,” said the boy.

  “They could,” insisted Arnold. “There was this programme on the telly where the apes had their own planet and government and everything. They could talk and ride horses.”

  “Those were actors dressed up,” scoffed the boy.

  “No they weren’t,” said Arnold. “They were apes. They can talk.

  “They can’t,” insisted the boy.

  Arnold looked round to see if there was someone who would support his argument. He found himself looking into the eyes of a keeper.

  “Mister,” he said, “can apes talk?”

  The keeper didn’t like boys. Boys dropped litter on the ground instead of putting it in the litter bins, and they fed the animals with apple cores and half-eaten sandwiches when there were signs all round the zoo requesting them not to feed them. No, he did not like boys. He looked down into Arnold’s large, gullible eyes and decided to play a joke on the two boys.

  “Some apes can talk,” he said.

  “See, I told you they could,” said Arnold to the boy.

  “As a matter of fact,” said the keeper, “we have a gorilla who can talk. We don’t tell people about him though. They’d all want to meet him if we did. We just let important people meet him. The queen sees him when she comes.”

  “The queen!” said Arnold and the boy together.

  “She can keep a secret.”

  “I can keep a secret,” said Arnold.

  “I can keep a secret as well,” said the other boy.

  “Well,” said the keeper, looking down into the two serious faces, “if you promise not to tell anyone, cross your heart and hope to die, I’ll take you to see him.”

  The boys gave their promise and the keeper led them to the back of the ape-house. He unlocked a door opening onto a long corridor with cages along one side. This was the hospital where the apes were put when they were sick. The attendant stopped at one of the cages.

  “This is Congo’s cage,” he said.

  They peered into the dark cage but could see nothing.

  “He must be in his sleeping quarters,” said the keeper. “He’s probably reading a book. You wait here and I’ll go and ask him to come and have a word with you.”

  The boys waited for several minutes before a dark, shaggy figure came ambling out of the sleeping quarters.

  “Well,” said the gorilla, squatting down in the gloomiest corner of the cage, “the keeper says you wanted a word with me. What is it you want to know?”

  Arnold stood looking at the gorilla, open-mouthed. The other boy, with more presence of mind, said “Gorillas can’t talk.”

  “Can’t talk!” said the gorilla. “Can’t talk! I can talk so fast it’d make you dizzy listening to me; and I can use words so hard it would make your head ache finding out what they all mean. Don’t tell me gorillas can’t talk.”

  “D…do you like being in a zoo?” said Arnold.

  “Zoos are better in my country,” said the gorilla. “We keep boys in our zoos. Human boys just like you two.”

  “Why do you keep boys in zoos?”

  “To laugh at,” said the gorilla. “They chase one another up and down trees, scratch themselves and make silly noises: ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh. Yes, they’re a good laugh boys are. Would you boys like to be in a zoo?”

  They shook their heads.

  “You wouldn’t have to go to school and do all those boring lessons. You’d just do silly things all day long and we apes would come and laugh at you. Wouldn’t you like that?”

  “No,” said Arnold and the other boy together.

  “Yes,” said the gorilla. “You wait here and I’ll fix it up for you,” and he lurched back into the sleeping quarters.

  The boys decided it was time they left and they ran back down the corridor, but found the way blocked by the gorilla who was coming towards them. They turned and ran the other way and round the corner into another passage. There was a door at the end, but it was locked. Then they heard someone laughing and the gorilla came round the corner, but he had a human head, the keeper’s head, and the gorilla’s head was under his arm. They realised that they’d been tricked. Still laughing, the keeper unzipped the gorilla suit, took a key from his pocket, unlocked the door and let the
m out.

  The boy wearing the pink T-shirt looked as though he was about to cry. “I’m going home,” he said and he walked towards the exit.

  Arnold then decided to go and see the tigers. There was only one, a fierce-looking male in the tiger-pit and, when he saw Arnold leaning over the barrier and looking down at him, he leapt up the wall with a fierce roar. Arnold was so startled that he let go the carrier bag containing his shoes and T-shirt. It fell down the pit, bouncing off the tiger’s nose.

  The tiger fell savagely on the carrier bag, tearing it open and revealing the bright pink T-shirt and the shoes. He tore at the shirt with his teeth and claws and then turned his attention to the shoes, chewing them like a dog with a bone.

  Arnold turned away from the tiger pit and looked round for help. He had to get his shoes and T-shirt back. Luckily, a keeper was coming towards him pushing a trolley. Arnold ran to him and caught him by the sleeve. It was the keeper who had played the trick on him.

  There was a look of such distress on Arnold’s face that the keeper left his trolley and ran with him to the tiger pit. When he saw the bright pink T-shirt gleaming on the bottom his face turned white.

  “Is that your little friend?” he asked. “Did he fall in?”

  Arnold’s lip trembled as though he were about to cry, but he said nothing.

  D-d-don’t worry,” said the keeper, gabbling like a lunatic. “He’s prob-prob-probably all right. I’ll phone for help. You stay here,” and he rushed off.

  The tiger had lost interest in Arnold’s shoes. They lay in the pit, two sorry lumps of chewed leather. Arnold wondered what his mother would say when she saw them.

  The loudspeaker overhead crackled into life. ‘Attention! Attention!’ said a lady’s voice. ‘If there is a doctor on the zoo will he please go to the tiger enclosure immediately?’

  The keeper came back, out of breath. “Don’t worry…help’s coming…he could be all right…could’ve crawled into the sleeping quarters.”

  Arnold didn’t understand what he was talking about.

  A car drew up with a screeching of brakes and a man got out. “The manager,” said the keeper.

  The lady’s voice was heard again on the loudspeaker. She must have forgotten to turn the microphone off and now everyone heard her say, ‘All right, all right, keep your hair on. I’ve rung for an ambulance and the fire-brigade. It isn’t my fault the kid’s fallen into the tiger pit. I don’t suppose there’s much left of him by now anyway.’

  The manager glared angrily at the loudspeaker. “Tell her to turn the microphone off,” he ordered, and the keeper ran to make another phone call.

  People began to arrive from all parts of the zoo. Grave-faced and excited they looked down into the tiger-pit, muttering among themselves.

  A distant siren could be heard. It grew louder, becoming a deafening blare. An ambulance drew up, followed by a fire-engine and uniformed men elbowed their way through the crowd.

  More people arrived. They jostled for position round the tiger-pit. There was a buzz of excitement when a man with a rifle appeared.

  A small boy pushed his way through the crowd to where Arnold was standing. A boy wearing a dazzling pink T-shirt with a picture of a spaceship on the front.

  “What’s going on?” he said. “I heard the fire-engine and I came back.”

  Arnold pointed to the man with the rifle. “He’s going to shoot the tiger because he tried to eat my new shoes,” he said.

  The keeper, who was standing next to the man with the rifle, looked round and saw the two boys. His expression changed from puzzlement, to alarm, and then panic.

  “Don’t shoot,” he said. “I’ll be back in a moment,” and he pushed his way towards the boys. He took them both by the hands and drew them away from the crowd.

  “Whose is that T-shirt in the tiger-pit?” he said. “And whose are the shoes?”

  “Mine,” said Arnold. “I only bought them this morning and that tiger’s chewed them up.”

  “But why did you drop them down there?”

  Arnold ignored the question. “You frightened us when you dressed up as a gorilla,” he said, accusingly.

  “That was a joke,” said the keeper. “I thought it would make you laugh. We’ll keep it a secret, eh? Just between the three of us? Here,” he thrust some money into their hands, “go and buy yourselves some ice-cream.”

  The boy with the T-shirt ran off before the keeper changed his mind and asked for his money back, but Arnold stood his ground.

  “I want my shoes back,” he said.

  “Here,” said the keeper, pushing more money into Arnold’s hands. “Buy yourself some new ones.”

  “I’ve got to get a T-shirt as well,” said Arnold.

  The keeper handed him more money. “Now go,” he said

  “I’m going to watch the man shoot the tiger first,” said Arnold.

  “He isn’t going to shoot him,” said the keeper, his eyes anxiously on the manager who was coming towards him. “If you don’t go now the shops will be shut,” and, giving Arnold a push towards the exit, he turned to face the manager with a sickly smile.

  As he walked home carrying a carrier bag, Arnold felt happy. He had bought a new pair of shoes, exactly like the first pair, and also a new T-shirt, but one that was plain blue because the shop had sold all the pink ones with the pictures of spaceships on the front. This was the only thing that spoiled what had otherwise been a very satisfactory day.