“Just ‘cause … well, it’s not like we’re going out or anything—”
“—because you can’t go out till you’re sixteen, yeah, I know.” “Right,” she said, looking surprised and almost relieved. “Okay, cool.”
“Absolutely,” I said.
“Great. You’re the best, Ben!”
And she gave me a little hug, the kind she gave to her friends when they were all excited to see each other after a whole period apart.
“Okay, see you!” she said brightly. “See you!”
I went back to getting my books, trying to figure out what we’d just said to each other.
I decided I really had no idea what was going on.
When I got home, Dad’s Mercedes was in the driveway, which was unusual. Normally he didn’t get back from university until at least six. He was sitting in the living room with Mom, and he had a drink in his hand.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, my heart thumping. “Is Zan okay?”
“Zan’s fine,” said Mom, and looked over at Dad. “We just had some disappointing news about the project.”
“We didn’t get our grant,” Dad said.
“The big one?” I said, and Mom nodded. I didn’t understand. The way Dad had talked about it, it sounded like a sure thing. I remembered him and Dr. Godwin discussing it at our place over dinner, laughing and drinking.
“What went wrong?” I asked.
Dad shook his head, his eyebrows lifting wearily. “They saw the merit in the project but didn’t find our initial data extensive enough.”
“But Zan’s talking!” I said. What more did they want? We were teaching a chimpanzee to talk! He’d learned twenty-five words now. We had proof.
“I think they just wanted more data,” Mom said. “And a slightly different design for the experiment.”
“So what’s this mean?” I asked.
“It’s a blow,” said Dad, taking another slug of his drink. “We were counting on that money to keep the project running.”
“Can’t the university just pay for it?” I asked. There was an uncomfortable pause. “Well,” said Mom, “the university agreed to do it at the beginning—”
“But the understanding,” Dad said, “was that we’d win this grant that would cover pretty much everything.”
This sounded bad. “Are we going to be poor?” I asked.
Mom laughed. “No, no. It’s not like that.”
Dad put down his glass and gave a sigh, but looked more determined. I could see a flame kindling in his eyes. “We’ll just have to do a lot more door knocking. There’re some smaller grants I can trigger, and the department will certainly tide us over until we can reapply for the big one. That’s nine months. We’ll need to have a fair amount of new supporting material to push it through.”
“You guys can do it,” I said. “Zan’s smart. He’ll keep learning new words. He’ll make a ton of progress.”
“Of course he will,” said Mom.
Dad grinned and lifted his glass. “Here’s to Zan,” he said.
Listen, Zan signed to me a few days later.
We were out in the backyard together after dinner. At first I heard nothing, then I heard the birdsong. I just nodded.
Bird, I signed absently. I was thinking of something else, my stupid math homework still waiting to be done, and Jennifer, always hovering in my thoughts, how to please her, how to make her crazy about me. How I should look. What I needed to say. How I had to be.
That stuff she’d said to me at my locker, I thought I got it. When she said, We’re not going out, she hadn’t meant she was glad we weren’t. I figured she meant, since she wasn’t sixteen, that we had to keep it secret. It was a secret romance. We just had to play it cool. Under the radar. If anything, it made it even more exciting.
Listen, Zan told me again, and with that one word, he seemed to be asking me to do more than just listen.
His gaze was intent. He often watched the birds in their feeders, flitting from branch to branch. It was like he really wanted me to understand how beautiful the birds were, and how happy it made him to hear them. He loved the birdsong and wanted to share it with me.
So I tried to listen like a chimp. I tried to imagine myself in his world, with his sharper eyes and ears, and keener sense of smell. And I sat beside him and just listened to the birds for a while.
Listen, said Zan once more, glancing over at me, as if he was worried I’d get distracted—like humans did—but I was still listening, noticing now how different all the bird sounds were, the notes, the tempo, the patterns.
We stared up at the trees for a long time, Zan and I, just listening.
TWELVE
THE LEARNING CHAIR
Sunday afternoon the handyman came to set up the learning chair.
It had a wooden seat and back, but the rest was metal. It looked big and strong, and had a harness that buckled across the hips and shoulders. It was a chair that didn’t take no for an answer. The handyman bolted it right into the floor of Zan’s playroom—which was really more like his classroom now.
Afterwards Zan was happily climbing all over the chair like it was a new piece of playground equipment.
“You’re going to strap him in there?” I asked Dad.
“Only when he’s uncooperative.”
“But he’s like a prisoner then!” I objected.
“Not at all,” said Dad. “It’s a consequence of bad behaviour. If he sits properly in the chair and does his work, we don’t need to strap him in. The choice is his. He’s a smart animal. He’ll learn quickly.”
I looked over at Mom, wondering how she felt about this.
A lot of the time, Zan didn’t want to learn. When we tried to shape his hands into the right signs, he’d often pull away, or think we were playing a game and start hooting softly with delight, tickling us back. Sometimes he’d just run off and do something else. I didn’t blame him. I hated school too.
“Maybe some days he just doesn’t want to be taught,” I said. “He’s not even a year old!”
Mom had said the same kind of thing once, in Zan’s defence, so I was shocked now when she replied, “We’re going to try it, Ben.”
I could see Dad doing this, but not Mom. She looked very calm and matter of fact, but a bit strained. I bet she’d argued with Dad about this beforehand, and he’d talked her into it.
“The straps won’t hurt him,” she said. “Look, they’re nice and padded. And Dad’s right, he’ll figure out pretty fast how to avoid them.”
I turned away from Mom, angry. Just looking at the chair made me feel sick.
“Ben,” she said gently. “We all care about Zan. But this is a scientific experiment, and we need the grant to keep it going. Unless we get really good data from Zan, we might not get it.”
“You wouldn’t do this to a human,” I said. “You wouldn’t do this to me.”
“Might be good for your marks,” Dad said, and he laughed and slapped me on the shoulder, but I didn’t feel one bit better.
That evening at the weekly meeting, Dad told everyone about not getting the grant. He was all energetic and enthusiastic and he made it sound like it was just a temporary setback. He talked about how it gave them a fabulous opportunity to strengthen their proposal. Then everyone filed into the playroom really quietly, because Zan was asleep, and Dad showed them the learning chair.
Back in the living room, Dad explained the need for the chair. As usual he was persuasive.
“Now, the harness is only to be used if Zan keeps getting up from the chair,” he said. “Give him three warnings, and only after that do you strap him in.”
“Keep him in for just two minutes,” said Mom. “Then let him out.”
“But if he gets up again,” Dad said, “the harness goes back on, for an additional minute each time.”
None of the students said anything, not even Peter, which really surprised me. I kept watching him, hoping he’d protest. Mom and Dad already knew what I thought, so
there was no point in me talking. It was Peter’s turn now. But Peter kept staring at his notebook, writing—not even writing, I saw when I craned my neck. He was doodling over and over again until the lines were so dark the paper started to shred.
“Okay,” said Dad, “let’s go over the new shift schedule …”
“Sorry, Dr. Tomlin,” said Peter. “Um, about the new chair.”
Dad looked up with that overly patient look he had when he was impatient. “Yes, Peter.”
“I’m wondering if … my impression is …”
He faltered, and I suddenly knew why he hadn’t said anything earlier. His voice was hoarse and kind of wobbly, like he was almost too angry to talk.
“Do you think,” he managed to get out, “that the chair may be taking us in the wrong direction?”
“No, I don’t,” said Dad. “It’s the right direction.”
“What I mean is, he’s been signing less since we started working at the desk. That’s, um, already been established. So I don’t think Zan’s going to want to sign any more just because he’s strapped in.”
Dad’s eyes widened. “It’s not my wish for him to be strapped in, Peter. I’d rather he’s not. Give Zan the guidance he needs and he’ll learn that the straps are unnecessary.” He looked around at his students earnestly. “But that’s up to each one of you.”
I thought it was a pretty dirty trick. Dad was making it sound like it was their fault if Zan didn’t want to cooperate. Like they were bad babysitters and needed to pull their socks up.
“Zan trusts all of us,” said Peter. “He might think of us as teachers, but way more like friends or brothers and sisters. Once we start strapping him in, it’ll change the relationship.”
“Yes, but the relationship needs to change. You’re not playmates, you’re caregivers. If he understands that, he’ll respect you more.”
Peter said nothing for a moment, then, “I don’t think I’ll be able to strap him in.”
Dad nodded. “Well, you have an excellent relationship with Zan. Let’s hope it’s not necessary.”
“I mean,” Peter said, “I won’t put him in the straps.” His voice was firm now.
I counted the terrible seconds of silence. Four … five … six.
To my surprise, Mom spoke before Dad.
“It’s understandable some of you might feel uncomfortable about the straps. But I think we need to remember that Zan is a small child—like a small child,” she corrected, glancing at Dad, “—and sometimes they need a firm hand. If they know what’s expected of them, they feel more secure.”
“The key is consistency,” Dad said, smiling at everyone. “We need to make sure that Zan receives the same treatment from all of us. Then he’ll know the rules, and what’s expected of him, and we can get rid of the learning chair altogether. It’s good for Zan and it’s good for the project. Are you all right with that?”
“No, I’m not sure I am,” said Peter.
I really admired him, standing up to them like that. I thought he was super brave.
“Peter,” Dad said calmly, “we’re all scientists here. We are in pursuit of the truth, a truth that might have any number of benefits for humanity. Zan is a smart animal, but he’s still an animal. He is not human, and he’s not a person. Zan belongs to science. And for our experiment to proceed, we need results. I have no time for the sentimentality of animal activism, but if this is a question of conscience for you, I respect that, and you can resign from the project at any time.”
I held my breath—I think everyone in the room did—watching Peter. He couldn’t quit. He was the best at working with Zan. He was the best at taking care of him. Zan loved him; he’d be devastated if Peter stopped coming. And so would I.
I looked at Dad. He was very composed. He looked like someone who knew he was going to win.
Peter just muttered that he’d need to think about it.
Before I went to bed, I got out the dictionary.
Dad had said Zan wasn’t human. There was no arguing with that.
But not even a person? I was pretty sure that couldn’t be right, and was disappointed when I read the definition.
An individual human being.
So you had to be human to be a person. It didn’t seem fair. I tried to think of what made someone a person, the unique things. And it seemed like Zan had all of them. He had a distinct personality. He had favourite toys and games and food and drinks. He liked to play. Sometimes he liked to learn. He had friends. He had a family. He loved me and Mom and Peter. And he could talk to us, or was starting to, anyway. Day by day he could name more of the things around him, and tell us what he wanted—and even what he was thinking about. Like the birds in the backyard: listen.
Weren’t these the same kinds of things that made me a person? How was I any different? Maybe I was smarter and I could talk better, but I bet Zan was smarter about some things. He had better eyesight and smell, and one day he’d be stronger than me. Put me in a jungle and I’d seem like a total idiot. Being a person couldn’t be just about how smart or strong you were.
But the dictionary said you had to be human to be a person.
Maybe the dictionary was wrong.
Tuesday after school, Peter and I were doing a four-to-eight shift together in the backyard. Dad had compromised about the new schedule. Four evenings a week, we had Zan on our own, and the other three, students were with him and would give him his dinner and put him to bed. On Sunday no students came at all. Dad wasn’t happy about it, but Mom had insisted. This time, she’d won.
It was May and the days were pretty warm now. Zan liked to play in the sandbox for a bit before we gave him his dinner.
Peter was still fuming about the learning chair. “Why not just run some high voltage through it and call it an electric chair,” he said. “Yeah, I’d learn really well, bolted into a chair like that.”
“You won’t quit, will you?” I’d been worrying about it constantly the past couple days.
He sighed and filled another bucket of sand for Zan, signing bucket. “I don’t want to,” he said to me. “But that chair …”
So far, it hadn’t been a success. But Dad, and even Mom, had warned us it would be rocky at first. Zan hated being strapped in. He’d hated it on Monday, and he’d hated it earlier today. Apparently he hooted and then shrieked. He struggled. He wouldn’t sign.
Peter said, “I wonder if the whole project’s screwed up.” He looked at me carefully. “We’re pals, right? You wouldn’t rat me out to your dad.”
I shook my head.
“Yeah, I trust you. You’re a good kid. I’ve just been reading a bunch of stuff on animal testing lately. And it’s pretty awful. I mean, I used to think the space chimps were really cool. You’ve heard of them right?”
I nodded. “Ham and Enos. NASA blasted them up in rockets before humans.”
“The chimponauts,” said Peter.
“They were on the cover of Life magazine,” I said.
“But you know how they got those chimps?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“Well,” said Peter, “African hunters would track down mothers who had new babies. The chimps would be up in the trees and the hunters would shoot them down. The mothers would clutch their babies as they fell. Most of them died together when they hit the ground. But apparently some of the mothers tried to fall backwards so their bodies would shield the babies from the impact.”
I didn’t say anything. It was too horrible.
“Any babies that survived,” Peter went on, “the hunters tied up to a pole by their hands and feet. They’d walk them through the jungle to sell to European traders. Then they’d crate them up and ship them to the United States. I read that only one in ten babies survived the voyage. And those got to be guinea pigs for the astronauts.”
He told me about one test where they put the chimp to sleep, glued an oxygen mask over his face and crammed him in a capsule filled with water. Then they blasted him along the g
round in a rocket sled, just to see how the body would react. That chimp never woke up. And Peter said there were lots of other tests they put the chimps through before Alan Shepard first went up.
Peter shook his head. “Everyone says, ‘Oh, but isn’t it better the chimps died than the humans?’ And I know we’re all supposed to agree. But it’s not like the chimps had a choice. Ham and Enos didn’t have a way to say yes or no. Zan does. And maybe when he says no, we should listen. Otherwise it’s a kind of slavery.”
“Slavery?” The word seemed so extreme. “You don’t think we treat Zan well?”
“Sure, we mostly treat him well,” Peter said. “But he’s here for a reason. And it’s not because your parents wanted a chimp.”
“I know that,” I said. “But apart from the learning chair, it’s pretty good for him.”
“Better than a zoo, anyway,” said Peter. “Still, he doesn’t really have any kind of freedom. Not like he would in the wild.”
“In the wild he could get eaten or starve to death,” I pointed out. I’d heard that one from Dad, and it seemed like a pretty good argument. I didn’t know why I was suddenly using Dad’s lines, thinking from his point of view. I guess we were still a family, and I wanted it to be a happy one. It made me nervous when someone outside criticized it.
“Look,” Peter said, “I don’t know if you’re interested, but there’s this guy coming to give a talk at the university next week. I guess you’d call him an animal rights activist. He thinks we shouldn’t be using animals in any kind of experiments.” “Even one like ours?” I said.
“Maybe. I don’t know. That’s why I’m going to hear him. You want to come?”
“Dad wouldn’t like it,” I said.
“No, your Dad thinks this guy’s a lunatic.”
“I’ll go,” I said.
“You want to come over after school?” Jennifer asked me on Thursday.
Lunch was almost over and we were standing in the quad with David and Shannon and Hugh—and Kelly Browne, who hadn’t been far from Hugh since the last dance. I guess they were technically going out now.
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