Storm

by Donna Jo Napoli

  I stand there, though the lion roars again. I will myself not to flinch. When the roar fades away, I peek out the side hole, then close my eyes and turn my head so my mouth fills with cold rain. It is delicious. It washes my face. It washes my hair. I open my eyes and let the water splash even them clean. And what? What is that? A rope hangs along the side of the ship. But I can’t see its source. Whatever side hole it’s coming from is high up.

  I look in every direction. There’s nothing else of note, nothing unusual. That rope must have made the thump I heard as it fell from above. Who’s at the other end of it? I lean out farther. I climb onto the lip of the side hole and look up.

  Screamer screams.

  I look down at the black waters below. My stomach lurches. I dive back through the side hole into the straw. What could have possessed me to act so reckless?

  I stand and hug myself and look out the side hole. Water, water, everywhere. This is the end of the world. This ship of animals is floating nowhere. I shake uncontrollably. What a sad way for everything to end. Maybe I would be better off to drown.

  Screamer bashes his head into my calf. It’s his way of asking to be held. At least he doesn’t climb me anymore. I pick him up and squish him into a ball of fur and blood and bones under my neck. He seems to find this comfortable.

  We stand there.

  I ignore the noises around us. It’s only the food-monger I’m truly worried about now. The other animals are behind poles. But the food-monger has the power of freedom. He won’t see me, though. His feet clack when he comes—my warning signal. And anyway, he comes in daytime. Over and over again, so I have to be constantly on the alert. But at least it’s always daytime. I can forget about him tonight.

  Finally, finally, the sky looks nearly rosy.

  And now there’s a different noise. A beat, beat, beat noise. I turn and look. That shrike has come back. He’s found the dead serpent that Queen covered with straw. He’s pecking at it. He pecks, pecks, pecks, all in the same spot, never taking a bite, just pecking like a thing possessed. Finally he clamps his beak around the snake. Ha! He’s cut off a length of it. And this length is manageable; he flies off with it.

  I grin as the bird disappears into the dark center of the ship. That bird is smart. I sink to my knees, still holding the ball that is Screamer under my neck. He’s asleep, the crazy kit. The other animals will be waking now. I might as well sleep. I’m exhausted.

  But, oh, the shrike comes back. Peck, peck, peck. His head moves so fast, he seems maniacal. He flies off with another length of snake. How delightful. I choose to see the bird’s behavior as driven by persistence, not greed. And persistence is a virtue I admire.

  The part of the snake that remains is short enough that I know the bird won’t have to cut it again. Mischief flickers in me. Where can I hide that last piece of snake? And how can I do it without disturbing Screamer? I don’t want to wake the kit, because he will scare the bird.

  I stand and run a toe along the snake length. It’s smooth and cool to the touch, not at all disgusting, though it gives off a rotten smell. I pick it up between my big toe and the others and squiggle, moving my standing foot zigzag to the side hole, and drape the snake over the lip. Nicely done. I turn my back to the side hole and stand in front of it.

  The shrike returns. He flies in a circle over my head. He flies closer and closer. Could it be? I hardly breathe; I stand perfectly still. The shrike lands on my head. There’s a bird on my head! He’s so light, so delicate. How could anything that vulnerable trust something as big as me? The bird hops from my head down to the side hole behind me.

  I turn to watch him.

  I’m pushed aside. It’s Queen. She reaches for the bird.

  I clasp both arms around Queen and tumble with her to the floor, as Screamer shrieks and falls in a scramble of legs and tail and the bird flies off with the snake and The Male looks ridiculously confused and excited and, predictably, aroused. I laugh. But Queen is staring at me with an intensity that makes me swallow the laugh. We are both squatting now, facing each other. Queen is not even half my size. But her jaws are strong, her teeth are big, her arms and legs can do so much.

  “I didn’t mean disrespect.” I speak softly. “We live together, Queen. We have to get along.”

  Queen just stares at me. The Male tries to mate with Queen, but she pushes him away.

  “Maybe you eat birds,” I say. “Maybe you eat anything. Just like I do. But we can’t eat that bird. I’m sorry. That bird is special. He landed on my head.”

  The Male won’t be put off any longer. He mates with Queen, but Queen keeps her eyes on me the whole time, so I know she’s serious. Usually they look at each other as they mate. I can’t read her expression. All I know is that Queen is thinking hard about me. An icy knot forms in the middle of my chest.

  When Queen and The Male finish mating, I go to the side hole. “You’re right: I owe you something. Look, Queen. Look.”

  Queen comes to the side hole.

  I point. Queen looks at my outstretched arm, but she doesn’t look where I point. I pick up a handful of straw and squeeze it into a ball and throw it. It hits the side of the ship near where that other rope hangs, the one that didn’t used to be there. Queen watches the straw ball fly and then fall into the water. But she doesn’t notice the rope. I want to scream. Queen would like knowing about that rope; she likes to be aware of everything. But I don’t know how to make her look at it. I don’t know how to repay my debt.

  I sink to the floor with my back to the boat wall. I need Queen. I need her protection. And I need her company.

  Queen squats in front of me. She runs a hand over my breasts. Then she passes it over my belly. Around and around and around. She seems to sway a moment on her haunches. Then she saunters off.

  It’s over. Queen has forgiven me. Maybe.

  It’s been a long night. I crawl under the straw and sleep.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Day 27

  What’s this!”

  My eyes fly open. Screamer jumps onto my chest. I pin him there with both hands. Both of us have to stay hidden until I can figure things out. I lift my head just a little and look toward where the voice came from.

  A man walks sideways, practically skittering on those noisy sandals. The food-monger. “You didn’t do this.” The way he talks is odd, but I can understand anyway. It’s not a totally different language—not like when travelers come overland from far away to trade in the city near my home. I wince. Home.

  Light comes through the side holes on both sides of the ship and catches on the stone the man holds high in one hand. It illuminates him. He carries it when he comes down the ladder. I’d never seen a stone do that before. His back is toward me, so I don’t know what his face is like, but his hair is deep brown and long and curly, held back by a band that ties around his forehead. Beyond him is a cage made of tight latticework rather than simple poles. The openings are too small to see from here what animals are inside. He stops and points at the creatures inside there. “How did it happen?” His voice is an accusation. He stamps a foot. “It’s impossible.”

  The light bounces off his stone just right, and for an instant I see patches of orange through the lattice. A chuff, chuff, chuff noise comes from within. A thoroughly scary creature. My cheeks go slack.

  “You can’t reach that high even standing on your hind legs. And I bet you can’t get enough of a running start in your small cage to leap that high. Besides, we’ve fed you only squid and mackerel and shark. That’s what all you predators get. Filthy squid and the worst kind of fish! So how? How?” He kicks at a wooden bucket sitting on the floor. “Impossible!”

  Now a roar comes. It’s my lion!

  A matching roar meets it from the next cage. Who’s that?

  “I am not taking the blame for this! It’s not my fault.” The man rushes off and clatters up the ladder.

  Everything has changed; the very air is charged. The creatures in my cage stand motion
less, their eyes on the spot where the man was. Even Queen and The Male stand tall on their back legs. Something is going to happen, and all the animals know it.

  From somewhere off to the side comes a high-pitched fox howl. I’ve heard the foxes yapping at night, but this is the first I’ve heard them in daytime. The second one joins in. Though I know little about foxes—they live in the mountains, not near my family’s field—I understand what they’re saying now: They’re hungry. They smell what’s in the bucket. Their noses are keen. I’m hungry, too. I can’t smell the food, but I can imagine it. I think of sinking my teeth into strong, clean squid flesh. My mouth waters. I’m as hungry as when I was living in the cedar tree with Aban. Hungrier, even. I’m hungry all the time these days. I could howl too.

  Noise comes from the deck above.

  I grab Screamer by the scruff of the neck with one hand, like Queen likes to do, and quick push the straw with my other hand and both feet until it forms a thick pile near the back wall of the ship. I wriggle in under it, then peer out through a little peephole.

  Just in time, for someone’s clattering down the ladder again. And behind him a second man. A third. A fourth. The last one is gray. All are bearded, with head hair in tight curls. The first is the one who came down before, the one with long hair and a head band. The others wear turbans with long locks only at the temple.

  They each have a cloth sack slung diagonally across their chests. The sacks bulge, and I can see greens protruding. So there are four food-mongers, not one. I never dared look closely, so I didn’t know. They hold those light-stones up high and look at the latticework cage, where two lions roar and flash pale orange through the holes.

  “See!” The man with the headband points.

  Hanging through the latticework near the top of that cage are strips of serpent. Three of them. The shrike’s treasure! What a funny bird. Is he saving them? What for?

  “Get down,” says the old man. He presses on the headband man’s shoulder.

  “What?”

  “Get down, Ham.”

  “What did I do? I didn’t do anything!”

  “I didn’t say you did anything. Just get on your knees.”

  Ham kneels, but he blows through his lips in disgust.

  The old man jerks his head toward another man—taller than Ham but slighter. “Go on, Japheth. Climb on his shoulders. Get those things down.”

  Japheth straddles Ham’s shoulders, and Ham gets to his feet and stands straight. The muscles in Ham’s back and shoulders bulge.

  Japheth swipes his long arm through the air. His fingertips graze one of the snake parts, for it swings now. “I can’t reach them.”

  “Stand on his shoulders.”

  “Are you crazy, Father?” Ham leans against the latticework. The lion inside roars and Ham stumbles away a few steps, with Japheth clutching at his head. The third man has to catch Ham to steady them.

  Roars come from the next cage. It’s made of latticework too.

  The sound of claws scraping on wood turns my stomach. The creatures inside either of those cages could rip all four of them to shreds. I retch into the straw and shove a fist in my mouth to quiet the gasping sounds.

  The old man jerks his head around. “What was that?”

  I am still as stone. Please, please.

  “Some animal shitting,” says Ham. “They do that, Father. You’re not the one who cleans it, or you’d know.”

  “Japheth and I take care of the lowest level,” says the old man. “The animals there are huge, and what they produce is huge.”

  “None of the animals on the deck below are meat eaters,” says Ham. “Nothing stinks as bad down there. Ask Shem. We face the foulest stench every day.”

  “Stand on his shoulders!” shouts the old man at Japheth. “Stand on your brother’s shoulders.”

  “And if I fall?”

  “Shem will catch you.”

  The third man, Shem, knits his big bushy eyebrows together and nods. “I will. I swear.” He slaps one fist against the other palm. Slap, slap, slap.

  “We could both fall,” mumbles Ham.

  But Japheth grabs the latticework with hooked fingers. The lions inside growl and bang against it. Japheth quick moves his hands higher. He clings there as he manages to place one foot on Ham’s shoulder. Now the other on the other shoulder. He’s stooped over Ham’s head, grasping the latticework with all fingers spread. The lions go wild. They growl and hiss. Japheth straightens just a little and snags a snake bit and drops it into Shem’s hand, then quickly hunches over again, grabbing lower. A lion bangs hard against the latticework high up. Japheth screams. He jumps off Ham’s shoulders, hits the ground, and rolls.

  “Cockroach,” says Ham, rubbing his shoulders. “If we have to get the other two, I’ll stand on you instead.”

  “And lose your fingers doing it,” says Japheth. He holds up a bloody hand, then licks it slowly. “That lion is some jumper.”

  “Japheth couldn’t support your weight anyway,” says Shem to Ham. He sniffs loudly, and his nose goes wide and large. In this moment he looks like a younger version of the old man. “It’s my turn next. Who’s climbing on my shoulders?” He puts both hands over his face and draws them away from each other, over his bushy eyebrows and across his temples, as though he’s getting ready for the challenge.

  “We don’t need the other two,” says the old man.

  “Ha! That’s just like you,” says Ham. “Once I’ve done the hard work, it’s over, right, Father? You’re so predictable.”

  The old man shrugs one shoulder. He turns the piece of snake in his hands. “This is definitely a sea serpent.” He looks across the three men. “Who fed them a serpent?”

  They shake their heads.

  “One of you did. One of you had to. Who?”

  The brothers shake their heads again.

  “Ham?”

  “I knew you thought it was me! Well, it wasn’t. I had nothing to do with it.”

  “You’re so easy to provoke.” The old man waves off Ham’s protests. “You three don’t know how lucky you are. Sea serpents breathe air. They can live out of water. Mostly they bite dry, but if they bite wet—if they shoot venom into you—you die.” He points in Ham’s face, then Japheth’s, then Shem’s. “That snake could have killed you. And it could have killed one of these creatures, the Mighty Creator’s creatures.” Now he puts his face in each of theirs in turn. “Not a single one of the creatures on this ark can die. Exactly the same number of creatures we led on board must be led off at the end.”

  “It’s not our fault if a sea serpent got on board,” says Ham.

  “Nothing new is allowed on board.”

  “We remember,” says Ham. “You told us that in the first days on board, over and over. It’s impossible to forget. We didn’t allow anything. It just happened.”

  Shem holds a staying hand up toward Ham. “Maybe the serpent was here at the outset, Father.”

  “He wasn’t,” says the old man.

  “How do you know?” says Ham.

  “The same way I know everything.” The old man shakes his head. He looks shaggy and tired, like an aging ram. “It’s my fault. I should patrol every deck every day.”

  “I can patrol,” says Shem.

  “Right,” says Ham. “Put us in charge of things. You can’t be in charge of everything, Father.”

  “I have to. The responsibility was given to me. I’ll patrol.” The old man rubs his fingers as though they hurt. “Go on. Feed them. They’re restless. I’m going down the other ladder.” He clumps along the deck toward the other end. I didn’t know there was another ladder over there. He stops and calls back. “Japheth, help your brothers. Then get your wife to attend to that hand. You don’t have to help me today. And Ham, cut your hair.” He disappears into the dark. I can hear his clack, clack down the far ladder.

  Ham kicks his bucket again. “The same way I know everything,” he says in a snide mimic of his father. He swaggers as he
talks.

  “Don’t do that,” says Shem.

  “Why not? It’s his answer all the time. It puts an end to every discussion.”

  “The Mighty Creator talks to him. He doesn’t talk to us. So we have to trust him.”

  “And how do you know the Mighty Creator talks to him? Father might just be saying that. He might have made it all up. He might be a lunatic.”

  “The Mighty Creator said it would rain,” says Japheth. “How did Father know to build this ark otherwise? So stop it, Ham. We have to get these creatures fed. Somebody tell me which ones get what.”

  “Just throw something at every animal,” says Ham.

  All three go to a side hole between two cages. It’s the hole closest to my cage. Shem leans out and lifts in buckets full of water. Ham takes two and goes about filling water troughs. Shem pulls in a fishing net and fills buckets with fish. He throws the net back through the side hole into the sea. Then he and Japheth go from cage to cage, throwing in food. Their sacks carry leaves and fruits for the herbivores. The top deck must be a huge storage room, as well as their home.

  “Who’s going to feed the tigers and lions?” calls Japheth. “I won’t go near them with a bloody hand. The smell, you know. The smell could make them vicious.”

  “They’re already vicious, you cockroach,” calls Ham. “You heard them growl . . . tigers and lions, the most vicious of all.” His voice seems to emanate from the dark end of the ship. It sounds distant, as though this ship—this ark—is even more enormous than it appeared to Aban and me when we were on the raft.

  “They can’t help it,” says Shem. His voice comes from someplace alarmingly close. I pull back inside the straw, but I can still see, I can still watch. “It’s their nature. But these are the best behaved ones of their kind. We just have to be careful.”

  “You be careful,” calls Japheth. “My hand is killing me. I’m quitting.”

  “Go let your little wife attend to it,” calls Ham. “Be Noah’s good little boy. The two of you, cockroaches. But don’t count on me picking up the slack. It’s always Ham picking up the slack. Well, I won’t!”