The Council of Animals

by Nick McDonell

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  Table of Contents

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

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  To

  Orla

  Trym

  Allen

  Eliott

  Cerys

  Felix

  Edgar

  Ayla

  and

  P.J.

  Chapter 1

  The animals decided to vote. They chose a location more convenient to some than others.

  It was a vast superyacht, grounded upon a cliff, high above the sea. A bulldog arrived first. He was grizzled, mostly grey, and arthritic. His undershot jaw, however, retained much of its fierce, stubborn strength. He was a determined-looking sort of dog. Limping into the shade of a smashed helicopter—fallen from its place on the yacht’s deck—he sniffed the wind for creatures. He smelled none and so lay down, snout upon paws, to wait. Anticipating the difficulty of the journey, he had left his pack before dawn and was, in fact, early.

  Next came a horse, trotting—idiotically, thought the dog—in zigzags, toward the yacht. His almond coat was glossy and his mane was streaked blond from sunshine. A brilliant white stripe ran down his muzzle. He slowed to a panting rest. Catching his breath, he nosed for something to eat in the weeds beside the dog.

  “Good afternoon,” said the dog.

  “Where are the sugar cubes?”

  “Sugar cubes?”

  “Sometimes they have sugar cubes.”

  “None of them are here.”

  The horse appeared to think about this.

  “That’s the point,” added the dog.

  “Carrots?”

  Dog and horse regarded each other for a long moment.

  “No carrots either.”

  … You bloody fool, added the dog, internally.

  The horse continued nosing in the weeds. “The cat told me to tell you she’ll be late,” he said, through a mouthful of dandelions.

  Before the dog had time to complain about this, the horse snapped his head up in alarm and looked down the promontory. Though it had been agreed no animal should harm another for the duration of the meeting, he could not banish instinct. He smelled the bear before he saw her.

  The dog, too. Together they watched her pad along, ropey muscles rolling beneath her fur.

  “I thought it would be a snow bear,” whispered the horse.

  “Polar bear,” corrected the dog.

  This bear was a grizzly, and though certainly fearsome from afar she was not, really, a very strong or well-fed bear. She looked rather scruffy, in fact. Harried.

  “Good afternoon,” said the dog, as the bear joined them in the shade.

  “Have the others arrived?” asked the bear.

  “Not yet,” said the dog.

  “The cat told me to tell you she’ll be late,” repeated the horse.

  “No surprises there, eh?” said the dog, hoping to befriend the bear.

  But the bear only grunted. Perhaps it would be a long wait. She pawed her way into the broken helicopter’s cockpit. Rummaging about, she was pleased to discover a spiral-bound flight manual. She hooked it with a claw and carried it out to the grass.

  The bear looked at helicopter diagrams, the horse ate, and soon the dog dozed off.

  He hadn’t been asleep long when a striped cat arrived. Purring, she rubbed along the horse’s great hooves, then nodded respectfully at the bear and found herself a perch in the crashed helicopter, upon one of its soft, upholstered seats.

  The cat had just begun grooming a leg when, with a sharp caaw!, a crow announced himself. He descended in spirals and landed on one of the propeller blades.

  “Bird blessings on you,” said the crow, by way of greeting.

  And then, almost as soon as the crow had landed, the ringing of a bell cut the seaside air.

  As one, the animals looked up to the source of the sound. It was a yellow-eyed baboon, peering at them from a hatch in the yacht’s deck, high above. In one pink hand this baboon held a brass bell, which he shook again with great vigor before stowing it in a small bag he wore over his shoulder.

  “Order!” shouted the baboon. “We’ll begin! For victory!”

  The bear closed the flight manual and the horse stopped chewing dandelions. This baboon seemed very excited. He clambered down the deck and landed neatly beside the dog.

  “I’m up, I’m up,” insisted the dog, though he’d been fast asleep.

  “But, baboon,” said the bear, “we can’t begin. We’re not all here.”

  “Yes, the cats are late as usual,” added the dog. “Very disrespectful.”

  “This dog must still be sleeping,” said the cat in the cockpit, and the horse whinnied with laughter.

  A look of great frustration darkened the dog’s square face. “I was just … thinking!”

  “We are all here—” said the baboon.

  “Bird blessings,” interrupted the crow, “on all creatures!”

  “Bird Gods are important! Very important,” agreed the baboon, before turning to the bear. “All of us are here. Anyone who is not here is not us. That’s we. So we can begin.”

  “But if the others aren’t here,” said the bear, slowly, focusing on one bit of the problem, “how will they decide how to vote?”

  “They vote as we tell them,” said the baboon. “Animals like that.”

  The bear frowned. “Still,” she said, “I think it is better not to rush.”

  “Horse,” said the baboon, ignoring the bear, “I looked everywhere, I worked very hard—very hard!—and found this for you.”

  And the baboon produced from his shoulder bag a yellow box. He ripped off its top with his teeth and set it down for the horse.

  The box, the animals saw, was full of brown sugar.

  In a blink, the horse snuffled it all up. He even began chewing on the box.

  “Where did you get that?” asked the dog.

  “Only I can get it for you,” said the baboon. “Only I!”

  “I could get it, too,” said the crow. “Praise be to The Egg.”

  “Dog,” said the bear, who did not want to be distracted from the issue at paw, “don’t you agree: better not to rush our vote?”

  The dog, puffing out his chest, was pleased to be consulted. He decided he would say something wise about how, in the wars, it was always better not to rush.

  But before he had managed to say anything, the baboon was talking again.

  “Not rush?” exclaimed the baboon. “But we have to rush! For safety! For our victory, right, dog? We must have order!”

  The dog, now confused, hesitated.

  “I disagree,” purred the cat.

  “Fully agreed!” said the dog. He disagreed with cats, on printsiple.

  (Though which printsiple it was, he could not precisely say.)

  “That settles it,” said the baboon. “Crow! Call us to order!”

  “But,” said the bear, “but—”

  The crow cawed out, in his powerful voice:

  “Anima
l council in ORDER!”

  The dog saluted. The cat sighed and shook her head.

  “All animals,” the crow continued, “make their mark!”

  In their respective ways, each animal marked territory. The bear scratched her back against the yacht; the dog peed on it. The cat rubbed her cheeks against the helicopter seat; the horse dropped a dung pile. The baboon howled and slapped the ground. The crow sang out his song, then pronounced:

  “Caw! The question is set, with the blessing of the Bird Gods, by previous animal council! The Animal Kingdoms listen and agree, in the light of The Egg! Caw…”

  “Takes a minute to get going, doesn’t he?” muttered the dog to the bear.

  “And with nest blessings we pray for wisdom in our vote. WHEREBY: The Calamity destroyed the ecosystems of many eggs and animals! WHEREBY: humans caused The Calamity!”

  Here the baboon hissed and bared his teeth. The crow continued.

  “… and WHEREBY: only a few humans survived The Calamity! RESOLVED: the Animal Kingdom, represented by the ambassadors here marking their territory, shall, to protect against further Calamity … Eat all the humans! Animals, how do you vote: YAY OR NAY?!”

  “I can’t believe it has come to this,” whispered the bear to the cat.

  “It’s not over,” whispered back the cat.

  “Caw!” called the crow. “It has been agreed by rabbit procedure that the DOG shall speak and cast his vote first. I yield to the dog. Caw!”

  Chapter 2

  Some background.

  Animals have, of course, always communicated. Many work together to mutual advantage—like oxpeckers and rhinoceroses, for example, who both benefit when oxpeckers eat ticks out of a rhino’s hide. Or hyenas and buzzards, whose mutual understanding of quantum mechanics has been much enriched by their full moon gatherings. While some animals prefer solitude—pigeons are obviously more social than snow leopards—no animal lives in total isolation. Communication—interspecies and intraspecies—is constant. Even bony zompompers at the bottom of the Marianas Trench like to chat with blue whales now and then.

  Humans, however, never communicated with animals. Let alone attended their formal meetings. This was not for want of invitation from the animals. Often enough, any animal would tell you, they’d tried to communicate with humans. But humans spoke only their own human languages. They did not speak grak.

  There was much division of opinion as to why this should be. Grak, the animal lingua franca, was spoken by every other species. All were bilingual. Some animals said that humans were simply too stupid to speak grak. Others, that humans were physiologically incapable. Other animals insisted that humans had spoken grak in the past but had forgotten how. Still others believed that some humans had spoken grak—and some still might—but stronger humans forbade the language as part of a plot to rule all the other creatures. Those exceptional humans who did speak grak, several ancient and highly regarded tortoises argued, tended to be environmentalists, artists, mystics—humans often persecuted by their fellows.

  Such persecution, the tortoises observed, had crescendoed in the years before The Calamity.

  All suffered in The Calamity. But when the toxic fog cleared, humans—populationwise, proportionally—had suffered most. The last of them, perhaps a dozen, were living in a small camp, not so far from where the council was being held.

  As we heard the crow announce, the council concerned these remaining humans. Certain animals had suggested that, since humans were responsible for The Calamity, and so might multiply and cause another Calam-ity, it would be wise to kill and eat them. All of them. Eat all the humans.

  There would, no doubt, be animal casualties. But in a showdown between the few remaining humans and all the animals on earth, the animals would win. And then the planet would be safe. Thus the council and vote.

  Each of the animals at the council was a species ambassador, chosen (some more democratically than others) by their fellows. It had been agreed that each would have an opportunity to speak before voting.

  The order of speakers had been agreed at the previous meeting, after a venerable rabbit had been devoured over questions of procedure.

  Chapter 3

  “Now I am an old dog, but I know men.”

  The dog had been thinking about how to begin his speech for several days.

  “I have seen the best and worst of men. War brings both.”

  The cat rolled her eyes.

  “Before The Calamity, I traveled with a human general. The men were at war, which is the best thing men do, because war requires constant training. Training! There’s nothing better. Imagine a thousand sticks, thrown over and over. Imagine a million sticks. Imagine searching for hidden smells, and when you find them—rewards! That’s war. Plus pointing at prey. Not just rabbits or squirrels—but other men! Men who, we knew for a fact, forbade bacon! For these were the bacon wars. Who among us has had bacon?”

  “Bacon,” agreed the bear, “is excellent.”

  “I have seen men—”

  “Domesticated!” the baboon howled, interrupting. “That’s why you like bacon. Smoked pig meat! Not for wild animals. Lazy, lazy, terrible.”

  “I’m a wild animal,” growled the bear, sitting up on her haunches.

  Surprised by the bear’s anger, the baboon bared his teeth and rang his bell, and so the cat hissed and arched her back, and the horse whinnied and stamped his feet, and the crow cawed, and the dog barked angrily.

  But presently all the animals recovered their composure.

  “Where was I?” asked the dog, embarrassed he’d lost his train of thought.

  “You’ve seen men at war,” said the bear.

  “Yes, outstanding—I slept in the general’s quarters, but I met daily with my dogs. Finer creatures I’ve never known. We faced terrible threats. Why and how was classified. All my mutts and I knew was that”—the dog sniffed, on the verge of tears, and pawed at his eyes—“we were at … war. Fur everywhere. Bloody whiskers. Tails on fire.”

  The dog collected himself.

  “The men gave treats to those hero dogs. Treats. Please, a moment of silence for the dogs who died.”

  The dog stood at attention and saluted.

  “This dog doesn’t know what the war was about,” the bear whispered to the cat, in the silent moment.

  The cat only sighed.

  “And now,” resumed the dog, “we are to turn on men, in their darkest hour? Kill and eat them? No, I say. We must fight by their side, as we have since they captured fire. We’re not their servants—we’ll still eat their corpses—but we are their allies. We dogs have led humans to the moon, and they cared for us. And now, after The Calamity, if we are to sit again, we know what we sit for. We sit for honor! And freedom! And demoscratchy!”

  And then the dog, as though commanding himself, shouted: “Sit!”

  And he sat. And then:

  “Down!”

  And he lay down. And: “Roll over!”

  And the dog rolled himself over, tongue lolling out.

  “Very bizarre behavior,” whispered the bear to the cat. “He’s repeating human slogans.”

  “Shake,” shouted the dog, and held out a paw toward the baboon.

  But the baboon only spat a great wad of phlegm down into the dandelions.

  “You see,” said the dog, “we are our own masters.”

  And then the baboon, picking up a stick, looked into the dog’s rheumy eyes.

  “Fetch,” said the baboon, hurling the stick.

  The dog, old as he was, ran off after it.

  The baboon turned to the bear, snarling: “You would vote with this fool?”

  “He is, perhaps, confused—” conceded the bear.

  “Demoscratchy?” the cat commented, yawning.

  “You are not wild,” said the baboon. “Your domestication caused The Calamity!”

  “Sugar cubes!” interrupted the horse, stamping his hooves.

  The other animals, falling silent
, looked at him.

  “More sugar cubes?”

  “I can get some, soon,” cooed the baboon.

  The horse continued eating dandelions, and the dog returned, panting.

  “Mission accomplished!” said the dog, dropping the stick.

  * * *

  This chronicle concerns all the animals of earth but focuses on a handful, at a key moment, a precipice. Their … ordinariness must be evident already, to the sensitive reader.

  That these are the animals—subsequently so famous, even legendary—who cast the fateful vote, played such crucial roles in the momentous events which followed, may come as a surprise, even a disappointment. Perhaps we imagine history’s great moments turn on the backs of more dignified creatures. Perhaps even heroes.

  But what is a hero? Were the Pharaonic cats as wise as myth suggests? Or were they simply shrewd rat catchers? And were the first rats to circumnavigate the globe as bold as Magellan? Or were they simply hungry stowaways?

  Desire, as the walruses say, is better insulation than virtue. This is true for heroes as well as any ordinary animal. Of course, it is not the business of the narrator (whose identity will be made known in due course) to make such pronouncements. It is rather to report what actually happened and let the reader draw their own conclusions.

  Chapter 4

  “Now the horse speaks! The dog is finished! Now the horse!”

  The baboon hopped from one foot to the other.

  “Now wait, please,” said the bear, slowly as usual. “We should mark the vote. That way, when everyone arrives they can see how we voted.”

  “I will tell them,” said the baboon.

  This was not good enough for the bear, who began to carve the tally into a nearby tree with one of her claws.

  “What are you doing?” demanded the baboon.

  “Keeping track,” said the bear. “There, have a look.”

  This is what the bear had carved:

  “Outstanding,” said the dog.

  “Fine,” said the baboon. “One vote for humans. Now the horse!”