by MJ Walker
The animals forgot to count how many times they had turned left and right and then right and left. The path didn’t change, nor did the view. Round each corner was another path and another corner. Every so often, there was a choice of paths.
Bessie tired of it first. She was used to moving in all directions, whenever she wanted. Up and down, left and right. She felt refreshed by the new day and took to the air, flying high above the maze. As she climbed she saw the tall conifers in the garden and the side of the big grey house. She glimpsed the track where she’d seen the old leopard cornered by the humans. She spotted the conservatory attached to the house and Tony the terrier sitting outside, basking in the sunshine. She dropped her head and realised that Doris and Bear had just ambled back into the centre of the maze. Around them radiated a series of green circles, each acting as a fence trapping the elephant and giant anteater inside.
Bessie twittered and tweeted at the top of her voice, but below they didn’t hear her. She tried some high-pitched chirps on the wing. Then a short yelp and a shriek. She even hissed at her friends, who by now had turned on themselves, and were pacing round the circle.
Bessie’s sounds attracted the attentions of a herring gull flying overhead. Bemused by this little blue and white bird flitting beneath, the gull opened its long curved yellow beak. It arched its neck and mewed, a long single note drawing out from its throat, slicing the sky. It dipped one wing and dropped in height, cutting low and sharp towards the budgie. Bessie heard it. She fell silent and flapped. She flew hard and direct in a line to the dog on the lawn.
Tony the terrier was woken by Bessie’s graceless landing on the grass. He pulled in his pot-belly and jumped to his elbows as ten feet away a huge gull landed too. The gull paced and Tony immediately charged it. The terrier snapped at the gull’s tail feathers and the bird took flight, landing further down the lawn, taunting the dog. Tony chased the bird again and saw it away from the garden. He returned to find Bessie shivering on the lawn.
“The others are stuck. The others are stuck,” she said nervously.
Tony understood. He’d grown up with the maze, losing himself within it many times as a pup. Awake now and excited, he scampered down to the entrance, Bessie flying behind, just above his tail. He jinked through the hedgerows, weaving a direct line to its heart. He burst into the centre of the maze to find Doris in a panic, running around the circle, just as Bear the anteater had done in the circus.
Doris wasn’t an elephant of the savannah. She knew and understood the trees and was usually as happy hidden behind a bush as she was out in the open. But today a dread had begun to fill her huge heart. The moment she had woken, she had felt out of place. She missed the hay and the comforting sounds of the circus sparking into life. She even missed the pull of a chain attached to her ankle, which after all these years had become her reference point. Realising Edward was gone, she began to think of the others now absent from her life. The Ring Master and Jim the Strongman, the circus boys who washed her once a week, the clowns and the clairvoyant and the old, bitter leopard who had kept her company on the road for so long.
Though trapped in a maze, she had begun to fear the freedom now afforded her. Choosing to leave the maze felt like a choice too many. But staying meant they would never find the cannon and be able to return to the circus to save it. She didn’t know which way to turn, so she ran in a circle.
Tony beckoned the animals to follow him. Bear trotted after the terrier as Bessie flapped in front of Doris’s face, encouraging her out of the maze. Tony weaved his way through the hedge, as the animals behind described how Edward was now missing, and Edward was an inquisitive monkey, one who sometimes thought of himself as a little human.
The animals burst on to the lawn, Doris squashing its clipped blades of grass. Bessie alighted on Bear’s back and all four of them stood staring at the giant house, its conservatory beginning to catch the rising sun.
“He’ll be in there,” twittered Bessie. “Edward will be in the house.”
Doris immediately charged onwards, until she could see her reflection in the glass. She raised her trunk and stepped forward, probing the window pane with her lips, smearing it. Bear and Bessie joined her and the circus animals wondered at the leather chair and its buttons, and the small table alongside.
“If the monkey is inside, I’ll find him,” snapped Tony.
He went to the door of the conservatory. Standing on his hind legs, he slapped a paw upon the handle, flicking it and the door open. He darted inside and through the curtains.
The terrier used his nose, immediately recognising the smell coming from Lord Morgan’s study. He pushed the door open and scampered over to the padlocked cage.
“Come on,” he said to Edward, who was by now rocking on his buttocks at the base of the cage, murmuring a little tune in his head. “If you stay in there, he’ll find you. And then you’ll be in trouble.”
Edward’s little hazel eyes moistened.
“Why am I in a cage?” he asked Tony. “Monkeys live with the humans, not in cages.”
“Everything here lives in a cage,” Tony replied. “Except for me.”
“Well help me get out,” said Edward, as he jumped up, clamping on to the bars.
“Can’t you get out yourself?” asked Tony, as Edward rattled the cage.
“The cage is locked,” said Edward.
“Oh it’s just one of his tests,” answered Tony, proudly. “He tests all the animals this way. He wants to see if you can get out.”
Edward shook the bars now, becoming angry. He bared his teeth and bit on the metal. He ran his nails across the cage, making Tony’s ears shudder.
“It’s easy to get out,” said Tony. “He used to test me all the time. He’d go out of the garden and shut the gate behind. Then he’d watch me from behind the bushes across the track. He wanted to find out if I could get past the gate.”
“Let me out,” shouted Edward.
“I worked it out. All you have to do is flick the latch with your nose. Up it flies and the gate opens. It’s easy really. It didn’t take me long to learn it. Just flick up the latch. He gave me a treat when I’d learned to do that.”
“The latch doesn’t work,” said Edward, fumbling at it. “There is a lock across it I can’t open.”
Tony’s ear caught the sound of approaching footsteps. Lord Morgan strode into the room. Dressed for the day, he threw a black jacket over a matching waistcoat. He approached the cage and towering over it, he addressed Tony the terrier.
“So you’ve seen the monkey eh?” he said to his dog.
Tony barked back at him, as he always did when spoken to.
“Now how did he get past you and into the house? You’re not the best guard dog are you Tony?”
Lord Morgan laughed and rubbed his dog’s chin.
“What a couple of days it’s been,” he continued.
He walked back to the desk and sat behind it, organising some papers.
“First that debacle at the circus. And this morning I hear they caught a leopard out on the track last night. A leopard! How fabulous. How I would have liked to get my hands on that leopard.”
He leaned back in his chair.
“But they’ve taken the cat to the zoo. A shame really. They might let me examine it. But I won’t be able to study it properly there.”
He scratched at his beard and watched Edward pick at the padlock.
“Now this monkey, however. What a stroke of luck eh Tony? I’ve never experimented on a monkey before. Let’s try him in a puzzle box, to see if he does better than the rats.”
Lord Morgan threw his body out of the chair and excitedly retrieved a square cage from underneath his long workbench. Made from wooden supports, three sides of the cage were covered with mesh. At the front was a door and next to the door a slit, next to a latch that kept the door closed. He pushed aside the leather collars and placed the box atop the bench. He took out a small key from his pocket and turned it in the padloc
k to Edward’s larger cage. He slid his arm in and grabbed Edward around the throat.
Edward struggled to breathe as he was manhandled into the smaller box. Lord Morgan shut the door behind the monkey and dropped the latch. He walked back to his chair and reclined into it.
“It takes a rat an hour to do this the first time,” he declared to Tony. “And with a suitable reward, and a lot of trial and error, it can learn how to get out within forty minutes. Now what about this monkey?”
Edward had been listening. He was frightened and unsure whether to fear Lord Morgan, or try to please him. He thought about his predicament and saw only one way out. So he stood, tugged at his waistcoat and stuck his arm out through the slit. He grappled for the latch, as Lord Morgan jumped from his chair in surprise. Edward flicked up the latch and pushed at the door, which swung open. But he wasn’t quick enough. Lord Morgan reacted just in time. Before Edward could escape the professor crossed the room and slammed the door shut, almost catching the monkey’s arm.
“My my,” said Lord Morgan. “I’m going to have to take this one down to the college. Set him some proper challenges there. He’s just what I need to finish my work.”
He then raised a finger to his mouth.
“Don’t tell anyone Tony. It’ll be our secret eh? I’ll return him to the circus in a week or two.”
Lord Morgan kept hold of the puzzle box as he transferred the padlock to it. There was barely room for Edward to stand inside. Lord Morgan selected a piece of celery from the jar and pushed it through the mesh. Edward ignored it. Instead he pleaded with the dog.
“Where am I going? Where is he taking me?”
“To the college,” said Tony. “That’s where he does most of his work.”
Edward tried to run around the cage, but he could only spin on his tail.
“Why does he grab me like that?”
“Because you’re not a dog,” said Tony, cocking his head so that one of his ears fell flat. “That’s how he holds the rats and cats, and the birds.”
“Stop barking,” ordered Lord Morgan.
He wagged a finger at his dog and left the room. Edward tried to think.
“What is this college? Is he taking me there to work on his cannon?” said Edward.
“Yes I think so,” answered Tony.
Edward wasn’t so sure about finding the cannon now. His mind had become muddled, and his plan with it.
“Tell the others they have to save me!” he screamed at the dog.
Lord Morgan walked back in, a hat on his head, carrying a cane and black cape. He threw the cape over the cage with Edward inside, muffling the monkey’s cries. He flipped his cane under one arm and carried Edward from the room, leaving Tony the terrier bemused in the study. Lord Morgan walked down the hall to the front of the house and out up the path to the gate. In his arms, the night had fallen in on Edward’s world as the monkey was bounced around in a wire box, a piece of celery hitting his knees in the dark.
A black coach pulled by two shire horses arrived outside the gate. Lord Morgan handed the box to the driver, then stepped up to sit beside him. He took the cage and patted it, as the driver whipped the horses and coach on down the track and out of sight.
The old leopard also awoke in a black box. Whenever they snared him at the circus, he’d only struggle for so long, saving his energy for the next inevitable battle with the Ring Master. But upon that tight track between the houses he couldn’t escape the net and the metal pitchforks stabbing at his ribs. Both men and cat had fought to the bitter end, writhing and twisting, working their muscles, grinding and flashing their teeth at the other, trying to use their body weight to gain any advantage. Trying to instil fear into the other species, trying to scare their opponent into submission. The leopard was sure he’d lost only because they had beaten him with their spears and sticks.
He awoke and immediately smelled prey. He sniffed at the air in his box, catching a waft of antelope dung. He shook his head and yawned, stretching out his jaws and pulling back the folds of skin from his nose, passing the scent over his tongue and throat. He growled and twitched his ears, ascertaining from the acoustics that he was being held in a cage, with bars, covered by a cloth. He licked at the sides and tasted a drop of freshwater running down a smooth iron cylinder. He sat up still and waited. He could tell it was raining outside.
Suddenly the cage filled with light. He turned his head to shield his battered head and tender eyes. He retreated until his tail hit the bars and he retreated some more, curling his body in on itself. For a moment the leopard had become small, like a frightened caracal. He heard men shouting, but different voices from those that had caught him. He saw two men circling the cage, wearing green overalls.
“He’s not the best specimen,” one said.
“What do you expect, they found him out in the lanes,” said the other.
“Must be one of them circus cats.”
“Yeah, look at his teeth. So are we keeping him?”
“Apparently. Paid good money for him. Not sure why.”
“He’ll bring in the crowds.”
“But where are we going to put him? He can’t go in with the bears. And the tigers will have him.”
“We’ll put in him with the young girl of course. He’s just what she needs.”
“Ain’t there a chance he’ll kill her?”
“I suppose. But what else are we going to do. They should belong together. It’s natural, isn’t it?”
“I still think he might kill her. That’s why we didn’t take that leopard from London remember?”
“Yeah, but look at him. No claws. Broken teeth. Even the farm lads could take this one.”
Both men laughed. One threw the black blanket on the floor, while the other picked up a broom and started sweeping round the cage. The air was damp. The leopard stood and moved to the front of the cage. He could see that clouds had gathered, some white, some black and heavy, tumbling around the edges, giving themselves to the sky.
“We need to move him. He can’t stay here.”
“Let’s drag him close to the young girl. See how they get on.”
The leopard snarled as the two men approached. One stooped and picked up a handle attached to a trolley underneath the cage. He pulled as the second man went to the rear and pushed. The leopard began to rumble as his bruised bones were transported over cobbled stones. The clouds opened and the rain began to fall, hammering on the metal roof.
The leopard couldn’t get his bearings. He wasn’t back at Whyte and Wingate’s Big Top. He could tell he hadn’t been sold into another circus; surrounded as he was by stone and concrete. He searched for clues, but all he could see from his metal box was a winding cobbled path running between two grey walls.
Then he smelled the antelope again. It was an eland. A big male, with a heavy chest and horns like twisted daggers. He didn’t have to see the bull to gauge its size and mood. The eland had revealed it all in its faeces, which were close.
The leopard licked at the bars again, trying to sample a spectrum of odours. He spat out his tongue and wiped it on his fur. He couldn’t trust himself, for he’d just scented a hippopotamus. He hadn’t seen such a beast for so long, since the year of his capture. He shook his head but the stench wouldn’t leave him. He could now clearly smell the red sweat of a hippo. He became agitated; hippos hated leopards and leopards were impotent in their presence. Even in his prime, he knew he couldn’t bring one down, having failed once to kill a calf.
As the trolley wound along the stone path, the walls gave way to green grass and the leopard saw a tall cage. Inside stood a huge stork, six feet tall, its heavy beak pointing at the floor. Below the sad stork pranced a secretary bird, red feathers bouncing upon its head as it haughtily searched the floor, shouting gonk gonk gonk.
The leopard tuned his ears, picking up the squeaks of a colony of fruit bats and the idle conversation of a pair of fat gorillas. Then his trolley stopped, the leopard bumping his head upon the bar
s.
“Let’s leave him where he can see her for a while. See what he does,” said the man in overalls, as he dropped the handle and set the brakes on the trolley under the cage.
The leopard watched the two men walk away, sizing up their bottom cheeks, looking for a stutter in their gait. The rain fell harder now and he drank from a puddle accruing in the well of the cage. He realised he had been placed alongside a much bigger enclosure, an amphitheatre of rocks, bushes and grass with a single young field maple tree growing within.
Nothing was doing, so he lay upon his stomach and watched the grass for signs of a mouse or vole. Then a movement in the tree caught his eye. He didn’t register it perfectly. He saw it again and realised he was staring at another cat. It looked like a leopard, but its tail was shorter. He saw rosettes rather than spots and noticed its stockier frame and jaws. It appeared misshapen to him, neither male or female, until it rose, yawned and stood upon the branch, displaying a line of teats down the belly. The cat turned and peered down at the old leopard. She blinked at him, stretched then lay back down. He felt a tear forming in his eye.
This cat, this female variant of himself, instantly reminded him of Africa, of the queens he’d stalked and fought for, the cubs he knew he’d sired. He felt ashamed to see another of his kind so caged, an anger that the humans had taken a female, likely having beaten her too. As the water fell, he watched the droplets run down her sleek coat as if she cared for nothing in the world. But he knew. He knew she wasn’t uncaring. She had become unfeeling.
His trance was broken as the two men returned and began to manhandle his own crate upon the trolley. He tried to prowl but there was no room. He tied to hiss but his mouth had dried. Suddenly he felt a man sitting astride his cage and the front door opened, leading down a fenced channel to an open gate leading into the larger enclosure. It felt like a trap, so the leopard didn’t move. The second man approached with a long pole in his hand. The leopard looked back then forward and took his chances. He summoned his strength and he burst forth through the door and out into the rain. He heard the men cheer, wishing him luck.
