by MJ Walker
“They’ve come this far,” answered his older relative. “Besides, it’ll be nice to show those butcher boys something.”
“Who are the butcher boys?” asked Bear, now concerned.
“They sound worse than they are,” the silver-haired fox answered. “Come on, this way.”
He twisted his lithe back and set off along the path to Lord Morgan’s college, his orange fur and the white tip of his tail bouncing in the sun as the younger fox walked with the anteater. Apart from the animals, the path to the college was empty.
“It’s quiet,” said Bear.
He hadn’t seen many cities. But even the country lanes he was used to travelling in his circus cage were often busier than this.
“Like we said, something is up today,” said the fox alongside. “The humans have been tidying their bins. Hosing the roads. There’s been hardly any pickings since early yesterday and at this time of day this road is usually full of young humans on their bicycles, satchels swinging from their backs. We have to be careful down here in case they run us over.”
“This way,” shouted the older fox ahead.
He turned down another path which none of the circus animals had seen when trying to rescue Edward. They followed him but there was no one about to show off to. As Edward rode on Doris’s back he could see over the hedges they passed. Behind were large buildings full of engineering equipment, huge black cogs and wheels attached to pulleys and chains. Mechanical presses sat inside vast lifeless rooms, alongside sterile benches and hot ovens connected to silver chimneys that belched smoke out of the roof.
The birds flew on, led by Bessie, as the path curved and dipped back on itself. Bear hadn’t lost his inner compass, the sense of direction that helped anteaters meander vast distances in search of food. He knew they were turning back on themselves.
“Does this lead to the end of that road that was closed?” he asked the fox.
“Yes, it’ll bring us out at the bottom of the high street. Then we climb up again, past all the shops. Once we reach the top of the hill, it’ll open out on to the downs,” said the fox. “We know the downs very well. They are our summer home.”
“Where will the zoo be?” asked Doris, using her big ears to listen in.
“The zoo faces the downs. Once we reach the top of the hill, you’ll be there.”
The procession plodded on, a show without an audience. Even Bessie began to hope that something or someone would come out to watch.
Suddenly the birds were met by a huddle of pigeons taking flight from the ground.
“Don’t worry,” shouted Bessie. “We’re not after your crumbs.”
“There’s food everywhere,” answered a young cock. “All along the high street.”
Bessie had reached the end of the road. Flying with the pigeon flock, she felt brave enough to bank around a large building. As she cornered, she saw it was built of pink limestone. The pigeons then split and Bessie had to quickly decide what to do. She followed the young cock, who headed for a line of string being hung from a window. Bessie grabbed at the string and landed upon it, bobbing up and down, as the pigeon alighted on a ledge inches behind.
“See. Look down there. It’s full of food.”
From her vantage point Bessie could see a high street stretching out, climbing into the distance. It was a riot of noise and colour. Little flags hung from string tied between buildings and lamp posts, creating waves of bunting flowing up the hill. On bicycles boys freewheeled down the hill, sticking out their legs, screaming as they dodged women walking with baskets of bread and flowers. Older men sat on chairs outside shops. Some wore aprons and bowler hats, others their best suits. Most were drinking from tankards or hip flasks, laughing and joking, slapping their thighs and each other on the back. So many humans filled the street that Bessie couldn’t see a place to land. She couldn’t now hear her friends, or the birds that had been her escort, the air full of chat and music blown out of big brass instruments played by a Naval Lads Brigade dressed in matching blue and white uniforms.
Doris felt the vibrations of the throng then heard the sounds. As the foxes and anteater neared the pink building, she alerted them by calling loudly from her trunk. She timed it so well, the brass band answered. The foxes naturally moved towards the gutters, but on Bear walked, lifting his head, ready to eye whatever faced him. Edward jumped to his feet and did a somersault, kicking some of the clay dust off Doris’s back.
They turned the corner and moved into the middle of the road. Bear paused, Doris towering over him. Together they and the pin monkey stood at the bottom of a high street hosting Bristol’s largest ever party. The animals had been granted their audience, ten times bigger than had ever fitted within the canvass of Whyte and Wingate’s Big Top.
The foxes cowered, as a drunken troop of army boys staggered past, black boots clipping their whiskers. A corporal bounced into Doris’s shoulder and straight back off her, into the arms of two sappers struggling to hold cigarettes in their mouths. The soldier didn’t notice he had collided with an Indian elephant. Doris naturally stepped over Bear, using her four legs as columns to protect the anteater. Then she remembered her circus training. The best way to control a crowd, she knew, was to entertain it. So she grabbed at the drunken corporal, plucking him from the arms of his fellow soldiers. She lifted him high above her head, as his beer money fell from his chest pocket. She stepped forward and trumpeted, the air in her trunk squeezing the human. As the man screamed, Doris bellowed and jigged as she waved the soldier above the heads of some orphan children who had once seen her perform through a hole in the side of the Big Top.
Bear stepped out from under Doris’s belly. He’d never learned any tricks, beyond running round and round the circus, his head bobbing. So he made it up. He wandered to the left of the street and back to the right, raising his paw at each turn, like a dog begging for a pat. The first human he confronted was a child who burst into tears. Behind the infant an old man looked on amazed. Another, sitting on a stool, offered out his aged palm, as if to shake Bear’s steely talons. The child started to laugh as Bear wafted his paw in return, before heading across Doris to entertain those humans at the other kerb.
Doris placed her drunken soldier at the side of the street, inserting him between a red postbox and a fat lady eating plums. He giggled like the young child. Edward stood and waved his sticks at the humans below him. At first they didn’t see the monkey travelling up high on the white elephant. So Edward climbed down Doris and on to the shoulder of the fat lady. He stole one of her fruits and as the woman shrieked in horror he grinned and gave the plum back, forcing it into her lips. Her red cheeks broke into a fascinated smile. Edward jumped from the woman on to the postbox. The woman pointed and waved at him then tapped her friend on the shoulder, showing her the monkey. Edward leaped on to a line of college students and used their heads as stepping stones, moving up the hill alongside the elephant and anteater. Once a number of humans were in his thrall he switched back to Doris, scuttling up her to begin his act. He stood tall on his back legs and tossed his sticks into the air, juggling them better than any clown.
From her vantage point, Bessie could see the crowd thinning in front of Doris, the humans stepping back, hitting each other’s elbows, making way for the animals. Some had their hands over their mouths, a few pointed. But each and every human smiled as the procession of animals danced their way up the hill. The budgie couldn’t find the nerve to fly down and bob in front of the animals. But no one seemed to notice that the animals were alone, without a master. Just two wily foxes guided them, one at each side of the road, darting in and around the humans’ ankles, out of sight.
By the time Bear reached the top of the hill, the crowd behind was singing and cheering. Edward caught a dirty coin tossed his way by a well-dressed gentleman twirling a cane, who was heading down past the animals to the party on the high street. Bear left the road and scampered on to the huge field of grass that opened before him, populated by a fe
w families picnicking in the sun. Doris followed, and Bessie, who had watched their progress all the way up the slope, leaped from her line. A squadron of birds fell into formation, escorting her flying low over the crowd’s heads as she caught up with her friends, alighting on the downs.
Bear could barely speak, so excited was he by their experience.
“We made it,” he said. “I think we made it.”
“The zoo isn’t far now,” whispered the silver-haired fox who had crossed the road without being seen. “It’s just over there.”
Across a hundred yards of clay mounds and lush grass nestled two small white stone houses with triangular rooftops. Clean and sharp they stood out from the surrounding trees. Between the houses hung a wide cast iron gate painted a fresh black, and upon one gate was fixed a polished badge bearing the golden words: Zoological Gardens. Behind the gate stood a tall white flagpole and at the top of the pole flew the Royal Standard, a red lion facing six golden lions and a golden harp.
“That’s where the leopard is being kept,” said Bear to his friends.
“Will they let us in to see him?” asked Doris, taking a trunkful of grass, shoving it into her mouth.
“We have to stick to my plan,” announced Edward from on high. “All the human buildings I’ve seen and can remember have just a few ways in and a few ways out. That gate is the way in, just like the gate that leads to Lord Morgan’s house.”
He thought back to the schematic of the ancient fort still visible in the forest floor. As he’d examined that outline, he’d come to the conclusion that the animals would have to pass through the front entrance to the zoo. Elephants can’t climb walls and giant anteaters can only stand and mark them with their talons. So Edward’s plan, inspired by the actions of Tony the terrier, was to throw the latch of the gate at the entrance, and let the others walk in. To get to the latch, the monkey had to scale the wall surrounding the zoo and open the gate from the inside.
“Doris, take me alongside the wall next to the gate and I’ll jump over,” said Edward. “Then be ready for when the gate opens.”
“What shall we do?” said the younger fox.
“Will you wait for us?” said Bear. “And if we don’t come back, will you tell the bull and thank him? Your cousin too.”
“Of course,” said the fox.
“Should I first fly over and take a look? Shall I look?” Bessie suddenly asked.
This was a change to Edward’s plan. But he thought about it and decided it was a good idea.
“We can’t have all the birds flying over,” said Bear. “Are you ready to go alone?”
“Yes I think so,” said Bessie.
She thanked the pigeons and robin who’d stayed with her to the zoo. She took flight, arching up and up, almost reaching the height of the buzzard still circling. Doris watched her go but Bessie didn’t fly over the zoo, she kept looping with the buzzard resting on a thermal. Then Bessie plummeted back to earth.
As she landed, she struggled to spit out the words.
“The Big Top. The Big Top!”
“Why are you talking about the circus?” said Doris.
As she spoke to the budgie a few people had abandoned their picnics, wandering closer to see more of these wild creatures standing on the downs.
“The Big Top! It’s over there. It’s just over there!”
The bird had seen her former home, the place where she’d loved to entertain the masses. But the site of the discoloured tent now scared her. She trembled as she described how she could see the Big Top pitched on the grass by the side of the zoo. She could even see Jim the Strongman and the circus boys driving pegs into the soil, working the guy ropes as children crowded around a deflated hot air balloon laid flat and misshapen on the ground.
At that moment, a mechanised Thornycroft car pulled up outside the gates of the zoo, its engine running. Out stepped a young lady wearing a long ivory laced dress with a blue stone brooch and matching parasol that she twirled with glee. The sound of the car’s engine unnerved Doris. She backed away from the zoo entrance.
“Remember the leopard,” said Bear. “We are animals and we have decided to stick together. We must be brave and we must set him free. Otherwise, what are we?”
So Bear turned his long nose and faced the zoo. He stepped off the grassy downs and on to the road that carried the horses and cars around Clifton in Bristol. Head and hips swaying out of time, he dug his talons into the dirt.
Doris peeled off to his side. She crossed the road until she reached a tall wall that ended above her shoulders. Fresh white paint licked the bricks and new black paint covered a line of metal spikes running along its top. Edward scanned the wall. It took him just two seconds to evaluate its height, the grip of the mortar and whitewash, the relative position of the spikes and the risk that he might impale himself if he misjudged his leap. He jumped and was gone, running along the spikes, dancing through the bed of giant nails before disappearing over the other side.
As if by a conjurer’s hand, Bear appeared out of a plume of dirty exhaust smoke, standing behind the lady dressed in lace. Doris too set aside her liberty, taking a few bold strides to walk the wall and stand behind her new leader. She emerged as a great white apparition ready to envelop the woman. Little trembling Bessie, for days conflicted by this new world, flitting between being bold and brave and scared and overwhelmed by it all, now steeled her tiny bones. She delicately flew over Doris and down, landing on the lady’s shoulder with such levity and grace that the human didn’t notice. Gripping her small feet into the lady’s dress, she tucked under her hat, the bird’s bright blue and white feathers matching the stitching woven into the parasol.
Two men in pressed uniforms quickly ran from one white house to the other. One reappeared nervously dangling a set of heavy keys from his hand. He flicked through the bunch, each black key longer than his fingers, covered in a light rust. He looked up at the lady and panicked, dropping the keys on to a path built from crushed rock grouted with tar. The second man ran to him, picked up the keys, and flashing another look at the visitors, selected one. He placed it inside a large lock within the gate, turned it and walked backwards, pulling the gate with him. The other man stood behind the gate for protection.
The men in uniform then surprised the lady by their inaction. Instead of a greeting, or a demand to see her gilded invitation, they simply opened out their arms and waved her inside. She nodded at the men and smiled, thinking they had deferred to her youthful looks. As she walked into the zoological gardens, she didn’t notice the English budgerigar fidgeting upon her shoulder. Nor that she was followed by a giant black and white anteater with a crown of holly upon his head or a ghostly Indian elephant standing ten feet tall at the shoulder with a foot more of head and ears.
The woman serenely walked on, passing a pond full of ducks from another continent. A few gentlemen standing on a freshly cut lawn noticed. Stopping their idle chatter about money and servants, they took off their hats and saluted her. Blushing now, the lady searched for her older sister and husband within a gaggle of humans ahead, each drinking from a flute of champagne.
For a brief moment, the animals forgot about the leopard, so enthralled were they by this manicured palace of exotic plants and smells populated by finely dressed humans. They forgot too about their pin monkey, who had planned to let them into the zoo. Edward had been thwarted the moment he landed on the other side of the great white wall. Thinking the tall plant he had jumped into was a flimsy tree, he saw no problem with using the woody stem as a clown might vault using a pole in the circus. But instead of bending the pole to reach higher, Edward used his weight to bend the stem over and descend to the floor, at which point it snapped. Edward chuckled. Like any monkey, he enjoyed breaking branches as much as climbing them.
He hadn’t realised he’d landed inside a tall enclosure, an outsized cage built of a smooth white wall and surrounding wire fence.
“Why have you broken my bamboo?” asked a young, so
ft voice.
Edward couldn’t see who was speaking. He then saw a ball of fur scurrying along a wooden veranda to a tree house built upon a fencepost. As the animal walked to a rope tied to the tree house, it kept its tiny black nose down and a busy red tail in the air, using it for balance.
“What are you?” said Edward. “Are you a raccoon?”
The monkey had once seen a black and white raccoon perform at a country show in the Cotswolds, as Whyte and Wingate’s circus rambled its way west towards Bristol. But this creature had a red and white face and back, and a dark brown belly.
“I’m more special than raccoons, all the humans say that. I’m a red panda.”
The red panda gripped the rope. Swinging her plump rear off the tree house she climbed down.
“How did you get out of the monkeys’ cage and why did you snap my bamboo?” she said.
She had one of those fluffy animal faces that couldn’t appear angry even if she tried.
“I wanted to eat that for lunch,” she added.
“I haven’t come from the monkeys’ cage,” said Edward.
But the red panda didn’t really listen. Instead she snaffled about the enclosure floor for something to nibble at. As Edward watched her, he realised his great mistake. He was surrounded by wire. The top of the fence leaned in. Edward had seen the panda climb and knew the fence was designed to stop her climbing out. A monkey could climb it, but it would take time he didn’t have.
“Is there a door to this enclosure?” he asked.
“Oh you’re playing a game,” she answered. “Just like the keepers do. I like games.”
Edward went with it.
“Yes, I’m playing a game. You show me the door and I’ll get you something to eat.”
“I’d like a lolly,” said the red panda.
“A lolly? An ice lolly?” asked Edward.
He’d planned on finding an easy apple on the floor.
“Yes. The humans are always licking them. Sometimes they throw one over. They are so tasty.”
