by Ruby Loren
“Bonjour!” I said, popping into the staff hut.
To my surprise Adele and Luna were so engrossed in their conversation that they didn’t even notice me come in. It was only when my shadow fell across them that they both looked round and jumped.
“Is everything okay?” I said, concerned that something serious must have happened.
“It’s fine…” Adele said and then looked across at Luna. "We think it’s fine… probably.”
I sat down on a chair opposite the sofa.
Luna lifted her face and I immediately noticed that it was lined with worry. It was Adele who spoke first.
“Do you remember that I asked Luna to look after our dog, Matti, if Jolie showed any signs of the puppies coming?”
I nodded.
“Yesterday evening, Jolie started getting a bit more agitated and we thought it would be better to take Matti away because he seemed to be getting stressed. Luna took him home.”
Luna nodded and continued the story. “I took him for a walk, fed him, and so on. Later that evening, I let him outside to do his business. He was taking a long time, so I just left the door open while I sorted out some washing. I must confess, I did leave it a little longer than I should have done before I checked on him, but when I called out the back door he came back right away.” She hesitated and I knew she was about to get to the point of her story. “Someone had painted a pink heart on his back.”
I blinked. “What?”
“A heart! In some pink paint. Don’t worry, I washed it off right away and then called Adele to let her know. I don’t think it was toxic paint. It’s just really weird.” Adele bit her fingernails and then thoughtfully lowered her hand. “My garden is enclosed by walls and a fence. There is a gate they could have come through, but I don't know… I’ve looked after Matti before and he’s usually talkative when it comes to strangers. I was only just inside the house and I’m really surprised he didn’t bark his head off when whoever it was got out their paintbrush.” She shuddered. “I don’t know why, but this really creeps me out. Why would anyone do that to Adele’s dog?”
I shook my head. I really had no idea what would motivate someone to do that. Was it some kind of threat? A sign that, whoever it was, was able to get around Adele’s largest and scariest dog with ease? I didn’t know. “Do you think he might have been drugged so he didn’t bark?” I asked.
“Ha!” Adele cut in. “More likely, someone bribed him with food. Everyone around here knows Matti’s putty in your hands when you give him a treat. Justin and I specialise in dogs who have bottomless pits instead of stomachs.”
“I’m really sorry,” Luna said, and it sounded to me like she'd already said it a few times.
“It’s okay, honestly it is,” Adele reassured her. “I just wanted to find out the details. I never wanted you to think that any of this is your fault. It’s some weirdo’s.”
“Adele, you said that anyone who knows Matti would have known that he’d stay quiet for a treat. Doesn’t it stand to reason that whoever did the painting knows you personally?” I suggested.
“Sure, but that’s pretty much everyone in town, Madi,” she replied, with a knowing smile.
I nodded. I’d momentarily forgotten how village life differed from town life, where only a handful of people knew who you were.
“It was probably just some local pranksters,” Adele said, with a shrug.
“Maybe.” I privately thought that it wasn’t the first strange, unexplainable thing to happen around here lately. However, there wasn’t enough time to dwell on it. I had an appointment with the zoo’s mini-farmyard.
Half an hour later, I’d written so many notes I thought my wrist might be about to fall off. I’d toured the entire zoo on my first day, but it had really only been a glance around. Since then, I’d been rationing myself a bit of the zoo a day, gradually working my way around. Today was my first proper look at the area meant as a petting zoo.
My first impression was that it wasn’t entirely finished. I vaguely remembered the zoo boss saying something along those lines. I'd mentally noted it and assumed that it was an attraction that would be coming soon. It turned out, the petting zoo was open, but almost hilariously half done.
The area was penned off with a gate, which was lucky, because the goats had escaped their own little area of the petting zoo and roamed where they pleased. I wasn’t convinced that the zoo had made the best choice of a child-friendly goat breed either. These goats came up above my waist, had long, curling horns and if you dared to walk into the farmyard without any popcorn with which to distract them, you found out what it was like to be butted by those horns. As someone who stood tall at five foot nothing, I thought I was probably a better judge than many as to what might be found intimidating by children and other tiny adults.
“Did no one stop to think, ‘Hey, maybe pygmy goats would be a better choice?’” I muttered when I received another painful bump to my rear that nearly sent me sprawling.
Goats could be tricky to handle. If I’d been willing to bribe them with food, I would have had no trouble at all… until the food ran out. Beyond bribery, there weren’t really any tricks. All I could hope was that if I kept ignoring them, they’d get bored with trying to eat my t-shirt. I found myself praying that a family with some plucky kids would come along and distract the herd. Unfortunately, I seemed to be the only one crazy enough to even set foot in the half-done farmyard.
I sighed as the goats started to masticate my shorts and wrote down another a paragraph.
At least the majority of the other animals in this part of the zoo had remained in their enclosures. That was pretty much the only positive thing I could pick out. It was clear that while the vision for the farmyard was interesting, the execution hadn’t yet happened.
“Why open it?” I said, feeling exasperated.
I walked over to an enclosure holding a very large ox and found the double safety barrier stopped halfway down the enclosure, making it a pretty pointless exercise. Worse still, whoever had built the enclosure had decided that the inner fence only needed to be a two bar fence. So anyone who was small and not entirely under the control of a watchful parent could slip into the ox's enclosure before you could say ‘trampled to death’.
I felt faint even thinking about it. “If this were in Britain,” I muttered to myself. But the same rules just didn’t apply here. I really hoped L’airelle would make the changes I put forward, both for the animals’ sake and for their visitors’ wellbeing, but I wasn’t sure it would happen anytime soon. The half completed nature of this area was evidence enough of that. The fencing was new, but there were no signs that the builders intended to return.
I sighed again and moved on, wondering if I would be wearing a crop-top by the time I left.
At least the pigs are happy! I thought, until I saw the felled skeleton of what was supposed to be another fence and realised the pigs had invaded the ducks’ enclosure. The ducks themselves now floated forlornly on top of the pigs’ water trough. Their own little lake had been turned into a mud bath.
I made another note and moved on.
The rest of it wasn't so bad. The donkeys were perfectly happy, as were the sheep. Half of the chickens were where they were supposed to be. The others were fighting it out with the goats in the main yard, but in the grand scheme of things, I could overlook that.
My loop of the farmyard had nearly come to an end when I met the emus.
“What kind of farm are you supposed to be from?” I said, eyeing the pair warily. They stared straight back and I didn’t have to look far to realise what they wanted. The zoo’s paper maps were strewn around the interior of the emus’ pen. As were a number of other miscellaneous items including; sunglasses, sun hats, and even a wig. I tried not to imagine how the latter had ended up on the other side of the fence.
“Safety fence needed immediately,” I said, writing it down. I raised my eyes to the emus, who both seemed to stretch their necks out expectantly. �
��Not going to happen,” I said, smugly waving my folder at them from a prudent distance.
It was at that moment, the goat who had been worrying my t-shirt got bored and decided to butt me hard and unexpectedly. I fell forwards, turning for a second to glare at the goat.
It was a second too long.
The emus pounced, their beaks seizing my sheaf of papers and scattering them in a snowstorm of A4 flakes.
“No!” I yelled, running forwards without even thinking. I was not going to write all of this out again! I'd already spent what felt like an age inspecting the farmyard and that work was not going to be wasted because of a conspiracy between a goat and a couple of emus.
I’d love to say I vaulted the fence and chased the emus down.
In reality, I rolled over the barrier like a limp noodle and then flailed around the enclosure for a while, waving my limbs at the emus without really achieving much at all.
It was of course at this moment that every single one of the families who were visiting the zoo that day decided to visit the farmyard. Years later, I would still occasionally wonder how many family photo albums ‘the emu chasing lady’ cropped up in.
Eventually, the emus got tired of my flailing and instead went to see how many small fingers they could bite. I was able to gather up both my papers and my last few shreds of dignity and retreat from the farmyard.
I was wrong to think my day could only improve. I was on my way to a well-deserved lunch break when I bumped into Constantine and nearly dropped my papers again.
She looked down her nose at me. It wasn’t a very difficult feat for most, due to my short stature, but it was very difficult for me to not stare at her proliferation of nose hair.
“I heard you were attacking the emus. I’m just on my way to report it to Francois. I doubt he’ll be impressed when he hears that his animal expert is actually an animal abuser,” Constantine informed me, even going so far as to make a note on the clipboard she was carrying.
I was saved from saying something that would have actually justified me losing my job by Luna coming up behind me.
“That’s enough, Constantine! You walk around this place, calling everyone out on not doing their jobs while neglecting your own. I can’t believe no one has ever told you this before, but keep your nose out of other people’s business! You’re not the boss’ little pet,” she said, turning into a highlighted firework of fury.
Constantine gave me a look, as if she expected me to contradict everything Luna had just said and also admit to being an animal abuser.
“That sounds like a fair evaluation to me,” I said with a thin-lipped smile. “Come on, Luna, I think I owe you lunch,” I said, walking away with the lion keeper, feeling a lot cheerier.
“I can’t believe you told old Constantine to keep her nose out of other people’s business!” Adele said, when she’d stopped howling with laughter.
Luna sat at our lunchtime picnic bench and looked grim, despite the burger I’d bought her. “She’s probably going to go and tell Monsieur Quebec,” she said, referring to the animal park boss.
Adele snorted and shook her dark mane. “When have you ever seen Monsieur Quebec intervene on anything Constantine has reported? I don't even know if she actually speaks to him, or if it’s all just talk.” She tilted her head. “It has to be talk. Anyone sane would have fired her by now, if she really does report on everyone’s misdemeanours every few hours.”
“Don’t worry about it, Luna. I’m glad you stuck up for me. Other people are, too,” I added with a grin.
Luna had been congratulated by no fewer than three other zoo staff members on our way to lunch. Gossip at L’airelle spread just as quickly as it did at every other zoo I'd visited. Luna's little exchange must have been overheard.
“You’re the zoo hero,” I told her.
At least it got her to smile.
To my surprise, I was summoned to the main staff building, above the restaurant, later that day. My mind immediately jumped to Luna's words with Constantine and I wondered if she’d managed to escalate things. A meeting of the entire zoo staff sounded incredibly extreme.
I nodded at Luna and Adele when I entered the room above the restaurant a few minutes after the runner had found me. The place was already full, but I managed to wiggle my way through and stand next to my friends. I had a feeling I'd be needing their translation skills.
The air smelt of dust and despite the clouds, the day was a muggy one, which meant the atmosphere in the room wasn’t an incredibly enjoyable one.
A few wooden feed boxes had been pushed together at the front of the room and I recognised Monsieur Quebec, my employer, when he stood upon them to raise himself above his audience.
“Hello! I’m sorry to gather you all on such short notice,” he began, and Adele hastily whispered the translation in my ear. I could hardly expect a staff address to be in English.
“I hope this isn’t Constantine,” I heard Luna mutter.
“I have a couple of announcements to make. The first is that the family of Monsieur Devereux will be visiting at the end of today to get some closure.” Mr Quebec looked unsure when he said those words. Visiting the tiger enclosure where a member of your family crash landed and was then ripped up by tigers didn’t seem like a very logical way to seek solace.
“I would ask you all to be courteous and respectful during this time…” he continued.
I might have imagined it, but I thought he eyeballed Constantine when he said that bit.
“I also have some other news. You’e all aware that our head primate keeper, Victor, was away on sickness leave. He has decided not to return to the zoo. In his place, I would like to introduce you all to Monsieur Alcide Reynard, who will be stepping in as our new head primate keeper.”
There was a smattering of applause, that I couldn’t help but notice mostly originated from the female staff members. I couldn’t say I blamed them. Alcide Reynard was rather easy on the eyes. He had dark blonde hair that seemed to naturally flop over his forehead in a side parting. There was also something that reminded me of Indiana Jones in the sideways smile he possessed and those sharp eyes, that seemed to already have taken everyone's measure.
“He is just… wow,” Luna said, next to my ear. I noticed Adele nodding along before she hastily corrected herself.
I smiled at Luna and turned back to the front, only to find that Alcide was looking in our direction.
“Did I say that too loudly?” Luna whispered in horror. I shook my head. Unless he had the hearing of a bat, he wouldn’t have picked up on her words amongst the humdrum of other zoo staff probably saying very similar things. He was probably looking our way for another reason all together.
My hypothesis proved correct when Alcide walked into the tiki hut at the end of the day.
“Chocolate?” I said, offering him the nearly empty box, while Luna tried to quietly cough up the chocolate she’d accidentally swallowed whole when he’d walked in. Adele had already rushed home to see Justin and Jolie.
“No thanks, I don't really eat sweet things,” he said, flashing me a white grin.
I’m afraid I immediately marked that as a point against him.
“So, you're the new primate keeper. I’d love to talk to you about the primates, in particular…”
“…the squirrel monkeys?” he finished for me.
I raised my eyebrows at him.
He leant forward, placing both his hands on the counter in an amazingly relaxed way. I privately wished I was so at ease with strangers. “I know they're a bit of a handful," he began and I started nodding along like an idiot. “I’ve been told they escaped their enclosure and are now living wild and free around the park. Obviously, this is not what was intended and might pose a risk.”
“Exactly,” I said, pleased he was getting it.
“But, have you ever seen a happier group of monkeys?”
I opened my mouth to contradict him and then bit my tongue. He was right.
He n
odded when I didn’t answer. “I think the best thing to do is to simply let them carry on. Give the public fair warning about the risks of aggravating them, but other than that, leave it as it is. Nothing bad has happened yet, right?”
I struggled to find the right words to answer him. I loved animals and the whole idea of this job was to do right by them and give them the best conditions possible but this… this was a conundrum.
“If someone gets attacked, the monkeys might have to be put down, or L’airelle could face a lawsuit,” I protested, somehow feeling like I was the bad guy in this situation.
“As I said, we'll give the public fair warning, but you can’t deny they’re happy,” he said, those sharp eyes seeing everything they needed to see, written on my face.
“I can’t deny that,” I admitted, wondering for the first time if I was in the wrong here.
“Look, I understand the job you have to do and your responsibilities. I promise that this decision will be my own and shall never come back to haunt you. Anyway, what’s a few scratched faces and bitten off fingers when you're talking about complete freedom?” Alcide said.
I fixed him with my own sharp-eyed gaze. “I hope you’re not planning to let any of the other primates try a taste of freedom?”
He flashed me a grin. “I promise I won’t let the gorillas have a wander about, if that’s what you’re worried about. Even a liberal thinker like me has his limits.”
“Hmm,” I said, still not utterly convinced. “If you want an example of how things can go wrong when animals escape and run rampant, just pop down to the farmyard and visit the goats.”
“Ah, is your t-shirt not supposed to be like that? I thought it was fashionable,” he said, with a straight face.
I gave him a ‘don't try to kid with me’ look and decided that Luna had probably regained her composure by now.
“Alcide, I’m guessing you haven’t yet met Luna? She’s a big cat keeper and lion specialist.” I gave her a supportive grin.
“Nice to meet you,” she said, sticking out a hand. Alcide dodged it and kissed her on both cheek, leaving them glowing.
