by J. M. Walker
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, soft 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.”
Edward couldn’t see a lolly and he’d been around enough carnivals to know they didn’t last long on sunny days. But then three small boys walked past the enclosure, dressed in matching smart blue tunics and plus fours. Two were eating ice creams. Edward hopped to the fence and thrust his arm through. He smiled and smirked at the boys. He stuck out his tongue and reached with his arm. The boys ran on.
Edward considered making the long climb up and out. An elderly woman slowly came past, shouting after the boys while adjusting a fine dress she wore tight against her fragile frame. With few teeth remaining, she sucked on an orange ice, soothing her gums and a throat that was becoming ever more hoarse trying to corral her charges. Edward somersaulted in front of her. She turned and watched, so Edward then brought his hand to his mouth, signing for food. He made sad eyes at the old lady, who cooed and pushed her lolly through the fence.
Edward snatched it so hard he scratched her arm. The lady tried to scream but didn’t have the strength. So she grasped her hand, frowned and carped at the monkey, who turned and gave the lolly to the red panda.
“Now where is the door?” he asked, becoming impatient.
The panda licked at the lolly and scurried between some dark bushes with shiny leaves, disappearing out of view of the human. She climbed three feet up the fence and used her nose to point to a hatch in the side, which her keepers used to toss in fresh bamboo shoots, fruit, flowers and the occasional hen’s egg.
There were no springs or levers, gears or secret mechanical movements. Like that protecting Lord Morgan’s house, it was a simple gate shut by a latch. Just like Tony the terrier had done, Edward put his hand through and flicked up the latch, the gate swinging open to the zoo.
“Come on,” said Edward. “Let’s go.”
The young red panda turned away from Edward, climbing back down to the ground.
“Don’t you want to escape?” asked Edward. “Don’t you want to be free? To live out in the wild?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” answered the small panda. “This is my home. I was born here.”
She started gnawing and drinking from her melting lolly.
“I was like you,” said Edward. “Just a few days ago, I was like you.”
“I’m happy,” said the panda.
“I thought I was happy too. But there is more to life than being kept by a human. Perhaps one day you’ll understand.”
And with that, Edward escaped her cage. He ran across a beautiful lawn, passing beds of named roses growing in fresh compost made from the winter’s fallen leaves and hippo excrement. He jumped upon a bin that smelled of popcorn and half-eaten sausages in rolls and searched for a sign to the entrance, so he could let in his friends.
In one corner, a flock of tall pink birds stood in a shimmering pond, some on one leg, others with their head hidden under a wing. Edward couldn’t understand why they stood there and didn’t fly away. Somewhere behind the birds, in the trees, a big cat roared, though Edward couldn’t tell if it was a lion, tiger or the old leopard getting angry in the sun. He heard a sea lion honk and the unmistakable grunt of a silverback gorilla admonishing a subordinate. The zoo was full of sights, sounds and animals even Edward, a child of the distant rainforest, didn’t know.
His eye caught a path in the grass, made from tiny white granules of crushed and compressed gravel. It retained its allure and crackled underfoot as four men walked it in polished shoes. The humans sauntered to another path circumventing a bandstand standing proud under a blue sky and white clouds turning in on themselves. Surrounding the bandstand, on yet more lawn, a hundred deckchairs were set, backs up, red and white stripped canvas billowing. Edward thought of Whyte and Wingate’s Big Top, and how one day it might be inverted, cut, diced and hung out across the back of a thousand similar chairs exposed to the sun.
One of the men sat in a chair, adjusting his formal jacket. He took out his pocket watch and tapped it. He asked another the time and when proceedings would begin.
“When the ladies are ready,” answered one.
“When the King arrives,” answered another.
“He’s always late,” said the sitting man, inserting a finger into his collar, trying to get some air down his neck. “Besides, isn’t he visiting University College first? Those professors can talk all day. They’ll be boring the King to death up there. Mark my words.”
The jaguar watched the leopard. He prowled their cage, flexing his aged muscles, hoping a human might appear in the moonlight beside the fence. He wanted to show the humans he had returned willingly, for her and for himself, but not for them.
As morning broke, the human keepers arrived at the zoo, heard the gossip and deviated from their jobs to see this old cat, which had become the first animal to ever stage an escape within its grounds. The leopard was also the first to break back in to his enclosure, which no human could fathom. So the keepers came and stared at the cat and muttered about him. But the jaguar, knowing these humans well, knew they weren’t impressed by the leopard. They were angered by him, because his action had gotten two of their colleagues fired from the zoo the day before.
The keepers took to shaking the wire fence enclosing the cats. One added another chain to the door to the boxed run that led to the gate into the cat’s lair. The human wrapped the chain around and around, locking it with a thick padlock. He then kicked the door, testing it and the cats’ reaction. When they blinked at him, he puffed himself up and growled back. The keeper meant it but the cats just blinked again.
“Someone important is coming today,” said the jaguar.
“What does it matter?” said the leopard. “It’s not like we need to perform for them. Not anymore. We can just lie here and sleep. What does it matter what happens outside that fence?”
“They won’t feed us,” replied the jaguar. “That’s how I know someone important is coming. They didn’t feed us last nigh
t and they haven’t this morning. Not even a chicken.”
The leopard rested his chin on his paws.
“What does it matter?” he said again.
“You know what it’s like to be hungry,” the jaguar said to the leopard. “And so do they. They are starving us. Soon we won’t be able to help it. Our mouths will drool and our bellies will rumble, forcing us to walk the cage. They will taunt us with bones until we are running and leaping. Then the important person will visit.”
The leopard listened to her and knew she was wise. It was a trick he’d seen before, at the end of his voyage across the ocean. His captor had starved him and all the animals on the boat, making them so hungry they paced and battered their cages, baying, roaring and screaming. The hungrier they became, the more they demanded food and the more impressive they looked, driving up their price until they were sold on for the highest profit.
“I’m not hungry,” said the leopard.
He felt his age, his appetite waning. Perhaps this could be his last game? He would control his urges, lie here and pretend to sleep. He would open an eye and watch as the important person came in close to examine him. But instead of working out a way to break free and bite down upon the fat thigh of this person, he would do nothing. He would put on a performance of such banality that it would bring its own form of revenge. He would become the performing animal that refused to perform. The specimen that wasn’t worth the entrance fee. The exotic, terrifying leopard that was so disappointing the punters would tear down any poster advertising his presence, denouncing his capture as a form of entertainment.
As he began his protest, two suited men cycled past on a tandem cushioned by pneumatic tyres. A while later a gaggle of ladies gathered to stare at him, impressed by the sleek muscles that still clung to his feline frame. After the sun peaked in the sky, he heard the tigers roar. He’d never seen a tiger, not up close. But he’d heard how they scared even the lions and he heard them now, their guttural cries echoing across the zoo advertising their hunger and displeasure.