AniMalcolm

by David Baddiel

  As they rounded a corner, Malcolm saw a man coming out of a pub. The man’s gaze followed Malcolm and Snowflake, and then the gaggle of other animals in their wake. He stood there for a bit, then shook his head, and went back into the pub.

  “Great!” shouted Malcolm back.38

  About an hour later, they were in the city proper. It was night-time now: a pale crescent moon shone above. Snowflake had slowed from a trot to a walk, making it easier for the other animals to follow him. And then, suddenly, at a crossroads, he stopped.

  “Where should we go?” he said, twisting his neck to look back at Malcolm.

  “Sorry?” said Malcolm.

  “How do we get to your house?”

  Malcolm realised that he didn’t know the answer to this. He knew where they lived – Bracket Wood – but he didn’t know how to get there from where they were.

  “Um … well … where are we now?”

  “I don’t know,” said Snowflake. By this time, Trotsky, Zsa-Zsa, Mabel, Ludwig and the Dollys had caught up. They all stood by the crossroads, looking right and left.

  “You don’t?” said Malcolm.

  “No! I’ve just been going towards the city. I thought you might be able to fill in the details when we got there …”

  “Why did you think that?”

  “Because, Malcolm …” said Ludwig, butting in, “Snowflake is an animal. As …” he added, looking at the pig, sheep, dog and cat around him, “… are we all. But you, even though you look like a tiny piggy, are apparently a human. So you should know stuff like that.”

  Malcolm looked down from Snowflake’s back at the animals looking up at him. He felt terrible at the thought that he’d brought them all here without really knowing what he was doing. He tried – tried hard – to remember something about the geography of the city, but it was difficult, not least because his memory of being a human now felt further away than ever.

  Then he thought of something.

  “What day is it?” he said.

  “Huh?” said Ludwig.

  “We don’t really know stuff like that,” said Mabel. “We’re animals.”

  “Yes, I got that,” said Malcolm. “You never know what day it is?”

  “Well, to be honest, until you arrived, Malcolm, one day was very much like the next.”

  “I didn’t even know there was such a thing as different days!” said Dolly 1.

  “Each day the same!” said Dolly 2. “Grass, grass, grass, sleep, big baa, grass.”

  “No change from one day to the next!” said Dolly 3.

  “It’s Sunday,” said Zsa-Zsa, somewhat contemptuously. “Early Sunday morning.”

  All the others looked at her.

  “How do you know that?” said Malcolm.

  “Because Gavin and Maven always get up later on Sundays, so I get fed later. About ten o’clock. And I can feel my stomach’s set for that today. Which is lucky, as otherwise I’d be off back to the farm by now for my brekker.”

  The other animals looked doubtful. Trotsky muttered something about, “Allzz ze cat everrr zinks about izzz food.”

  Malcolm looked over to the side of the road. He could see a newsagent just beginning to open up. The man inside didn’t notice them because he was busy piling newspapers up in front of the shop. But Malcolm saw, even with his little piglet eyes from a distance, that the newspapers were thicker than normal. And that brought a memory – a nice memory – back to him: of his parents reading lots of different pages of newspaper on a certain morning, every week …

  “Zsa-Zsa’s right!” said Malcolm. “It’s Sunday. OK, Snowflake, guys – can we just head on into the city? I know where to go!”

  “They’ve stopped,” said Benny, breathlessly.

  “Yes. They’re only about five hundred metres away. Speed up!” said Bjornita.

  “I have sped up!”

  “Oh. Yes. So have I …”

  “Can you speed up a bit more?”

  “I’m already going at nearly 10 metres an hour. Who do you think I am, Usain Bolt?”

  “Oh no! They’ve started going again.”

  Half an hour later, the animals (not including the tortoises) were on the outskirts of what looked like a big park. During the journey, Malcolm had turned into a proper rider, tapping Snowflake on his right or left flank whenever he wanted him to turn (right or left, obviously). The other animals had kept on their trail.

  Malcolm had been following signs. He’d noticed that his reading wasn’t as good as usual – he assumed this was another side effect of being an animal – but luckily the word he’d been looking for on the signs was a small one, and he could still understand it.

  “What does that say, Ludwig?” said Dolly 1, as they stood outside the park entrance.

  “Yes, what say, Ludwig?”

  “Ludwig – that word what?”

  “Ahem,” said Ludwig, “though I am a very wise pig …”

  “The wisest …” said Mabel.

  “And the fattest,” said Zsa-Zsa.

  “Thank you,” said Ludwig, “and can speak all the ’malanguages …”

  “Apart from horse,” said Snowflake.

  “Or goat,” said Malcolm.

  “Yes … anyway, despite that, I haven’t quite managed to master the human thing. The words and what they mean.”

  “Reading,” said Malcolm.

  “Yes. I rely instead on my native wisdom, unsullied by outside influences, so that my insights have a kind of purity, a native—”

  “Zoo,” said Malcolm.

  “Pardon?” said Ludwig.

  “Yes, pardon?” said Mabel.

  “Pardon?” said Dolly 2.

  “Pardon?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” said Zsa-Zsa, “it sounds like someone’s done twenty burps.”

  “That’s what this place is: a zoo.”

  “What is that?” said Snowflake, sniffing at the ground under the sign.

  Malcolm walked down Snowflake’s neck, and then jumped off his head. He turned and looked at the animals.

  “It’s a place with animals. Where my family come every Sunday. Although normally without me. I haven’t been since I was six! I can’t quite remember why …”

  “Right,” said Ludwig. “And how do we get in?”

  Malcolm looked around. He could see it was getting lighter. He could hear, in the distance, birds singing.

  “Morning! It’s morning! Morning, morning, morning!”

  It sounded like a sweeter version of the cockerel’s shouting.

  Which made something occur to Malcolm. Maybe K-Pax’s spell required a cockerel crowing. Maybe the time he had to get back to being human would extend, as long as the actual sound of cock-a-doodle-do didn’t enter his ears. Maybe, he thought, if I don’t actually hear—

  “WAKE UP! WAKE UP, EVERYBODY! IT’S TIME TO WAKE UP! WAKEY-WAKEY, CHIMPS!! WAKEY-WAKEY, ELEPHANTS!! WAKEY-WAKEY, GIRAFFES!”

  “Is that … a cockerel?” said Malcolm, in a deadpan voice.

  “It sounds like it,” said Ludwig. “Would there be one in this place?”

  “Maybe. Yes. Oh, yes …” said Malcolm, remembering something. “In the petting zoo.”

  “Sorry?” said Ludwig.

  “It’s a bit of the zoo where they keep smaller animals for young humans to stroke … I think in there they …”

  “WAKE UP, HIPPOS! WAKE UP, REPTILES! WAKE UP, CAMELS!”

  “… have chickens and stuff, yes.”

  It was, clearly, a cockerel. Which meant that this was his last day of trying out being an animal: next time he heard a cockerel crow he wouldn’t be trying out being an animal any more. He would be one. For good.

  He had to think of a way of getting into the zoo. So he could find his parents. Who, he was still assuming, would somehow know what to do.

  Then Malcolm had an idea. He looked at all the animals, and said: “You know that facial expression? The one animals do a lot of the time … tha
t one where you look cute but sad and lost?”

  The animals all nodded. And did the expression.

  “OK, let’s all stand here, face the entrance, and do that expression …”

  They all did.

  “What now?” said Ludwig, with a bit of difficulty, as he didn’t want to change his sad, lost expression.

  “We wait,” said Malcolm.

  Fifty-two-year-old Sanjit Hasan and his young assistant Luke had been opening up the City Zoo for ten years now.

  They did other jobs at the zoo – fixing signs and cages, handing out maps, cleaning up39 – but their first task every day was to open the gates.

  Sanjit looked forward to it. He often said to Luke that opening the gates was like taking a deep healthy breath of morning air, and today was no exception. It was a lovely morning. The sun was rising above the Aviary and, checking his watch, bang on 9.30am he put the key in the lock. He turned it with a satisfying click, then, as ever, he took the right-hand gate, and Luke took the left-hand one, and together they opened them. As the gates began to move, Sanjit always looked out to check the pavement was clear of litter, or anything else that might disturb prospective customers to the zoo on their way in to see the animals.

  Sanjit looked out. The pavement was clear of litter. However, what it wasn’t clear of, was animals.

  He stopped moving the gate, and blinked a couple of times, wondering if maybe today he hadn’t woken up properly, and was still dreaming. But even after he had stopped blinking, they were all still there, just sitting, as if waiting. He opened his mouth to speak, but then Luke said, blankly:

  “A horse, a piglet, two bigger pigs, three sheep, a cat and a dog.”

  “Yes,” said Sanjit. “I can see that. Hold the gate a minute.”

  Luke stopped opening his half of the gate. Sanjit looked at his assistant, who he knew not to be the sharpest claw in the lion cage.

  Luke looked back at him, and then at the animals again. “Have they got out?”

  “Eh?” said Sanjit.

  “From the zoo. Do you think they escaped?”

  Sanjit frowned. “Er … do we have a horse, a piglet, two bigger pigs, three sheep, a cat and a dog on show at the zoo? I mean: none of them are, y’know, endangered species.”

  Luke thought about this for some time. “Yeah, but what about the little zoo? The one for kids?”

  “The petting zoo, you mean?”

  “Yes. That’s right.”

  Sanjit considered this. He couldn’t remember exactly which animals were in the petting zoo. There was a cockerel, he knew that, because its infernal shouting always disturbed his morning tea. But he thought it was possible that the list also included horses, pigs, sheep, cats and dogs.

  And he didn’t want to appear less on the case – as regards the possibility of escaped animals – than Luke. And turning to look at the line of cute faces, he did think that they looked quite sad and lost. So he said:

  “OK, let’s get them in and check.”

  “OK,” said Luke, and carried on opening his half of the gate. Sanjit did the same. And when the gate was completely open, all the animals trooped inside.

  As the animals were led by Sanjit and Luke towards the petting zoo, Zsa-Zsa said to Malcolm:

  “Right. What should we look out for?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your family, Fatty Bum-Bum. What do they look like?”

  “Er …” Malcolm thought. He tried to picture them. But it was hard.

  “Come on, Malcolm,” said Zsa-Zsa.

  “I can’t remember …” he said quietly. “The longer I’ve been an animal, the more my human memories seem to be … going …”

  Ludwig stopped and turned. “Try, Malcolm,” he said, kindly. “I suspect that of all your memories, this is the one you need to hold on to the most.”

  As Ludwig said this, Malcolm realised that it was true – if he was ever going to get back to being human, the one memory he mustn’t lose was the image, somewhere in his mind, of his family.

  He realised something else as well. Which was that Ludwig may not have been able to read or write – and he may have been slightly pompous and absurd – but it was true: he was a very wise pig.

  So he shut his eyes and thought, thought hard, about what his family were like. And a faint image came back to him, of Stewart and Jackie and Bert and Libby and Grandpa, of them all coming to the zoo together, as he knew they did every Sunday, and going straight to … going straight to …

  “Hey, guys!” he said, opening his eyes. “I’ve remembered something!”

  Unfortunately, however, when he had shut his eyes, Malcolm had also stopped walking.

  None of the other animals had.

  So now they were nowhere to be seen.

  “What have you remembered?”said a breathless voice behind Malcolm. He turned round, to see Benny and Bjornita approaching.

  “Oh, hi! Where have you been?”

  “We’ve been with you all the time!” said Bjornita.

  “Well, not with you,” said Benny. “Behind you. Quite a long way behind you.”

  “As far as I’m concerned,” said Bjornita, haughtily, “we’ve always been operating as part of the group.”

  “Anyway,” said Benny, “What have you remembered?”

  “Where my family always head to first when they go to the zoo!” said Malcolm, turning round and trotting off as fast as his little legs would carry him, leaving the tortoises far behind again.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” said Bjornita. “I’m off to the reptile house. To see my giant great-aunt.”

  It wasn’t that difficult to find what Malcolm was looking for. He again had to follow signs, but this time the signs had pictures on them to help. The Elephant House arrow had a cartoon elephant on the end of it, the Lion and Tiger Area arrow was decorated with, well, lions and tigers, and the one Malcolm was looking for had, on the end of its arrow, a dancing, crazy, smiling monkey.

  He followed the way set out by three of those arrows and ended up in front of the Monkey House. The cage he was looking at was huge and contained nearly twenty chimpanzees, rolling around and scratching each other and staring into space. It made Malcolm uncertain, watching them. Something about the monkeys40 was making him feel uncomfortable. But he couldn’t quite place it.

  Never mind, thought Malcolm. What about my family?

  He looked away from the cage. It was still early but there were already people in the zoo. A few of them had noticed him as he’d been walking around – he’d heard one grown-up say, “I guess it must be some kind of new initiative, letting some of the animals just roam about” – but so far he hadn’t seen anyone he recognised.

  Malcolm went to sit on a grassy area just behind the concrete path in front of the chimpanzee enclosure. He had a good view of the chimps from here and could see any families approaching them.

  He settled down on a small muddy patch. Hmm, he thought, mud. How nice.

  And even though he was meant to be keeping a sharp eye out for his family, he soon found himself rolling upside down in the mud, rubbing his head and ears into it, and closing his eyes. It had after all been a long night, travelling all the way there on the back of a big white horse. He’d had no sleep. So it was nice, just for a moment, to let himself sink into this little bit of mud. It was amazing, actually, just how comfy mud was. It was like halfway between a bath and a very soft bed. If you didn’t worry about it being dirty – and strangely, Malcolm, as a pig, really didn’t – it was just very, very relaxing.

  So relaxing, in fact, that Malcolm soon found himself drifting off to sleep, thinking, as he did so, that maybe Fatty Bum-Bum was a really nice name after all.

  When Malcolm woke up about an hour later, his first thought was: Oh, I’ve changed back to being a human. Maybe my mum and dad came down when I was asleep and sorted everything out.

  The reason he thought this was because the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was his right ha
nd, lying in front of his face – a hand with four fingers and a thumb, lines across the palm, and nails on the fingers. It was a tiny bit … grey, but Malcolm assumed this was because it had got dirty pressed against the mud.

  He glanced around, wondering where – if they had sorted everything out – his mum and dad were. He noticed that he still had a good view of the chimps. In fact, if anything, he had a better view of the chimps. One particular chimp was right in front of him, his hairy brow furrowed, dangling his hand in front of Malcolm’s face.

  “What are you doing?” said Malcolm.

  “Hold on,” said the chimp, “hold still … OK!” The chimp reached out and pinched his fingers on to Malcolm’s forehead.

  “Got it!” he said.

  “Got what?”

  “A flea,” he said, holding up to the light a tiny insect.

  “Yum,” he added. And ate it.

  At which point Malcolm realised that he wasn’t actually a human again after all. He knew what he was. He stood up and looked around, at the other chimps with him in the enclosure.

  “Still,” he said out loud, “at least – compared to a pig – in DNA terms, I’m getting closer.”

  “Funny you should mention that,” said the flea-eating chimp, pointing to beyond the cage bars. “There was a little pig out there a while back. Sleeping.”

  “Was there …” said Malcolm, sitting up, and looking at his own black furry arms, and black and grey furry tummy, and (once again) incredibly human hands.

  “Yes. Just behind that bit where all the humans stand, and stare, and point at us, and laugh.”

  Malcolm looked out. He could see two families standing there, neither of them his own. They were indeed staring, and pointing, and laughing.

  It made him think, a little, about how it must be for the animals in here: about how they must feel, being on show all the time; like they were in … well … a zoo.

  “What’s your name?” said the chimp.

  “Malcolm,” he said.

  The chimp jumped up and down, and chattered his teeth, and made screeching noises.

  “Are you laughing at my name?” said Malcolm.