AniMalcolm

by David Baddiel

  When Malcolm woke up, the first things he saw, looking up at him from the grass opposite the Chimp Enclosure, were Benny and Bjornita.

  “Oh no,” he thought, “not a tortoise again. Please.”

  “Well, thank you very much, I’m sure!” said Bjornita.

  “Did I say that out loud?” groaned Malcolm.

  “You did,” said Benny. “Interestingly, you said it in tortoise. Otherwise we wouldn’t have understood you.”

  “Yeah, well that’s because I am a tortoise again …” said Malcolm, reaching out a leg to try to rub his aching head. “Aren’t I?”

  He said ‘aren’t I’, partly because he realised that what Benny said didn’t quite make sense – if he was a tortoise, then why was it interesting that he was speaking tortoise? – and partly because the leg he was reaching out to rub his head with appeared to be … covered in feathers.

  “No,” said Benny, “you’re a pigeon.”

  “And frankly, your tortoise accent is terrible,” said Bjornita.

  Malcolm stood up – or rather perched up. He looked around. He looked around some more, at a slightly different angle. He looked around the other way.48 He looked at the sky. The sun was either going up or going down. There was no way to tell.

  “What happened to my family” he said, in his pigeon49 tortoise.

  “What family?” said Benny.

  “Humans. A mum and dad, a teenage girl, a grandpa and a little boy …”

  “Would the teenage girl be taking selfies with every animal?” said Bjornita.

  “Yes!”

  “And would the little boy be asking if he could eat every animal?” said Benny.

  “Yes!”

  “We just passed them on the way out …”

  “Right! Thanks!” said Malcolm, hopping through the bars and joining them on the grass. He spread his wings. It felt good: he could feel the wind underneath them, ready to lift him … and then:

  “Wait a minute,” he said. “What am I doing?”

  “Going after your family?” said Benny.

  “No, but …” He put his wings down. “They were just here. While I was a chimp. And they didn’t recognise me. How will they recognise me as a pigeon?”

  “That’s true,” said Benny. “After all, pigeons do look much less like humans than chimps …”

  “Oh, that’s very helpful,” said Bjornita.

  “Sorry, but they do.”

  “And what time is it?” said Malcolm, looking up into the sky.

  “We don’t have much of a sense of time,” said Benny. “It passes a bit slower for us than most …”

  “Oh, forget it,” said Malcolm. He looked at the sun. It was about halfway between directly up and the horizon. It couldn’t be mid-morning, so it must be … mid-afternoon.

  Oh no.

  “OK,” said Malcolm, sounding calmer than he felt. “So in a few hours it’ll be dark, and by tomorrow morning it will have been three days since K-Pax transformed me into an animal.”

  “A tortoise!” said Benny, in an upbeat way, but then realised, looking at Malcolm’s sad face, that it probably wasn’t the moment for upbeatness.

  “Yes,” said Malcolm, quietly. “So I may as well sit it out here and just accept that I’m never going to get back to being a boy …”

  He folded his wings round himself, covering his eyes, and sank down on to the grass. Benny and Bjornita exchanged glances.

  Eventually, Bjornita said:

  “Malcolm. Listen. I remember when I was a tiny tortoise, and first saw my reflection in a pool of water. I thought: Urrgh. I’m so ugly.”

  “Bjornita!”

  “Shh, Benny, let me carry on. I did. I know it’s hard to believe. Anyway: my first owner then was a little girl called Victoria who used to live on the farm. And Victoria saw me looking into the pool and I don’t know if – somehow – she knew I was sad, but just at that moment she came over, lifted me up, kissed me on the head and told me she loved me!”

  Malcolm didn’t respond. His wings remained wrapped round himself. But the tip of his tiny head was visible, and he was listening. Bjornita continued:

  “So the point is, Malcolm – I may not have learned that much in my 149 years on this earth – yes, that’s right, Benny, I said it, 149 – but one thing I have learned is: it may take a little time, but the ones who love you will always be able to see through the outer shell.”

  There was a short pause.

  Malcolm stirred, a little.

  Bjornita looked worried.

  Then Benny said, sounding panicked:

  “Sorry, do you mean shell as in … shell? Like my shell? They can see through it? To my naked body?”

  “No,” sighed Bjornita. “I mean …”

  “I know what you mean,” said Malcolm, suddenly looking up. “Thank you, Bjornita. And by the way …” he said, spreading his wings, “you’re beautiful: you don’t look a day over 148.”

  And with that, he flew up into the sky.

  One of the really good things about being an animal, Malcolm had discovered, was that there was nothing to learn. All the stuff humans did – drive, cook, read and write, use computers – you had to spend hours and hours studying how to do. But jumping off the farm roof when he had been a cat, or leaping from vine to vine when he had been a chimp – the ability was just there. It was part and parcel of animal life.

  It was the same, now that he was a bird, with flying.

  He just opened his wings and took off. It was amazing. He knew instinctively how to float, how to hover, how to swerve into and out of the wind, how to dive and how to soar. It was a sunny day but with some fluffy clouds, and Malcolm actually flew into one of them! It was like suddenly being in a mist, and then out again, into bright day.

  Below him, the zoo looked tiny, like something on Google Earth. Malcolm knew he should be looking for his family, but a part of him couldn’t resist just having fun. So he swooped low over the Land of the Lions, seeing them lying asleep on the rocks, and then lower still over Penguin Beach (trying hard not to shout, “Ha-ha, I can fly and you can’t!”50), and briefly landed on the head of a pygmy hippo, before passing over the petting zoo and shouting, “I’m going to find my family!” at Zsa-Zsa, Trotsky, Ludwig, Mabel, Snowflake and the three Dollys, who seemed to have all been placed in a holding pen while the zoo worked out what to do with them.

  “Hooray!” they all shouted back, apart from Zsa-Zsa, who looked a bit not-bothered – although she looked like that most of the time – and Mabel, who said, “Hang on, is that Malcolm? Is he a pigeon now, then?”

  But Malcolm didn’t hang around to hear all that. He was off again, rising high over the trees, towards the road that circled the zoo. Most birds at this point during the day – perhaps every single other bird in the world – would be looking for bugs in the air, or worms wriggling on the ground, or possibly a lovely branch on which to begin building a nest.

  Malcolm, however, was looking for … a twelve-year-old blue Vauxhall Zafira.

  Seeing his family seemed, at least for the moment, to have brought his memory back: his human memory. At least for now, he knew which car his family would be travelling home in. His beady, precise eyes scanned the road from above.

  No, he thought, that one is far too new … that one is working too well … that one hasn’t got enough space at the back to carry four or five pet cages when we go on holiday …

  Ah! There it was. Chuntering down the road a bit stop-start because the exhaust was dodgy.

  Malcolm flew behind the car, easily following it: his mum was driving, and she never went over thirty miles per hour. In fact, he didn’t just follow it: he flew round the car, circling it, dipping down now and then to say “Hello!” to Libby or Bert or Grandpa in the back, but they didn’t seem to notice.51

  As the car wound through the streets, Malcolm also found himself shouting, often, to other pigeons, standing around in the road:

  “Oy! Get out of the way! Quickly, fly away
, fly away!”

  “Don’t be stupid!” they would shout back. “You must have done this! We all do it! It’s like a game of chicken. Last one out of the road’s a aaaaarggggghhh—” they would say, hopping or flying out of the Zafira’s way at the last minute.

  Finally, the car got to number 43 Kendal Road.52

  It parked up outside.

  Malcolm landed on the wall by their front gate, and watched his family get out of the car.

  “Mum! Dad! Libby! Grandpa! Bert! It’s me!” he said. “Malcolm!”

  “Hello!” said Jackie.

  Malcolm couldn’t believe it. He let out a huge: “Oh! Mum! You’ve recognised me! Oh! I knew you would!”

  “What a sweet pigeon, Stewart. Have you seen it? It’s singing to us!”

  Malcolm let out a small: “Oh no.”

  “Oh, that is sweet, Jackie,” said Stewart. “By the way, who’s going to pick up Malcolm later?”

  “Oh yes! The school bus is coming back tonight, isn’t it? I’ll go.”

  “No, I’m here!” said Malcolm. “Here!”

  “I really miss him,” continued Jackie. “Can’t wait until he’s home.”

  “Yes, me too,” said Stewart.

  “And me,” said Grandpa.

  “EIWKLTSH!”53 said Libby.

  “I don’t want to eat him!” said Bert.

  “Well, Bert!” said Stewart, turning the key. “That’s very nice of you …”

  They all went into the house. Malcolm watched, with mixed feelings. It was so frustrating that they couldn’t understand him. But at the same time, it was nice to hear them talk about him like this, without knowing he was there. He thought to himself:

  Oh. My family really love me. That’s amazing. Even though they’re all such big animal fans, and I’m not.

  But then that thought led on to another one, which was:

  But I don’t know that I’m NOT an animal fan any more. I’ve really liked some of being an animal. And I’ve really, really liked some of the animals I’ve met. Not so much the chimps. But the pigs and the sheep and the horse and the tortoises and the dog and the … oh no.

  He thought oh no, because creeping towards him, along the wall, and licking its lips, was a cat.

  But not Zsa-Zsa.

  No.

  Ticky: out of Ticky and Tacky.

  Or was it Tacky?

  “Listen …” Malcolm started to say, but it was too late. There was no chance to demonstrate his newfound ability to speak cat – pigeon cat, of course, but still cat – because Ticky (or Tacky) was just too quick for him.

  He (or she) leapt through the air, and grabbed Malcolm, pulling him off the wall and into the front garden. Her (or his) claws dug into him.

  The pain was excruciating.

  “Ow! Ow!” Malcolm cried. And then he couldn’t speak at all, because Ticky or Tacky had bitten into his neck. Malcolm could feel the fangs going in – not deep enough to kill, because Ticky/Tacky, like all cats, was clearly thinking he/she fancied playing with this bird for a bit longer first – but deep enough to cause even more pain.

  He flapped his wings, but it made no difference – one of them already felt useless and broken.

  Is this how it ends? thought Malcolm. Killed by my own cat. And I still don’t even know which one.

  And then, just as he felt his body go completely limp and his mind start to turn black, Malcolm heard a voice:

  “Step away from the pigeon …”

  “Eh?” said Ticky. Or Tacky.

  “You heard me: step away from the pigeon …”

  Malcolm felt the teeth slowly being removed from his aching neck. His head flopped to the other side. His vision was cloudy but he could see, through the mist, standing in front of the gate to 43 Kendal Road,54 her fur up and her tail raised and her teeth bared: Zsa-Zsa.

  “And if I don’t …” hissed Tacky or Ticky, “who’s gonna make me?”

  “Me,” said Zsa-Zsa.

  “Oh yeah? You and whose army?” As Tacky or Ticky said this, another cat – a brown one; the first one was white – came round the corner of the house and joined Ticky or Tacky. This must be Tacky. Or Ticky, thought Malcolm, groaning inside.

  Zsa-Zsa blinked, a long, slow blink. And then behind her appeared: Snowflake, Ludwig, Mabel, the three Dollys, Trotsky and even Benny and Bjornita.55

  “Me …” she said, “and this army.”

  “OK … OK …” said the Kendal Road cats, backing away together. Malcolm felt, through the pain, a huge wave of relief.

  “But why?” one of them said. “Why are you – a cat – trying to save … a bird?”

  “Well,” said Zsa-Zsa, “partly because we’ve come all this way …”

  “And ve had to break out of ze zzzoo to get here …” said Trotsky.

  “And use our sense of smell …” said Ludwig.

  “Well, yours is terribly good.”

  “Thank you, Mabel … to track where the pigeon went …”

  “Yes. But mainly because: he’s Malcolm.”

  The Kendal Road cats stared at Zsa-Zsa. Then at each other. Then back at Zsa-Zsa.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Yeah, what do you mean?”

  “It’s a very long story,” said Zsa-Zsa. “Which, frankly, I can’t be bothered to explain to you now. But this is your owner – or one of them, anyway – the boy. Malcolm. Just … in pigeon form.”

  “I don’t believe you,” snarled the white cat.

  “Neither do I,” super-snarled the brown one.

  “Well, I don’t think that really matters,” said Zsa-Zsa, coming further towards them, with the other animals behind. “Because we’re taking him now.”

  “Well …” said the super-snarling one, “I don’t know why you’re helping him, even if he is Malcolm.”

  “Huh?” said Zsa-Zsa.

  “Malcolm…” the brown cat continued, his/her eyes narrowing, “doesn’t even like animals. He doesn’t like you. He doesn’t like ANY OF YOU!”

  Malcolm, his head still floppy, tried to speak, tried to explain.

  That’s not true any more, he wanted to say. But it wouldn’t come out.

  The Orwell Farm animals looked deeply shocked and upset. Zsa-Zsa frowned. Trotsky put his head down. The three Dollys did some very quiet baa-ing. Eventually, Ludwig came forward – it was a bit of a squeeze for him through the front gate – bent his enormous head down towards the pigeon, and said, quietly:

  “Malcolm … is that true? That you don’t like animals?”

  With all his remaining strength, Malcolm whispered: “No …”

  The farm animals looked relieved. But then the white cat raised its head and said:

  “OK then, Malcolm. If you are Malcolm. You’ve lived with us for five years. If you like animals so much – if you care about your pets like a normal lovely owner …”

  “Yes?” gasped Malcolm.

  “Which one of us is Ticky and which one is Tacky?”

  There was a long pause. Every animal in that garden – and there were quite a lot of them now – looked at Malcolm. Malcolm looked at the cats, the brown one and the white one. He knew this. He surely knew this.

  “Come on, Malc …” said Zsa-Zsa.

  “Yes, you can do it, Malcolm,” said Mabel.

  “We’ve got faith in you!” said a Dolly.

  “Faith!”

  “We believe in you!”

  “Please, Malcolm,” said Bjornita. “Don’t let us down.”

  Malcolm stared again at the cats. They were wearing collars. But he couldn’t see the writing on them. And at some level, he didn’t want to cheat.

  Eventually, he said – his voice now a total whisper:

  “You – the white one – Tacky. You – the brown one – Ticky.”

  There was another long pause. And then the white one put its front paw up, and turned its collar, so that the coin of the collar was resting on top of its paw. “What does that say?” said the cat.

  M
alcolm could have lied but he didn’t.

  “Ticky,” he said.

  There was one more long pause, and then all the Orwell Farm animals silently turned, and left the front garden.

  The last thing Malcolm saw before he started to lose consciousness, though, wasn’t his animal friends leaving sadly and shaking their heads. Nor was it Ticky and Tacky (having lost interest in the pigeon, now that they realised it wasn’t a pigeon) going back through the cat flap.

  Nor even his mother stepping out into the garden, not noticing him and starting the car.

  Nor the streetlights softly coming on.

  He saw all those things, but they weren’t the last thing he saw. The last thing he saw – as his tiny damaged head wheeled round back towards his own house, that he used to live in, so safe and sound – was his own bedroom, on the first floor.

  From the ground, he could see up into it. He saw a light come on in there, and with his still-strong bird vision, he saw, in the corner of his room, a cage that had been put there, on top of a table near the window. Inside, a small furry creature with enormous ears was running around. A memory came back to him, a word he had learned in school, in the time before, the time when he was a boy: nocturnal.

  Which gave him, even in his terrible state, an idea. He fought against the oncoming tide of blackness, the soft rush of sleep, and flapped his damaged wings. With a supreme effort, and with a lot of pain, his broken body lifted.

  Slowly, tremblingly, Malcolm rose, towards the window of his bedroom. He hovered there for a second, looking in. He was right: inside, Chinny the Chinchilla was up, running around the room, the door of his cage having been left open to expend all his pent-up night-time energy.

  Malcolm watched Chinny running around his floor, under his bookshelf full of books about computers and football and soldiers and all the other things boys like – because that’s who Malcolm Bailey really was: a boy.

  With the last ounce of strength he had left, Malcolm flapped his wings and threw himself against the glass. It only made a very small bang. But it was enough to make Chinny look over. The chinchilla jumped up immediately and sat looking quizzically on the other side of the window.