Tiger Takes the Big Apple

by David P. Reiter

  Tark went a bit red.

  ‘I didn’t think that Griffs got embarrassed,’ Wanda sniggered to Tiger. ‘Maybe Tark’s been on Earth too long!’

  The President checked his watch. ‘Well, if we’re going to make that special session at the UN, we’d better get a move on.’

  ‘I’m ready!’ Tiger said, excitedly, although he still wasn’t sure what the UN was, though it did sound important. And if Myrtle’s Greenhouse Ginger Cheesecakes were headed that way, he couldn’t think of any place he’d rather be.

  After what seemed only minutes in the Teleportation Module, they landed squarely in front of the United Nations building. It was tall, so tall and wide that Tiger was afraid his neck would get a permanent kink in it from straining backwards to see the top floor.

  As soon as they stepped out of the Module, they were surrounded by very serious men in dark suits and even darker sunglasses.

  ‘Secret Service,’ the President noted. ‘Can hardly breathe without one of them wanting to check my pulse. But I suppose they’re just doing their job.’

  ‘They’re really... good looking!’ Madonna said, batting her eyes at the closest ones. ‘Just as well I’m not President, or I’d never get anything done!’

  ‘Behave yourself,’ the President warned, ‘or this might turn into a rock video!’

  ‘Yes, Sir,’ Madonna said, snapping to attention. ‘We’d better keep moving, then, before they ask for my… autograph!’

  Wanda rolled her eyes at that, then scuttled between the legs of one of the Secret Service men. ‘I think the entrance is just over there.’

  ‘You’d better follow me, Wanda,’ said the President. ‘Or the Security types ahead might want to frisk you.’

  ‘I don’t have any pockets,’ said Wanda, still leading the way. ‘They can frisk away!’

  Wanda was wrong for a change. They were met by a tall, gruff-looking security woman who did not seem amused by the prospect of scanning through a bunch of animals.

  ‘No animals allowed,’ she snapped, waving a finger at Wanda.

  The President stepped forward. ‘Do you know who I am?’

  The guard hesitated. ‘Of course, Mr President!’

  ‘These animals are my… guests,’ said the President. ‘So please, let them pass through.’

  ‘I… have my orders, Mr President,’ said the guard. ‘Absolutely no animals of any kind!’

  Tark hopped up onto a conveyer used to scan briefcases and the like. ‘This is the United Nations, is it not?’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ stammered the guard, looking around. ‘Who said that?’

  ‘I did,’ Tark said, a bit more loudly.

  The guard rubbed her eyes. ‘No, no. Frogs don’t talk. Not where I come from. Now, exactly who is speaking?’

  If the guard wouldn’t talk to a frog, Tark had other ways of getting her attention. An instant later, Elvis had replaced Tark, complete with a diamond-studded guitar to complement his glittering white jumpsuit. He winked at the guard.

  ‘There,’ he crooned. ‘Is that better?’

  ‘G-gosh,’ the guard said. ‘Is it true, then?’

  ‘What?’ said Elvis. ‘What are you talking about... sweetie?’

  Tiger thought that might be pouring it on too thickly, but the guard didn’t seem to mind.

  ‘They said the King was still alive!’ the guard cried. ‘I knew it, all along!’

  ‘Then you’d better let us through,’ said Madonna. ‘You know Elvis doesn’t take too kindly to people stepping on his Blue Suede Shoes!’

  She sang the last few words of it.

  ‘All of you?’ said the guard.

  ‘All of us,’ said the President.

  ‘Even the raccoons?’ whined the guard. ‘They give me the creeps with their little masks.’

  ‘All of us,’ said Elvis. ‘Unless you don’t want my autograph…’

  The guard gasped. ‘Oh, yes, please. Can I…? May I?’

  She didn’t seem to think it odd when a studded pen appeared in Elvis’s hand.

  ‘Do you have something for me to write on?’ said Elvis. ‘One of my albums, perhaps?’

  The guard looked around, desperately. ‘No,’ she groaned. ‘Not even a scrap of paper.’

  ‘Your paw,’ said Number 12. ‘Hold out your p—, I mean, hand!’

  The guard held out her hand, palm up, and Elvis signed it.

  Her hand trembling, the guard stared at the signature. ‘Wait a minute,’ she said. ‘I know what Elvis’s signature looks like, and that’s not it!’

  Even Elvis seemed a bit taken aback by this. ‘I… haven’t given many autographs, since I… went to ground.’

  The guard thought about it. ‘Yes, of course. It must have been hard for you. One minute at the top of your game, fans everywhere, then having to go into hiding.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Elvis, producing a tear. ‘It was.’

  Tiger thought it was a lot of trouble for Tark to go to, playing Elvis again and all, when he could just have frozen the guard until they’d all slipped through. But Elvis seemed to be having so much fun, and he didn’t seem in any hurry to change back into Tark.

  ‘Whew,’ said Tiger, happy that he could talk again. ‘That was close!’

  ‘I’m tired of being green all the time,’ Tark said, as they headed up the corridor toward the auditorium where the UN meetings were held. ‘Would anyone mind if I stayed as Elvis from now on?’

  ‘Not me,’ said Arnie. ‘Elvis was the King – until he got fat. But if you can stay trim, taut, and terrific, well, why not go for it?’

  ‘That’s not on, I’m afraid,’ said the President. ‘You may have fooled one star-struck, and slightly weird security guard, but others might see this as a disguise – which it is – hiding some kind of terrorist – which it isn’t, but they aren’t to know that. Alarm bells might ring. With our time running out, we can do without all that.’

  ‘Yes,’ Judge Wanda agreed. ‘If we’re going to stay on message, we don’t need any distractions!’

  Tark sighed. ‘All right, all right.’ With that, he changed back into his froggie self.

  ‘Aw,’ said Madonna. ‘I liked your Elvis before, but enough is enough. And frogs should be a bit more environmentally friendly than rock stars, don’t you think?’

  ‘What does that make you?’ the President chuckled.

  Madonna didn’t skip a beat. ‘A legend?’

  The chamber wasn’t as large as Tiger had imagined it, though it was certainly large enough. It was an oval of desks opened at one end and rows of chairs behind the main desk. Each desk had a plaque with the name of a country on it, and very important-looking people seated there.

  ‘It’s like a horseshoe,’ Number 12 said excitedly, pointing at the open end.

  ‘Those are the ambassadors,’ Wanda, who’d obviously done her research, said, pointing at the people.

  ‘I… thought there would be more countries,’ Tiger said. ‘Hundreds?’

  The President gestured around the room. ‘That’s because we’re in the Security Council, Tiger. This is where all the big decisions are made. Follow me!’

  He led the way along the first row until they reached the section reserved for the United States. Seeing the President, several people rose from their seats at the main desk, making space for the President and Madonna. Others looked uncertainly at Tark and the others, especially at Number 12, who was certainly too large to be seated, not that a camel would be caught dead trying to sit on a human’s seat, even a padded one.

  ‘No need to get up,’ Tark said to the others, hopping up onto the desk in front of the President. ‘We’ll make ourselves at home here.’

  Following his lead, Syd fluttered up, briefly landing on the President’s head, but then, after a sharp look from Tark, slipping down onto the desk between the President and Madonna, where he was joined by Wanda, who nudged him backward with a flick of her tail.

  The raccoons were content to perch on the next two tiers of
desks behind the row of ambassadors and close their eyes for a bit of a nap, and Number 12 was happy enough to stand behind everyone since he was so tall that he stood high enough to see everything that was about to happen.

  While Tiger was certainly large enough to have his own desk with the raccoons, he didn’t want to miss anything, so he hopped up onto the arm of the President’s chair and balanced on that with one leg, and on the closest arm of Madonna’s chair with the other.

  A hush fell over the auditorium as the ambassadors and their assistants waited for the President to begin his speech. A few of them pointed in wonder at members of the Crew, especially Tark, who had inflated himself several sizes larger than your average bullfrog, doubtlessly so he could be seen by everyone.

  From the other side of the horseshoe, a woman leaned down to her microphone and was about to speak. Tiger’s eyes bugged out as he saw the country name on her plaque.

  ‘She’s from Australia!’ Tiger said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Wanda, not at all surprised. ‘That’s because Australia is now a temporary member of the Security Council, and this month we’re acting as Chair of the Council.’

  Tiger was confused. ‘Everyone’s already got a chair,’ he said, ignoring those just behind the desks. ‘What makes Australia so special?’

  ‘Silly feline!’ Wanda exclaimed. ‘By Chair I mean the person who keeps the meetings running smoothly. Watch and learn.’

  Sure enough, the Australian ambassador switched on the microphone. ‘Good morning fellow members of the Council and country delegates. May I especially welcome the President of the United States, Mr Obama, who urged us to hold this emergency session to consider action that he will now speak to. Mr President, the floor is yours.’

  ‘The floor?’ Tiger muttered to Wanda. ‘What’s he going to do with the floor?’

  Wanda rolled back her eyes. ‘It’s just a human expression, Tiger. It means it’s his turn to stand up on the floor to speak.’

  ‘I… knew that,’ Tiger said, wondering why the ambassador hadn’t just got to the point. ‘But no one is standing up.’

  Tiger had a point. The President remained seated as he spoke. ‘Madam Chair,’ he began. ‘Ambassadors. Fellow delegates. Let me begin by acknowledging some special observers today. We have a contingent from the Raccoon Council of New York City, as well as key members of an important organisation known as Project Earth-mend who have come all this way, Madam Chair, from Australia. They are distinguished Members of Canberra’s Sacred Pool: Tiger the Cat; Wanda the Blue-tongue Lizard; Number 12 the Camel; and Syd the Crow. Most importantly, I would like to introduce Tark, who is not actually a frog, but rather a visitor from Outer Space representing Inter-Galactic Command, specifically from Griffon, a planet from a galaxy beyond our Milky Way.’

  At that, there were several gasps from the delegations, and red lights began flashing from their desks.

  ‘They want to ask questions,’ the President said, under his breath. ‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’

  The Chair held up her hand. ‘I can see there are a number of queries already, but the President has asked that all of these be held until he has completed his presentation and tabled the motion we are to vote on.’

  ‘Madam Chair, with all due respect, I must insist—’ one of the ambassadors burst in.

  ‘I acknowledge the Ambassador from the Russian Federation,’ the Chair said. ‘But please keep your query brief.’

  ‘Thank you, Madam Chair,’ said the ambassador. ‘But this is surely some American trick. Is he really suggesting this… bloated frog is from another planet? Perhaps he has been lured from their Everglades Swamp and trained to whistle “Yankee Doodle”?’

  Tiger’s head went into a spin. Everglades would be a swamp, maybe at Disneyland, but a Yankee Doodle? How could a frog whistle a drawing?

  ‘Our Russian friend surely speaks in jest,’ said the President. ‘Hasn’t he heard of doodling, as in drawing?’

  The Russian ambassador looked at the Chinese ambassador, who looked back at him. Neither of them were smiling.

  ‘I’m certainly not laughing,’ Madonna piped in. ‘This is serious stuff. End of the world stuff – if we don’t shake our collective butts and do something about it!’

  Most of the ambassadors and their key delegates were men, and, as Madonna leaned over her desk to make her point, they seemed to rise up from their seats and take special notice. The Russian ambassador smiled at the Chinese ambassador, who smiled back at the Russian ambassador.

  Tark, who had been very patient up until then, produced a holograph that hovered just below the ceiling. Even Tiger could recognize the Milky Way, but with a quick sweep of his magic toe, Tark zoomed in on Planet Earth, then back out to a full view of a nearby galaxy, then across it to zoom in again, this time to a bluish green planet that Tiger remembered as Griffon.

  ‘Your home,’ Tark said. ‘And my home. Your home orbits around one sun, and a puny one at that. My home rotates its way around three suns. You have four seasons at best, we have many.’

  ‘If your world is so wonderful,’ said the Chinese ambassador, ‘why have you come here dressed as a frog?’

  ‘I am not dressed as a frog,’ Tark said. ‘I have chosen to be a frog for the purpose of this mission.’

  ‘The point of which is?’ asked the ambassador from the United Kingdom, in very polished English – of course.

  Tiger could see that Tark’s toe was throbbing. That was a worry, a big worry.

  ‘The point is for you to see that all forms of life on Earth – and not just humans – are at risk of extinction from The Great Danger. And that your fellow creatures deserve a voice in what will soon become of Earth if nothing is done.’

  ‘I, for one,’ said the French ambassador, ‘applaud our visitor for his choice of life-form. The frog is a noble species, highly regarded in France.’

  ‘Not just for his legs?’ demanded Judge Wanda.

  ‘I do not partake in the cuisses de grenouille,’ said the French ambassador. ‘But even those of my countrymen who do, regard the preparation of the dish as an art form.’

  ‘Ugh,’ groaned Madonna. ‘How could they? If more people were vegans, there’d be a lot less methane in the atmosphere!’

  Tiger took a deep breath. He remembered what being a vegan meant from the week Alexander had tried giving up meat for things like soya burgers. He wrinkled his nose at the thought, and even more at the smell, which had come through even when the burger was smothered with barbecue sauce. If that wasn’t bad enough, Alexander had tried it out on Tiger one day when he ran short of Cat Gourmet. Tiger had nearly left home then and there.

  ‘Umm,’ said Number 12, farting softly in the back row. ‘I don’t know about that!’

  Yes, thought Tiger. A herbivore to the rescue!

  ‘Order!’ cried the Chair. ‘The President still has the floor.’

  ‘Thank you, Madam Chair,’ said the President. ‘The Great Danger is upon us. We have ignored Climate Change for too long. My country is one of the worst offenders – I acknowledge that. We have put the pursuit of wealth above the health of our Planet. We have plundered its resources and polluted the air and water. Now, others have taken notice.’

  ‘Others?’ said the Russian ambassador. ‘What others? These shape-shifting Griffs?’

  The President nodded. ‘Yes, they have. But they have come as friends. To help us lift our game – before it is too late. The problem is, other beings have come as well. Not as friends, but as enemies sworn to destroy not just those of us responsible for polluting the Earth, but all life forms. This is why we have Project Earth-mend. This is why I and my government have joined hands – or paws, as the case may be – with whatever animals will work with us to head off this crisis.’

  ‘I agree with you,’ said the ambassador from the United Kingdom. ‘But why bring it to the Security Council at this moment in time? Who are these enemies you speak of, as if they are already in our midst?’

&nbs
p; The President cleared his throat. ‘Lieutenant Commander Tark – the floor is now yours!’

  With one sweep of Tark’s toe, the Milky Way holograph was replaced by a mantle that darkened the chamber’s ceiling. But then, first as pinpricks of light, there was an approaching dull roar of engines until the first of the Abell 2218 starships came into view.

  ‘Your enemy is very real,’ said Tark. ‘And they are approaching!’

  ‘But that is an illusion,’ said the Russian ambassador. ‘Some NASA trick of smoke and mirrors!’

  ‘True,’ said Tark. ‘It’s only pretend – a simulation. But the real starships are on their way. They may even be lurking here now as dark matter, just waiting for their commander to give the signal to incinerate the Earth.’

  ‘Yes, we’ve seen them!’ Rocky and Arnie cried out from the back of the chamber. ‘Mick tried to bribe us, but we saw through it.’

  ‘The rats were not so smart,’ Clint added.

  ‘Mick?’ said the Chinese ambassador. ‘Who is this Mick? And who cares if he has those filthy rats on his side? We’ll poison him as we do our other vermin!’

  ‘Naw,’ said Clint, hopping onto the desk next to Madonna. ‘He’s got big guns. And you can’t poison a robot!’

  With another gesture of his toe, Tark brought a see-through Mick humanoid into view. ‘Now, that’s an illusion,’ he said, ‘and this is the reality.’ Just as quickly, Tark stripped away Mick’s “skin” to reveal the robot underneath.

  ‘Horrible, horrible,’ the French ambassador said. ‘How do we stop these… beastly creatures?’

  ‘Send in the MARINES!’ shouted Syd.

  ‘Who let that crow in?’ the United Kingdom ambassador said, pinching his nose.

  ‘Not me,’ said Wanda. ‘Never seen him before.’

  ‘You say that now,’ Syd replied. ‘But wait until you need a spotter for Abell starships – you might change your tune!’

  ‘I understood you have a motion to put before the Council,’ said the Chair to the President.

  ‘I do, Madam Chair,’ said the President.

  ‘Then may we hear it?’

  The President cleared his throat again. ‘The United States of America, in its capacity as a Permanent Member of this Council, asks the Council to agree unanimously to the following resolution: Whereas a situation of catastrophic proportions exists due to the threat of an imminent attack by Abell 2218 starships, this Council declares a global emergency and directs all member governments of the United Nations to, at once, mobilize and ready for joint action for their military forces to counter and repel this threat by whatever means this Council deems necessary.’