by Matt Haig
Evie was scared. Not of the boy, but for him. He had no idea about how dangerous it was to be open about such things. ‘Who knows you have the Talent?’ Evie asked.
The boy seemed confused, so Evie put it another way. ‘Who knows that you can talk to animals?’
‘No one. My mummy, but she thinks I’m being silly.’
‘Good. Good. Don’t tell anyone else, okay?’ Evie waved at the mother behind the glass. She wanted to ask the boy a million questions. But she felt it best to get away from him. ‘Right, I’d better go.’
‘I want to talk to animals. Big animals. I want to talk to horses. Have you ever talked to a horse?’
Evie was already walking away. ‘Bye.’
‘Evie, my name’s Sam.’
‘Bye . . . Sam.’
‘Bye, Evie.’
And Evie kept walking home, with a strange worry in her belly, as if the danger Granny Flora had warned her about had suddenly come a little closer.
The Jaguar
ater that week, Evie and her dad were taking bags of glass and cardboard along to be recycled.
‘How are you getting on at school?’ asked her dad, as they reached the bottle bank. ‘Any new friends? Any nice people?’
‘Well, there’s a boy called Ramesh who seems okay. His mum works at the zoo.’
She watched her father grow pale. It was as if she had said a swear word. The worst swear word.
‘He helps out sometimes, too.’ Evie dropped an empty bottle in the bank and waited for it to smash. Then she dared to ask her dad the question. ‘He’s asked me to come over and see all the . . .’ She paused, knowing her dad wouldn’t like this idea. ‘All the animals. And so I just wondered if I could go along . . . this Saturday.’
Her dad looked shocked, and frowned as he pulled an empty cereal box from the bag.
‘I thought you didn’t like the idea of zoos,’ he said eventually. ‘I thought you didn’t think animals should be in captivity, that all animals should exist as freely as nature intended.’
This was true, strictly speaking. But she had to practise the Talent with as many species as possible – Granny Flora had said so – and this seemed like a good opportunity.
‘Dad, please.’
Her dad stared at the empty bottle of olive oil in his hand, like an actor holding a skull. And then he looked at his daughter.
‘What about Leonora?’
‘She doesn’t speak to me any more. She hangs around with mean people. Ramesh is my only friend at the moment. Well, I don’t even know if he’s a proper friend. But he’s good to talk to. He’s the only one at school who likes talking about weird animal facts.’
And her dad just sighed and looked at her for a very long time, as if there was an important decision-making meeting going on in his head. ‘Okay,’ he said, after that long time. ‘You can go to the zoo. But be very careful, do you understand?’
And Evie nodded and said that yes, she did understand, and felt excitement inside her. She had never been to a zoo before. And now she would finally hear the thoughts of animals she’d never heard before, at least not since she could remember. And, according to the zoo website, there were all kinds of exciting creatures there. Gazelles, hippopotamuses, elephants, orangutans, sea lions, actual lions, Sumatran tigers, lowland gorillas, meerkats and a Galapagos tortoise.
Her father emptied the last of the cardboard into the recycling bin. ‘Just promise me you won’t do anything out of the ordinary.’
‘I promise.’
‘And can I just ask you something, Evie?’
‘Sure. Anything.’
‘You haven’t had that dream again, have you?’
‘What dream?’
‘The one about the snake and the frog?’
‘Um, no,’ said Evie.
This was a lie. And her dad looked at her doubtfully.
‘Be careful, Evie. That’s all I ask.’
That night, Evie had a different dream about the jungle.
In the dream, she was a little girl and her mum was there.
Her mum took her on a walk, telling her about all the beautiful creatures they saw – glass frogs, toucans, scarlet macaws, and so on. She warned her about dangerous ones. Rattlesnakes. Red-bellied piranhas. Electric eels. Poison dart frogs. And she even told Evie about a Brazilian wandering spider.
Evie desperately tried to warn her. ‘Mum, I have to tell you something about that spider. It will ki—’
‘Sssh!’
Her mum had seen something.
Just as they were reaching the clearing where their hut was, it was there in front of them. A big cat – a beautiful and deadly jaguar, with golden fur and speckled black markings – prowling towards them.
‘Get inside the hut, Evie.’
‘Mummy?’
‘Get. Inside. The. Hut.’ Evie didn’t. She just stood there, frozen with terror.
Her mum walked towards the jaguar and stroked it. Evie’s mum closed her eyes and the jaguar walked away as if it had suddenly changed its mind about eating them.
Then there was a jump in time, inside the dream.
She saw her mother talking to a man. A tall man in smart clothes with a bushy black moustache.
Mortimer J Mortimer.
Mortimer was standing with a lot of other men behind him. Loggers. They were standing in front of a white lorry with a chopped-down tree strapped to the back of it.
Evie noticed the man’s right hand. She could see it more clearly than in the photograph. On the back of the hand and forearm there was a black tattoo of a coiled snake with its jaws open and its tongue out.
Her mum was upset. ‘You are not going to destroy this part of the forest. There are endangered animals here. And tribespeople. The Huaorani people. This is their home. No way.’
And she said some words that Evie hadn’t understood, but which sounded rude.
Then her dad appeared and told her mum to calm down and that was that. That was where the dream ended.
When she woke up she wanted to know if it had been a memory or not. So she went online and typed two words into a search box.
Huaorani people
There were 134,700 results.
Evie scanned her brain but she was sure she had never read about the Huaorani people, which could mean only one thing.
That wasn’t just a dream. It was a memory.
Orwell the Elephant
vie was excited.
It was the first thing they were going to do, this Saturday morning at Lofting Zoo. Feed the elephants.
Ramesh handed Evie a bucket full of bananas from a room called the Feeding Centre and then they walked a short distance, past two air-headed giraffes (‘Hello, down there’), to the largest space in the whole zoo – the elephant enclosure.
Ramesh’s mother was already there, handing bananas to one of the larger female elephants. Mrs Sengupta was a kindly twig-like woman with wild hair that refused to stay in her pony-tail, wearing, like Ramesh was, the yellow sweater that was the Lofting Zoo uniform.
‘Hello there!’ she said with a kindly smile. ‘You must be Evie. Come and say hello to Leonie!’
Leonie, the elephant Mrs Sengupta was feeding, took the green banana, wrapping it around the end of her curling trunk and bringing it to her mouth. ‘Exquisite,’ said Leonie. ‘What a wonderfully yummy piece of fruit. I am blessed.’
Evie waved. ‘Hello Mrs Sengupta! Hello Leonie!’
After a little while with Leonie, Mrs Sengupta suggested they go and feed an elephant in the corner of the enclosure, near a tree. This was Orwell, a male elephant. The tree he was next to had a pale trunk because the male elephants had stripped its bark with their tusks and then eaten it.
‘All elephants like to eat,’ said Ramesh. ‘But Indian elephants really like to eat. I mean, that’s all they do.’ He held a banana in his hand for Orwell to take. ‘Eat, eat, eat, poo, eat, eat, drink, eat, eat, sleep, eat. But mainly eat.’
Orwell was, apparently, Ram
esh’s favourite animal in the whole zoo. Evie felt a slight sense of calm sadness as Orwell’s thoughts trod into her head.
‘This makes things better,’ said the elephant, swallowing the fruit whole. ‘Bananas make everything better. They nearly make the sadness go away.’
‘Why are you sad?’ asked Evie, handing Orwell a new banana, and trying to look as natural as possible so Ramesh didn’t suspect anything, even as she had a mind-to-mind telepathic conversation.
‘You . . . understand me?’
‘Yes. I understand all animals. Well, most. Well, some. It’s called the Talent. A few humans have it. I am trying to get better at it. It’s quite important that I get better at it. That’s what Granny Flora says. I am trying to feel the dawa . . . the thing that connects every living thing. Do you know the dawa?’
‘Of course,’ said Orwell. ‘Every animal understands the dawa. It’s what connects everything.’
Evie smiled. ‘Anyway. I shouldn’t have asked that question.’
‘About the dawa?’
‘No. About being sad.’
Orwell had eaten three more bananas by the time Evie had finished speaking.
‘It’s all right,’ said the elephant. ‘I’m sad because I’ve been thinking about when my mother died. Back when we lived in the Old Land. The hot place. Men with guns shot my mother. And I saw it with my own eyes. And it was terrible. I had nightmares. Did you know elephants have nightmares? I woke up wailing every morning. At the orphanage in the Old Land. And even when I first came here. I never got over it. But you know that pain, too, don’t you?’
Ramesh tipped his bananas into Evie’s near-empty bucket then went back to get some more. Evie was still shocked, staring in silence at Orwell’s sad right eye. The only one she could see.
‘My mother died too, yes,’ Evie said with her mind. She even whispered it. ‘How did you know?’
‘Elephants always know. We understand the pain of others. Like yours. And the boy’s. It’s a terrible curse.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Evie. ‘About what happened to your mother. Humans can be a terrible species. They sometimes don’t care for other animals. They sometimes struggle to care for other humans.’
Orwell sighed in agreement, taking a brief pause between bananas. ‘You seem like one of the good ones.’
Then Evie thought of something. ‘You mentioned the boy. He had pain. Did you mean Ramesh? Is he in pain?’
The elephant took Evie’s last banana. Ramesh, in the distance, headed towards them. ‘Yes. Since his dad died. He normally cries with me. When no one else can see. I knew his dad. He was a good person, too. But then he got very ill and he couldn’t see me any more. He died. But not like my mother. It was a long dying. And Ramesh was in a lot of pain. He still is. But he seems happy, now. That you are here. He needs a friend.’
And Ramesh was right there now, with a bucket overflowing with unripe green-yellow bananas. ‘Here we go,’ he said breezily.
Evie noticed a little boy waving at her, in the distance, from behind the fence. It was Sam, the boy with curly hair. The boy who was probably no more than six years old. Who she’d seen watering his front garden a few days before. The one who wanted her to teach him how to talk to animals.
Evie waved back.
‘Who’s that?’ Ramesh asked.
‘No one. I don’t know. Just a friendly kid.’
And Evie tried to hide her relief as Sam was dragged away to see some other animals.
The Reptile House
vie listened to as many animals as possible as they walked around the zoo.
She heard a sea lion moaning about visitors. ‘For pity’s sake, they think I’m a seal. I am NOT a seal. It’s so insulting.’
‘I know you’re not a seal,’ said Evie. ‘I can see you have your ears on the outside and that you are walking on your flippers, not bouncing on your belly.’
The sea lion understood and waved at her. ‘Thank you. It’s nice to be understood. Be your own self, that’s what my mum said. Never be a seal.’
‘That’s good advice,’ Evie thought-spoke. ‘Well, the first bit.’
In the aquarium she met a happy male seahorse who was pregnant, swimming along with his partner, their tails hooked around each other.
‘Oh Lana,’ he said. ‘I’m just so happy.’
‘Yes, Bob, me too. And you are positively BLOOMING.’
They then went to see the Sumatran tigers.
One of the tigers stared right at Evie, as he paced his side of the perimeter fence. ‘And what are YOU looking at?’ he asked her.
‘Nothing,’ thought Evie, backing away. ‘Just admiring your beauty.’
‘Well, thanks. That’s kind of you. Are you related to a woman called Flora, by any chance?’ the tiger asked. ‘She had the Talent, too.’
‘Yes!’ said Evie. ‘She’s my granny.’
‘Well I never! Please tell her my grandfather says hi.’
‘I certainly will,’ smiled Evie, as Ramesh pointed for them to turn left. Left towards the fruit bats.
They walked into a darkened cave. Evie thought the fruit bats looked cute, with their furry fox-like faces. Bat thoughts crowded her and flapped in her mind.
‘Hey!’
‘Over here!’
‘I come close but I never touch!’
‘Whoo!’
‘Zoooooom!’
‘This isn’t flying! This is AIR BALLET!’
‘I love watermelon!’
Evie chuckled and Ramesh looked at her quizzically. ‘What?’ he said.
‘Nothing,’ she replied. ‘I just love animals.’
He smiled at her. ‘I can tell.’
Ramesh ushered Evie to the reptile house. The reptile house was what Evie was most excited about. It was also the place, she was sure, where she would be able to strengthen her Talent.
The reptile house was a large, low building in the centre of the zoo.
The first creature she saw wasn’t technically a reptile. It was an amphibian with a flat body, a wide flat head, tiny blue eyes and a large mouth. It walked slowly around underwater ignoring Evie and Ramesh completely.
‘Ah, cool,’ said Evie. ‘An axolotl. I love them.’
‘You know about axolotls?’
Evie felt insulted he would even ask such a thing. ‘I know they used to be considered monsters . . . which is totally unfair. Because they don’t go around being very scary. In fact, they’re the ones who get picked on all the time. Fish come up to them and bite bits off them. Their little fingers. But they grow back. They don’t let the bullies get them down.’
Ramesh nodded, impressed. ‘Wow. You really know your monsters. Did you also know that they are nearly extinct in the wild? Because of pollution. And that’s why this zoo is one of the better ones . . . I know you’re, like, totally against animals being kept captive.’
‘Uh huh,’ said Evie. ‘It seems a bit unfair. It’s like a prison but the only crime they’ve committed is not be a human.’
‘Yeah, I get the principle, Evie. It’s just that humans have messed up the world so much some animals can’t even exist in the wild. But this zoo has more protected species than most. It takes animals that are in danger in the wild. To keep them alive and to . . .’
Ramesh kept talking but Evie stopped listening. She was trying to focus and send her thoughts into the mind of the axolotl. She closed her eyes. She imagined a thought being an arrow, as Granny Flora had told her, and she tried to fire it into the reptile’s head.
‘Hello,’ said the thought. ‘Can you hear me? I am here. The tall human outside your tank.’
There was no response.
Evie tried again, and again, to communicate with the amphibian, but it was the same. There was nothing at all.
‘Are you okay?’ Ramesh asked.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’re just standing there, like you’re in a trance . . . I’ve been talking to you for three minutes and you haven’t heard
a thing I’ve been—’
‘Sorry. I just sometimes get these weird headachy things. It’s fine now.’
They moved along. They saw an African bullfrog, a Caiman lizard, and then snakes – a king cobra, a puff adder, and the scariest-looking one of all. A giant, strong and sinister snake swimming around in a tank of water.
The green anaconda.
Evie read the sign next to the tank:
The anaconda is a semi-aquatic snake found in areas of tropical South America. The name refers to various snakes in the genus Eunectes, but it is commonly used to refer to one species – the green anaconda. Considering both length and weight, the green anaconda is the largest snake in the world, growing up to 9m long and weighing as much as 250kg.
‘I suppose you know all about anacondas too,’ Ramesh muttered.
‘A little,’ Evie said, with a shrug.
‘So how venomous are they?’ Ramesh asked, with a smirk.
‘Trick question. They’re not venomous. They’re constrictors. They wrap their bodies around their prey and squeeze until . . .’
Ramesh threw his arms around Evie and squeezed really hard. He clearly thought this was hilarious.
‘Not funny,’ said Evie, elbowing Ramesh in the stomach. Ramesh bent double and coughed from the blow.
Evie laughed hard. ‘Oops! Sorry.’
But she stopped laughing because she felt a sudden coldness inside her brain. The anaconda was staring straight at her.
‘Trouble comes.’
‘What?’ Evie asked, aloud. Then, with her mind, ‘What trouble? I don’t understand. What sort of trouble?’
‘Every kind.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘In your future. You are in mortal danger. And so is someone you love. It is coming, it is coming, it is coming . . .’
And then the snake’s giant head disappeared below the water again. And the coldness in Evie’s brain was now accompanied by a tightness in her body. As if she wasn’t just reading the anaconda’s thoughts but getting crushed by them.
‘Are you okay?’ Ramesh asked, suddenly worried. ‘You look terrified.’