by Justin D'Ath
‘Effectively, it belongs to DoRFE now,’ she went on, ‘and until our laboratory gives it a clean bill of health, this monkey stays right here in this cage, and this cage does not move from where it is right now. Does everyone understand that?’
‘It’s an ape, not a monkey,’ Colt repeated, and his mother nudged him to keep quiet.
When nobody else spoke, Officer Katt continued. ‘Because if I come back tomorrow or the next day and find this monkey gone, I’ll move heaven and earth to close this circus down.’
‘Can she do that?’ Colt asked his mother as they walked back through the dark to their caravan. ‘Can she close the circus?’
‘I think so,’ Kristin said. Raindrops tapped on her umbrella. ‘DoRFE has a lot of power. And that horrible woman seems to think she has a score to settle after what happened with Lucy. No doubt that’s why she came snooping around tonight.’
Colt glimpsed a small shadow darting along the ground between two caravans. If the rat cops just did their job, he thought, and chased rats instead of bothering about other animals, they might actually make a difference. ‘What will happen if Caruso really does have rat flu?’
‘He doesn’t. His vaccinations are all up to date.’ Kristin put an arm around her son. ‘There’s absolutely nothing to worry about, darling,’ she said.
But Colt couldn’t help being worried. Officer Katt was bad news.
The top half of a big yellow sun cast long shadows across Circus City as Colt, clutching a couple of overripe bananas, picked his way carefully between puddles in his mother’s purple clogs.
‘Nice shoes!’
He looked up and saw Birdy coming the other way. A blue towel was wrapped, turban-style, around her head and she was twirling a shower-pack.
‘They’re Mum’s,’ Colt said.
‘They match your eye shadow.’
Colt poked his tongue out. His purple bruise from the night-before-last had spread down to his eyes. He looked a bit like one of the circus’s Lost World raccoons.
‘Did you hear about last night?’ he asked.
Birdy’s smile disappeared. ‘Where were you? I looked for you after my act but nobody was at your caravan.’
Colt told her how Officer Katt had put Caruso under quarantine. He told her how he and his mother – and probably Birdy too – were on her Persons of Interest list.
Birdy gave an exaggerated shiver. ‘That lady creeps me out! Will Caruso be okay?’
‘I’m going to check on him now,’ Colt said. ‘Mum gave me these old bananas to give him.’
‘I’ll come with you.’ Birdy fell into step beside him. ‘Hey, is it really true that your mum worked at that place where they invented rat flu?’
‘They didn’t invent rat flu,’ Colt said carefully. ‘It kind of invented itself.’
‘Yeah, but maybe those scientists shouldn’t have been experimenting with their new drug on a sick rat.’
‘They didn’t know it was sick.’
Birdy kicked a stone along the ground ahead of them. ‘I’d hate to be them. Imagine if kazillions of animals died because of something you did.’
Colt shook his head. It was bad enough that his mother had worked in the same laboratory. ‘You didn’t say anything to your parents, did you?’ he asked.
‘Course not. Captain Noah said not to.’ Birdy was silent for a few paces. Then she shot Colt a sideways glance. ‘Why is it such a big secret?’
‘Because they would have all lost their jobs.’
‘Not your mum, though,’ Birdy said. ‘She wasn’t one of the ones who did it. Anyway, it all happened years ago.’
They had reached The Menagerie. Colt held the door flap open for Birdy.
‘I think something else happened at the laboratory,’ he said, following her in. ‘Something that Mum doesn’t want people to know about.’
‘Like what?’ Birdy asked.
Colt had no idea. He had only been a toddler at the time. But he thought it might have been connected to him somehow. He rubbed the tiny scar on his right thumb where a ghost rat had bitten him all those years ago. It itched sometimes.
‘Mum won’t talk about it,’ he said.
‘I wonder if . . .’ Birdy began, but Colt’s cry interrupted her mid-sentence.
‘Shashlik!’
The large primates’ trailer was just ahead of them. Its middle door was wide open.
Caruso was gone.
‘He’s been kidnapped!’ gasped Birdy.
At first glance, it did look like that.
The door was open and the cage was empty. But the big orange padlock with the DoRFE logo was still locked in place. It was the only thing keeping the cage door from falling to the ground.
Someone had disconnected the hinges and opened the door from the wrong end! Colt pushed it back flush with the cage and tried to work out how the hinges fit back together. It was pretty simple. Two pins on the door slid smoothly down into corresponding holes in the frame, and – Hey presto! – the cage was closed and locked.
‘Clever gibbon,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Birdy.
‘He’s worked out how to escape.’ Colt told her what had happened two nights ago – how he’d discovered Caruso’s door open and the cage empty, just like it was right now.
‘Mr Busby was really mad at me when we came back and Caruso was here,’ he added.
‘He’ll be even madder when he finds Caruso isn’t here,’ said Birdy.
But Mr Busby was the least of their problems, Colt thought. If Officer Katt discovered Caruso was missing, they would all be in real trouble. The circus might be shut down!
‘We’ve got to find him,’ he said.
‘Mr Busby?’
Colt shook his head. ‘Caruso. And I think I know where he is.’
Both of them were out of breath by the time they reached the tree on the other side of the paddock. Colt peered up at the maze of leafy branches that had been too high for Lucy to reach. A gibbon could hide there all day without being seen.
‘Look what I’ve brought for you, Caruso!’ he called, holding up one of the bananas.
Birdy craned her neck. ‘What makes you think he’s up there?’
‘Just a feeling.’ Colt strained his eyes for a glimpse of black fur. ‘Hey, Caruso, do you want a banana?’
There was no movement in the tree.
‘Will I climb up and see if he’s there?’ Birdy asked.
‘Yeah, that’d be good,’ said Colt. Birdy was a Flying Flynn – she could climb trees like this in her sleep. ‘But be careful, okay?’
Birdy removed the towel from her head and dumped it on the ground next to her ballet flats and shower-pack. Then she went flying up the tree like a human spider. Within seconds, she had disappeared from view. Colt heard twigs snapping and leaves rustling. Then there was only silence.
‘What’s going on, Birdy?’
‘He’s here,’ she said in a loud whisper. ‘What should I do now?’
‘I’m coming up,’ said Colt, kicking off the embarrassing clogs. He wasn’t a Flying Flynn, but the tree didn’t prove too difficult to climb. Colt worked his way through the branches until he reached Birdy. She pointed up. Caruso was three metres above them, wobbling back and forth in a skinny fork at the very top of the tree.
Colt drew a banana from his pocket and waved it. ‘Hey, Caruso! Look what I’ve got for you!’
The gibbon took no notice. He sat staring out across the white sea of insect nets below them towards a line of misty green forest in the distance. Drops of rainwater or dew sparkled in his glossy black fur.
‘Caruso!’ Colt called softly.
This time, the gibbon did look down.
Colt waggled the banana. ‘I’ve brought you some breakfast.’
Caruso stared at the banana for a few seconds, then shifted his gaze to Colt. His brown eyes were slightly bloodshot and there was a pleading look in them. As if he wanted something more than an overripe banana.
‘You’ve got to come home, mate,’ Colt said softly.
The ape returned its gaze to the distant forest. ‘Home,’ it grunted.
Colt nearly fell out of the tree.
‘Did you hear that, Birdy?’ he whispered.
‘Hear what?’
‘He said home!’
Birdy rolled her eyes. ‘He made a grunty sound.’
‘It sounded like “home”,’ Colt said, feeling less sure of himself now.
‘It sounded like “grunt”,’ said Birdy. She patted his arm. ‘Get real, Colt. Animals can’t talk.’
She was right, of course. Colt felt silly. He gave the banana another waggle.
‘Grunt, grunt!’ he said, then wished he hadn’t. ‘Come on, Caruso. Please!’
Caruso took one last look at the distant forest, then came swinging down the tree. He stopped about a metre above Colt’s head, stretched down and took the banana. Then he expertly peeled and ate it.
Colt showed him the other one. ‘You can have this when you get back home. I mean, back to your cage,’ he quickly corrected himself – just in case Caruso really could understand him. He stuffed the second banana into the side pocket of his jeans, making sure the gibbon was watching.
‘Climb down, Birdy,’ Colt whispered. ‘I’ll follow.’
They climbed down as fast as they could. Birdy reached the ground long before Colt. Caruso came down last, his eyes fixed on the little point of banana poking out of Colt’s jeans.
When Colt turned to step into the clogs, he felt a tap on the back of his leg. Caruso had crept up behind him. Looking up at Colt with a pleading expression, he pointed at the banana. He could easily have taken it, but he politely held out his hand instead. Colt pulled the banana from his pocket and gave it to him.
‘Why did you do that?’ Birdy asked, shaking dirt and leaves off her towel. ‘Now he won’t come.’
‘I think he will,’ said Colt. He crossed his fingers. ‘Every other time he’s left his cage, he’s come back all on his own.’
They waited for Caruso to finish the banana, then set off back to the circus. Birdy glanced over her shoulder.
‘He’s following!’ she whispered.
Colt let out a sigh of relief. ‘Told you.’
‘Uh oh!’ said Birdy.
Captain Noah and Mr Busby stood outside Caruso’s cage, peering in through the iron mesh. They looked around as Birdy and Colt approached.
‘Do you know anything about this?’ Mr Busby demanded, his eyes fixed on Colt.
‘Shh!’ said Colt. He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Don’t scare him.’
Captain Noah’s eyebrows shot up when Caruso came ambling around the corner a few metres behind Colt and Birdy. Mr Busby’s face turned red.
‘DO YOU KIDS REALISE WHAT YOU’VE DONE?’ he roared. ‘THAT ANIMAL’S SUPPOSED TO BE IN QUARANTINE!’
‘Don’t get your knickers in a knot, Mr Busby,’ Birdy said pleasantly. ‘We’ve brought him back.’
‘HOW IN BLAZES DID YOU GET IT OUT OF ITS CAGE IN THE FIRST PLACE?’
‘He got out himself,’ said Colt. ‘And stop shouting.’
‘I WILL NOT STOP SHOUTING!’ shouted Mr Busby.
Captain Noah placed a calming hand on the other man’s shoulder. ‘Calm down, Allan.’
That shut him up. But his face turned redder still.
‘How did Caruso get out?’ Captain Noah asked.
Colt gave him a mysterious smile. ‘Stand back and you’ll see.’
They all stood back and watched as Caruso shuffled over to the trailer and casually swung himself up onto the cage front. He paused for a moment, clinging to the iron mesh, his small, doll-like face turned towards the four humans.
‘In you go!’ Colt encouraged him.
Caruso made a soft hooting noise, lifted the door open, slipped inside and expertly reconnected the hinges.
‘Cunning little scoundrel!’ laughed Captain Noah.
‘He’s been doing it for a few days,’ Colt said. ‘Mostly at night when nobody’s around. I think he’s homesick.’
Captain Noah looked puzzled. ‘Homesick?’
‘For trees,’ Colt explained. ‘Gibbons come from jungles, don’t they?’
‘Yes. But he’s never seen one. He was born at my zoo.’
‘What happened to his parents?’ asked Birdy.
The circus boss sighed. ‘His mother died when he was born. And his father drowned, as far as we know.’
‘How did he drown?’ asked Colt.
‘I used to have two other gibbons,’ Captain Noah said. ‘Caruso’s father Rex and a young female called Melba. When we left the island, they escaped from one of the boats bringing the animals across to the mainland.’
‘Are gibbons good swimmers?’ Birdy asked.
Captain Noah shrugged. ‘The boat was fifty kilometres from land.’
There was nothing else to say after that. The four of them stood silently staring into the gibbon’s cage. Even Mr Busby seemed sad. Like Lucy the elephant, Caruso was the last of his kind.
All because of humans.
It was three more days before Caruso’s results finally came back from the DoRFE laboratory, 1000 kilometres away in the state capital. If he’d really had rat flu, he would have been dead by then. Officer Katt brought the news at lunchtime on Friday.
‘Just a common cold,’ she said, removing the orange padlock from Caruso’s cage door.
Colt was there with Birdy, his mother and Captain Noah. He saw his mother struggling not to say, I told you so. It was best not to annoy rat cops, especially this one.
Officer Katt noticed the two shiny metal hose-clamps Mr Busby had fixed around the hinges to stop Caruso’s nighttime escapes. ‘What happened here?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘It was just a precautionary measure,’ Captain Noah told her. ‘We took your quarantine order seriously, Officer Katt. Is the circus free to leave town now?’
They were two days late for their next performance, in a large mining town to the west.
‘The circus has always been free to leave town,’ the rat cop said. ‘It was only this cage that was under quarantine.’
‘We were hardly going to leave without it,’ said Colt’s mother.
Officer Katt gave her an icy smile. ‘Oh, your little friend would have been quite safe here under DoRFE’s protection.’
‘Protection, my giddy aunt!’ Kristin said once the rat cop had gone. ‘Nothing would please that woman more than to destroy every last animal in this circus!’
Captain Noah was replacing the old padlock on the gibbon’s cage door. ‘I suppose she’s just doing her job,’ he said tiredly. ‘As we must get on with ours.’
‘Will we move today?’ Birdy asked excitedly, balancing on one foot.
‘No, Ms Flynn. It’s too late in the day for that. We’ll stay here and put on one last show tonight, then pack up and leave tomorrow morning.’
Birdy leaned sideways until one hand was flat on the ground and her other foot was pointing straight up at the clear blue sky. ‘Can we have the afternoon off school?’
‘No, Ms Flynn,’ said their fill-in teacher. ‘We’re doing Environment Studies. You wouldn’t want to miss that.’
Birdy did a slow, graceful cartwheel and finished up back on her feet. ‘Actually, Captain Noah . . .’
Kristin interrupted. She must have still been thinking about Officer Katt. ‘That woman’s job is to get rid of rats,’ she muttered. ‘She should leave other animals alone. Haven’t enough died already?’
Way too many! Colt thought. But he couldn’t help feeling sorry for some of the ones that were still alive.
All alone in his big iron cage, Caruso looked like a prisoner in solitary confinement.
Colt knew that Captain Noah didn’t like keeping animals in cages any more than he did. The circus boss’s big dream was to start a breeding program, using the animals in his circus, that one day might repopulate the world with wild creatures. It didn’t seem to be a ve
ry realistic dream, since no animals apart from rats could live in the wild, but Captain Noah was confident that rat flu would be wiped out eventually.
In the meantime, his circus was making money. The money would be used to fund his breeding program when the world was once more safe for animals.
But how long would that take? Colt wondered. Would Caruso even live that long?
And how could one gibbon breed?
After their performance that night, and after he had returned Lucy to her enclosure, Colt sneaked back to Caruso’s trailer with a screwdriver.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Colt’s eyes flew open. Someone was banging so hard on the door that the caravan rocked. He heard his mother slide out of bed and start putting on her dressing gown.
Bang! Bang! Bang! ‘All right, I’m coming!’ she cried.
Her bare feet padded across the lino floor and the door squealed open, letting in the early-morning light.
‘Is your son here?’ asked an angry voice.
‘He’s in bed,’ said Kristin, sounding a bit angry herself. ‘What on earth is this about, Allan?’
‘He let the gibbon out!’
Colt was in so much trouble. His mother was almost as angry as Mr Busby.
‘What were you thinking?’ she growled as Colt got up and struggled into his clothes.
‘Caruso doesn’t need to be kept prisoner anymore,’ he said. ‘He isn’t in quarantine.’
‘So you let him out?’ asked his mother.
‘He always comes back.’
‘He hasn’t come back yet!’ called Mr Busby, who was waiting just outside.
Colt lowered his voice. ‘It’s okay, Mum. I know where he’ll be.’
But he was wrong. When Colt clambered up into the topmost branches of the big tree on the other side of the circus paddock, Caruso wasn’t there.
Bummer! he thought.
He looked out across the sea of insect nets at the blue line of forest in the distance.
‘Goodbye, mate,’ Colt said softly.
‘Have you found him?’ Mr Busby called from below.