Blue Menagerie Pt III

(continued for Tim, because he asked so sweetly)

It was on the way to the grocery store that Sallie was overcome with the oddest sense of déjà vu. Her parents were in the front, and she was in the back, staring out the window, when the feeling just swept over her. She thought she heard a ghost of a whisper-

“Zoo! Zoo!”

Sallie whipped her head to the right, where Zeb’s carseat had once been. The spot was empty, now, but through the far window Sallie saw a strangely familiar banner.

“Auntie Strega’s Traveling Menagerie,” she read. Her skin began to prickle, and she felt short of breath.

“Stop,” she whispered. “Stop. Stop!” Now she was shrieking. Her father slammed on the brakes and Sallie’s body jerked forward, then slammed back against her seat.

“What’s wrong?” He demanded, twisting all the way around in his seat. His face was a mask of concern.

“I-” She didn’t know what to say. Why had she wanted him to stop? “I want-” she tried again. Her father, realizing that no one was bleeding out in the back seat, began to scowl.

“I want to go to the menagerie,” she finished, lamely. She watched her father’s glower deepen, his face flushing a dark red.

“For Christ’s sake, Salome! Don’t you ever-” Sallie winced, bracing herself for the rest of the outburst, but her mother laid a gentle hand on Daddy’s arm.

“Jonathon,” she said. Daddy sucked in a breath and closed his eyes.

“Sallie,” he said through his teeth. “It is very dangerous to yell at the driver to stop the car. We might have been hit by someone. So do not yell at the driver unless it is a matter of life and death, or possibly dismemberment. Or fire. You could yell at me to stop if there was a fire. But not because you want to go to the da- to the menagerie.”

Sallie felt very small and stupid. She knew it was a bad idea to yell at the driver. To yell at her parents, in general, was about as bad an idea as she could come up with. But for some reason, she knew she had to go the menagerie.

“I’m sorry, Daddy,” she whispered. “I don’t know what came over me.”

“It’s alright, sweetie,” Mommy said, reaching back to squeeze her leg. “We all get a little over-excited sometimes. Let’s talk about this more when we get home, alright?”

“Alright.”

***

The conversation was not a comfortable one.

“Sweetie, are you sure you want to go to the menagerie?” Mommy asked, eyes worried.

“Yes,” said Sallie. “Very sure.”

“I just don’t know if it’s a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“Well,” her mother hesitated, and Sallie knew she was having one of those moments where she was trying to decide how much information Sallie could handle. Sallie tried very hard not to roll her eyes, but when the silence drew out for too long she decided she had to say something.

“Mom, I know what you’re afraid of.”

“You do?”

“Yes. The last time we went to the menagerie was with- was with Zeb. And you think it might be too sad to go back.” Mommy blinked at this.

“Well, yes, that thought had occurred to me.”

“But I really feel like- I just need to go, Mommy. It might make me sad, but I need to go, anyway. And it’s okay if you can’t take me, if it would make you too sad. I’m ten years old- I can go by myself.”

“Oh no you can’t,” Mommy’s voice was unusually sharp. “If you think for one second I’m letting you roam around that place by yourself-”

“Okay, okay. It was just a suggestion. But Mommy- please.” Her mother sighed.

“Sallie… I want you to know- we did check the menagerie.” Now it was Sallie’s turn to blink.

“What do you-” she began, but Mommy cut her off with a hand-wave.

“I mean don’t get your hopes up, thinking he might be there. We looked all over that place when he first disappeared. The owner was very cooperative, opened up all the cages and pens, all the wagons and enclosures. Your father searched it top to bottom, and Zebbie wasn’t there.”

“That’s not-” Sallie protested, but she couldn’t finish. Because really, it kind of was. “I still want to go,” she finished. “I need to.”

“Okay, sweetie,” Mommy sighed. “We’ll go this weekend.”

***

Daddy did not come this time. Mommy said he had to go in to the office, but Sallie was not fooled. Her mother might be almost a foot shorter than him, and softly rounded where he was hard muscle, but in a lot of ways she was the tougher one. Blood made him go all greenish-white, but Sallie had never seen her mother flinch away from dressing a wound. Daddy was in the habit of avoiding things that reminded him too much of Zeb- and if he had been the one to investigate the menagerie, then it didn’t surprise Sallie in the least that he would not want to go there again.

She and Mommy pulled up to the parking lot a little before noon, paid the bored-looking teenager (a different one from before), and entered the fair grounds. The sun was darting in and out from behind the clouds, giving the light a weird, shifting quality.

“Start to the left, straight on ‘til morning,” Sallie muttered to herself.

“What was that, sweetie?” her mother asked, turning away from a tank of plate-sized turtles. She was smiling, but her eyes had the same sort of tight look they got when she’d been on the phone with Grandmother for too long. Sallie had come to associate that expression with her mother locking herself in the bathroom for an hour or more, and knew it was not a good sign to see it so soon into their trip.

“Nothing, Mommy. Let’s go this way,” she took her hand and tugged her towards the left.

***

Part of Sallie had wondered whether she had really, truly remembered correctly when she remembered all the animals as having blue eyes, or if it was just an extension of her nightmares about Zeb being gone- after all, he had the same blue-gray eyes as their father, so it would make sense for her to dream them into the animals of their last outing together. It didn’t take long, however, for her to be convinced that she had remembered correctly: the soft shy rabbits all had blue eyes, and so did the single pacing tiger. Even the lizards, trying in vain to sun themselves on small flat rocks, had eyes like tiny chips of sapphire- and when she came to the large, colorful bird that sang a thoroughly inappropriate song to her, it did not surprise her in the least to see it had eyes the shade of the pansies in her neighbor’s garden.

Her own eyes, hazel as her mother’s, began to burn with unshed tears, although she wasn’t sure why.

There were several exhibits that Sallie did not recall from their original visit, and it was one such they approached as her pink plastic watch gave the little beep that meant it was twelve. Right near the front of the cage they could see a long ringed tail wrapped firmly about a curled-up mass of gray fur.

“Mommy, what’s wrong with that raccoon’s tail?” She asked.

“I don’t think that’s a raccoon, sweetie,” Mommy said, squinting at the creature. “I’m not sure, but I think that’s a lemur. They’re primates.”

“Like monkeys?”

“Yes, like monkeys. And also like us. Ah, here’s the card! Yes, it says he’s a young ring-tailed lemur, and that they’re diurnal. Do you know what diurnal means, my little vocab queen?” Sallie shook her head. “Do you know what nocturnal means?”

“Something that stays up at night?”

“Exactly. So then what would you guess that diurnal means?”

“Awake during the day?”

“Smart girl!”

“But Mommy, he’s not awake- listen, I think I can hear him snoring!” They were quiet for a moment, and sure enough- a tiny buzzing noise was rising up from the coil of fluff in fits and spurts. Mommy laughed, the tightness around her eyes easing ever-so-slightly.

“Maybe he’s just having a nap. It does say he’s young.”

“Maybe,” Sallie continued to stare at the lemur, willing it to wake up. She wanted to see what it looked like. “Hey little lemur, don’t you know you’re supposed to be awake right now?” It didn’t respond. “C’mon, little guy. The sun is at its zenith!”

This was apparently was news to the lemur. His head popped up from behind his tail and he whipped it around to face Sallie. She had time to note the funny black mask of his face before his eyes met hers, and the rest of the world fell away.