Blue Menagerie Pt VII

Sallie couldn’t make her vocal cords work- but that was alright, because she didn’t know what she could possible say to explain herself, anyway. The voice belonged to a woman, was lightly but strangely accented, and it was right below Sallie when it spoke again.

“What’s got you so worked up now, you wretched thing?”

Zeb let out a strange twitter that Sallie was pretty sure would have gotten him in trouble with any adult lemur within hearing range. The woman, however, let out a low laugh. It wasn’t a pleasant sound.

“Such language! You’ve been all but impossible ever since we got back to this town. I suppose it’s in the blood- that was your family that made such a fuss on Sunday, wasn’t it? And they did the last time we were here, too, as I recall… how I wish I had met your father at a younger age! It’s just too bad your hysterical sister has hazel eyes… of course, if you’re feeling lonely, I’m sure we could find a way to bend the rules… I have been thinking of taking on someone new to clean the cages.”

Zeb barked, and Sallie had a sudden vision of his sharp little lemur fangs. She didn’t know that she would taunt him in this form, intervening bars or not. The woman laughed again.

“Rage all you want, you ring-tailed brat. The fact remains that as long as I hold the amulet, you and all the others stay in your animal forms, which means you’re in no position to dictate who else I may or may not bring into our little family. Although you’ve been so very troublesome… if you didn’t hold such potent viv, I’d have let you escape long ago. Wouldn’t do you any good, you know. The first person to find you would either shoot you or put you in a real zoo. Or maybe even try to keep you as a pet. How would you like that, boy? To be someone’s exotic pet?”

By this point Sallie was biting her lip so hard she could taste blood. It was all she could do not to hurl herself over the edge of the cage and start pummeling the horrible woman- but a memory of her father stopped her;

You remember this, Sallie-girl, he had said as they watched a movie about a little boy who defeated the bad guy by being clever. You’re like that kid- you’ve got heart but you’ll probably always be too much smaller than anyone else to go in with your fists flying, hoping for the best. You need to know your enemy, know their weak spots- and then develop your weapons to take advantage of that. Find that weak spot- and it won’t always be physical- and then you can hit ‘em with all you’ve got!

At the time Sallie hadn’t thought the advice particularly useful- after all, who would she ever fight with? She was a good girl who stayed out of trouble, and she got along pretty well with almost everyone. But now, as she sat frozen in the darkness, she realized that she really, really wanted to fight the horrible woman- but that she was definitely too little to stand a chance. She’d have to find the weak spot.

Trouble was, she couldn’t even see the woman from her current position, let alone any weak spots- and she didn’t dare move to remedy the situation.

“Anyway I’m bored with your chatter now, and since you’re obviously not going to go to sleep on your own…” the woman trailed off, and Sallie heard a faint clinking noise. Zeb let out a sort of whimper that ended in a sigh, and then was silent. Sallie squeezed her eyes shut and held her breath as she listened to the fading footsteps of the woman. Only when her head was beginning to spin from lack of oxygen did she breathe again, open her eyes, and ever-so-carefully peer over the roof to see if the horrible woman was really gone.

She was.

Sallie’s heart had decided to renew its attack on her rib-cage, but Sallie ignored it as she groped her way to the trap-door. Fortunately it was not locked- just double-bolted. Her hands shook as she eased them open, every moment expecting to hear the woman’s voice again, this time full of angry accusation. One of the bolts let out a little groan, and Sallie cursed herself for not thinking to bring any sort of oil.

Slowly, slowly she lifted the heavy wood panel of the door, easing it over until it lay flat against the roof of the cage. She had expected Zeb to spring immediately out, but he did not. Sallie poked her head into the opening, afraid of what she might see.

There he was, not visibly harmed, but collapsed in a little heap at the base of the tree branch.

“Zeb,” she whispered. His head stirred and she watched with alarm as he tried to sit up, only to fall back over. Tears of fear and fury stung at her eyes as she tried to calculate if the platform beneath the opening would hold her weight.

“Nothing for it,” she muttered, and slipped into the opening. Fortunately the platform did hold her weight, and she was able to use it to (albeit awkwardly) make her way down to where her little brother was still struggling to get upright. Somehow his behavior reminded her of the way their grandfather had acted when Sallie had visited him in the hospital after an operation- kind of wobbly and unfocused. It made her even more afraid for him.

“Shhh, it’s okay, Zebbie. Come here,” she picked him up and transferred him to the backpack, where he curled up with a tiny, pathetic trill. He was big enough that she was just barely able to zip it closed around him, and she knew the tools in the bag had to be digging into his flesh- but she couldn’t risk leaving them behind.

The new weight on her back made the reverse climb near impossible, but by this point Sallie had so much adrenaline pumping through her system that she thought she might be able to lift a train if she had to, and she eventually made it out. Her journey back across the fairgrounds to the opening in the fence was as quick as she could make it, although she did manage to slice open the other arm when she passed back through.

The bicycle ride expanded her concept of torture- she was slower with Zeb on her back, and each pair of headlights that approached brought with them the queasy realization of their vulnerability, the certainty of discovery and capture. What if it was the horrible woman? It was one thing to end up in jail, but Sallie couldn’t stand the idea of what it would do to her parents if she just disappeared the way Zeb had. The whole night became a hideous, unending nightmare, the kind where you can’t go as fast as you know you should be able to, the kind where you know the monster is breathing down your neck, even if you can’t see it. Can’t see her. In her sleep-deprived delirium, Sallie felt certain she would never find daylight again, let alone make it home.

She did make it, however, and even managed to do so before Daddy got up. Trembling with exhaustion and the after-effects of too much adrenaline (she’d had to pull over twice to vomit) Sallie carefully shut her now-sleeping brother into her closet, wished as hard as she could that he would stay asleep, stripped back down to just her night-gown, and collapsed into her own bed. Her digital clock said it was 0427. Mommy would be in to wake her for school in about two hours- but Sallie was pretty sure she could convince her she was too sick to go.

Her sleep was dreamless.