I Heard Animals' Voices novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: The Otter Pool

Dr. Bramhall's heels faded down the path, and Derrick was still not breathing.

"Hey," I said. "Don't listen to her."

He looked at the path where she had been.

"She's wrong," he said.

"I know she's wrong."

"People shouldn't say that to anyone," he said, very low. "About what they hear."

I thought he meant me, and it made my chest ache in a surprising direction.

"I've been called worse," I said. "A goose once called me a thief."

He laughed, a short rough breath that hurt.

"Go see Mabel," he said. "She's been asking for you all afternoon."

"Are you coming?"

"I have paperwork," said Derrick.

At nine that night the otter pool was lit by two small lamps.

Mabel was waiting on her rock with her whole body leaning toward me.

"Tell me everything," she said. "I heard the tigers hugged. I heard you held a microphone. I heard the green one cried."

"She didn't cry," I said.

"Then she should have."

I sat on the stone edge.

Thirty feet behind me, on the bench by the path, Derrick sat with his back to the pool.

He had a clipboard on his knee.

He had said he had paperwork.

I kept my voice low, because a person can't hear a whisper from thirty feet, and he couldn't hear Mabel at all.

"Mabel," I whispered. "Can I tell you something?"

"I have been waiting nine years for someone to say that."

"There's a man."

Mabel sat up so fast she slipped off her rock.

"The Quiet One?"

"He's my supervisor."

"That is not a no."

"He laminated my ticket," I said.

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