I Heard Animals' Voices novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: Six for Six

The old aviary smelled of seed and damp, and by noon half the zoo was standing in it.

The director had taken charge of the envelopes.

There were six, white and sealed, held in a rubber band.

He guarded them.

Derrick went into the vet clinic with a keeper to watch his door.

I went into the aviary storeroom with a keeper to watch mine.

It had mop buckets, a sack of millet, and a folding chair.

"No phones," said my keeper, and sat down with her arms crossed.

The first animal was a llama.

It walked in with a keeper on a rope and looked at me with total contempt.

"Spit's not for fun," the llama said. "Write that down."

"I spit at one man in this zoo. Green tie, payroll, Thursdays."

"I'm saving it."

I wrote down every word.

The second was an African grey parrot in a travel cage, and it looked at me for a long time.

"I only say what I hear," said the parrot. "That's the job. I know everything."

"Like what?" I said.

"Her bank card number," the parrot said, and tipped its head toward the keeper.

"She says it aloud in the break room every Tuesday. She thinks I'm not listening."

I looked at my keeper.

"Don't write that down," said my keeper.

"The test is every word," I said. "I never edit."

She went the color of a boiled shrimp, and I wrote down all four digits.

"I'm changing it today," she said.

The third was a goat with an opinion about the vet's salt block.

The fourth was a tortoise who refused to speak to anyone under a hundred.

The fifth was a hornbill who wanted a better mirror.

The sixth came in last, in a pet carrier, held at arm's length by Dr. Bramhall herself.

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