I Heard Animals' Voices novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: The Night Yard

At nine that night the zoo was dark, and I was standing at a rope with a flashlight and a stomachache.

"Night rounds," Derrick had said. "I'm on call, so you're on call. Rule one."

Now he had gone to the vet office for his medical bag.

He had told me to stay put for two minutes.

Rule one was about to be tested.

The big cat house hummed with the sound of heaters and sleeping animals.

Duke lay facing the wall, silent, the way he had been all day.

I tried him once more.

"Duke. Please."

He did not move.

Then a scream came from outside, high and ragged, from the yards.

It was Poppy, and I had never heard a tiger sound afraid.

"It's on my foot," she was shrieking. "It won't come off. It's on my foot, it's on my foot!"

I ran.

The keeper door at the back of the house was propped open with a brick.

Yard B was lit by one yellow floodlight.

Poppy stood in the middle of it, thrashing, with a heavy chain looped around her back paw.

The other end was still locked through the handle of the connecting gate.

Every time she pulled, the whole fence shook.

Duke was now at his own bars, roaring, and I did not need to translate it.

"Poppy!" I called. "Poppy, it's Tierney."

"Help me," she said, not angry now, only terrified.

"Stop pulling. I need you to hold still."

"I can't."

"Poppy. Look at me."

She looked.

I thought about rule one.

I thought about the other four.

Then I slid the latch on the small side door and went in.

The concrete was cold under my sneakers.

Poppy was six feet away, panting, with her ears flat.

"Good," I said. "Good girl. You can sit. Sit down, Poppy."

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