I stumbled out into the night with my lamp in my hand and clambered down the hill in utter shock. The mud squished between my toes until I reached the Golden Path. And there, at the base of the pyramid, I could see all the torches that burned along the borders of the resort. Guards were posted at various points along the wall, but they all looked outward into the jungle. I quietly climbed the path to the cages.
I pressed my stomach to the fence of the Boar Den and looked in. Tuskus lay sleeping in the mud with Belly Wart by his side. Gray Beard was off in the corner. She opened her eyes and snorted at me.
“Hello, Marlin. Do you have some food?”
I pulled back the lamp and stood straight. Gray Beard’s grunting woke up the other two pigs. Tuskus sniffed grumpily.
“Be quiet. I’m sleeping.”
Gray Beard trotted to the fence, “Have you, Marlin?” she whined. I backed away and turned up the Path.
“What’s the matter? What’s the matter?” a pair of cockatoos called from their cage.
“It’s Marlin! Wake up!” one of our bush dogs barked.
“What’s going on out there?” moaned the spectacled bear.
I shook my head and slapped my face. I tried to tell myself I was in a dream, but my own voice was drowned out by the terrible noise of the zoo. Each caged animal I passed as I climbed up the pyramid snorted, bayed, growled, or hooted at me.
“Marlin! Marlin! Marlin!”
Surely this would bring the guards, and I’d look as crazy to them as I felt. So without thinking I called out to the animals. “Quiet!”
But it wasn’t my voice, or at least not my language. I tried saying something else. “You’ll wake everyone up!” I grunted and hissed. There were no words in what I said, not ones I could recognize, but the meaning was there.
A shout came from below me, one I couldn’t understand. It was Zargo Hunt, a guardsman calling out something in his native tongue. He was coming up the pyramid toward me. I extinguished the light and ran.
The Monkey Maze was our largest exhibit by far. It took up nearly one entire side of the pyramid, and the Golden Path cut through it via a caged pedestrian walkway. I tried to make my escape through there, but something caught my leg and I fell. I looked down to see a hairy hand holding me through the bars.
Another hairy hand grabbed my thigh. The first one left my foot, disappeared between the bars, and reemerged to take my shoulder. This hand pulled me up to my feet with surprising strength.
I followed the hairy hand down its arm to the other end and saw Trébone the orangutan staring at me.
“Did I hear you right?” he whispered.
I tried to knock his hand away, but the grip was too tight.
“You spoke!” he said in amazement. “How is this?”
I pushed back against the bars, trying to free myself. “I should be asking you!” I shouted.
Trébone shrieked and snaked his other arm through the bars to hold me. “What is this?” he gasped.
He stuck his thumb into my mouth and stretched out my cheek to look inside.
“Get your fingers out of my mouth!” I mumbled.
He reared back and laughed heartily. A few chimps and another orangutan padded over to the walkway.
“What you doing with him?” asked Screecher.
“Got some fruities for us, Marlin?” called Blue Boy.
“Get away, you fool!” Trébone slapped Blue Boy, and the chimp screeched at him.
The rest of the clan had woken up and were descending on us. They leaped up onto the bars and climbed to the iron roof of the walkway.
“Give us some beetles, Marlin!”
“I want nuts!”
“Fruities, Marlin, fruities!”
They were hooting and hollering, and their voices mushed together so much, I couldn’t understand them. Just the howling noise of the monkey clan again, like I’d always heard from them.
“Shut your stupid mouths!” Trébone bellowed. “I cannot hear this boy speak!”
Blue Boy laughed. “A talking boy, Trébone?”
“Yes!” the orang shouted back. “Quiet your yap and you’ll hear.”
“Marlin, can you understand this?” Blue Boy stuck his thumb into his mouth and blew a raspberry at me.
“I have something for you!” called a chimp above my head, and I narrowly dodged a plop of something headed straight for my face.
Hysterical apes shook the cage bars with their laughter. Trébone was fixed on me.
“This is that jaguar they captured.” He held me by the ears. “I have heard of jaguar magic.”
The blood was rushing to my face, and Trébone’s dirty thumbs were whirling around in my ear canals.
“Shut up in there!” someone shouted, in English this time. Zargo was near. If he saw me, he would tell my father I was out at night.
“I’ve got to go.” I pulled Trébone’s fingers off my ears.
“To the jaguar’s den,” he said. “That is where you must go.”
“Shut up!” Zargo shouted again. I broke free of Trébone’s arms and ran out of the Monkey Maze.
“Jaguar food!” all the chimps called after me. “Jaguar food!”