“How’s it going?” shouted Snowflake, above the loud clippety-clop coming from the tarmac. Malcolm sat up. They’d been going for hours, down country lanes and then bigger roads and now this suburban street, and he was more confident with his riding now. He had found that if he pushed his front hooves along the back of the horse’s neck, the little gap in them acted like fingers round Snowflake’s luxurious mane. He looked around.
They were riding through streets lit by lamp-posts and the odd light shining from bedroom windows of houses they passed. Behind him, he could see Trotsky, Zsa-Zsa, Mabel, Ludwig and the Dollys doing their best to keep up. It was a warm night, and Malcolm could feel the breeze on his snout and twitching ears.
As they rounded a corner, Malcolm saw a man coming out of a pub. The man’s gaze followed Malcolm and Snowflake, and then the gaggle of other animals in their wake. He stood there for a bit, then shook his head, and went back into the pub.
“Great!” shouted Malcolm back.38
About an hour later, they were in the city proper. It was night-time now: a pale crescent moon shone above. Snowflake had slowed from a trot to a walk, making it easier for the other animals to follow him. And then, suddenly, at a crossroads, he stopped.
“Where should we go?” he said, twisting his neck to look back at Malcolm.
“Sorry?” said Malcolm.
“How do we get to your house?”
Malcolm realised that he didn’t know the answer to this. He knew where they lived – Bracket Wood – but he didn’t know how to get there from where they were.
“Um … well … where are we now?”
“I don’t know,” said Snowflake. By this time, Trotsky, Zsa-Zsa, Mabel, Ludwig and the Dollys had caught up. They all stood by the crossroads, looking right and left.
“You don’t?” said Malcolm.
“No! I’ve just been going towards the city. I thought you might be able to fill in the details when we got there …”
“Why did you think that?”
“Because, Malcolm …” said Ludwig, butting in, “Snowflake is an animal. As …” he added, looking at the pig, sheep, dog and cat around him, “… are we all. But you, even though you look like a tiny piggy, are apparently a human. So you should know stuff like that.”
Malcolm looked down from Snowflake’s back at the animals looking up at him. He felt terrible at the thought that he’d brought them all here without really knowing what he was doing. He tried – tried hard – to remember something about the geography of the city, but it was difficult, not least because his memory of being a human now felt further away than ever.
Then he thought of something.
“What day is it?” he said.
“Huh?” said Ludwig.
“We don’t really know stuff like that,” said Mabel. “We’re animals.”
“Yes, I got that,” said Malcolm. “You never know what day it is?”
“Well, to be honest, until you arrived, Malcolm, one day was very much like the next.”
“I didn’t even know there was such a thing as different days!” said Dolly 1.
“Each day the same!” said Dolly 2. “Grass, grass, grass, sleep, big baa, grass.”
“No change from one day to the next!” said Dolly 3.
“It’s Sunday,” said Zsa-Zsa, somewhat contemptuously. “Early Sunday morning.”
All the others looked at her.
“How do you know that?” said Malcolm.
“Because Gavin and Maven always get up later on Sundays, so I get fed later. About ten o’clock. And I can feel my stomach’s set for that today. Which is lucky, as otherwise I’d be off back to the farm by now for my brekker.”
The other animals looked doubtful. Trotsky muttered something about, “Allzz ze cat everrr zinks about izzz food.”
Malcolm looked over to the side of the road. He could see a newsagent just beginning to open up. The man inside didn’t notice them because he was busy piling newspapers up in front of the shop. But Malcolm saw, even with his little piglet eyes from a distance, that the newspapers were thicker than normal. And that brought a memory – a nice memory – back to him: of his parents reading lots of different pages of newspaper on a certain morning, every week …
“Zsa-Zsa’s right!” said Malcolm. “It’s Sunday. OK, Snowflake, guys – can we just head on into the city? I know where to go!”
“They’ve stopped,” said Benny, breathlessly.
“Yes. They’re only about five hundred metres away. Speed up!” said Bjornita.
“I have sped up!”
“Oh. Yes. So have I …”
“Can you speed up a bit more?”
“I’m already going at nearly 10 metres an hour. Who do you think I am, Usain Bolt?”
“Oh no! They’ve started going again.”
Half an hour later, the animals (not including the tortoises) were on the outskirts of what looked like a big park. During the journey, Malcolm had turned into a proper rider, tapping Snowflake on his right or left flank whenever he wanted him to turn (right or left, obviously). The other animals had kept on their trail.
Malcolm had been following signs. He’d noticed that his reading wasn’t as good as usual – he assumed this was another side effect of being an animal – but luckily the word he’d been looking for on the signs was a small one, and he could still understand it.
“What does that say, Ludwig?” said Dolly 1, as they stood outside the park entrance.
“Yes, what say, Ludwig?”
“Ludwig – that word what?”
“Ahem,” said Ludwig, “though I am a very wise pig …”
“The wisest …” said Mabel.
“And the fattest,” said Zsa-Zsa.
“Thank you,” said Ludwig, “and can speak all the ’malanguages …”
“Apart from horse,” said Snowflake.
“Or goat,” said Malcolm.
“Yes … anyway, despite that, I haven’t quite managed to master the human thing. The words and what they mean.”
“Reading,” said Malcolm.
“Yes. I rely instead on my native wisdom, unsullied by outside influences, so that my insights have a kind of purity, a native—”
“Zoo,” said Malcolm.
“Pardon?” said Ludwig.
“Yes, pardon?” said Mabel.
“Pardon?” said Dolly 2.
“Pardon?”
“Pardon?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” said Zsa-Zsa, “it sounds like someone’s done twenty burps.”
“That’s what this place is: a zoo.”
“What is that?” said Snowflake, sniffing at the ground under the sign.
Malcolm walked down Snowflake’s neck, and then jumped off his head. He turned and looked at the animals.
“It’s a place with animals. Where my family come every Sunday. Although normally without me. I haven’t been since I was six! I can’t quite remember why …”
“Right,” said Ludwig. “And how do we get in?”
Malcolm looked around. He could see it was getting lighter. He could hear, in the distance, birds singing.
“Morning! It’s morning! Morning, morning, morning!”
It sounded like a sweeter version of the cockerel’s shouting.
Which made something occur to Malcolm. Maybe K-Pax’s spell required a cockerel crowing. Maybe the time he had to get back to being human would extend, as long as the actual sound of cock-a-doodle-do didn’t enter his ears. Maybe, he thought, if I don’t actually hear—
“WAKE UP! WAKE UP, EVERYBODY! IT’S TIME TO WAKE UP! WAKEY-WAKEY, CHIMPS!! WAKEY-WAKEY, ELEPHANTS!! WAKEY-WAKEY, GIRAFFES!”
“Is that … a cockerel?” said Malcolm, in a deadpan voice.
“It sounds like it,” said Ludwig. “Would there be one in this place?”
“Maybe. Yes. Oh, yes …” said Malcolm, remembering something. “In the petting zoo.”
“Sorry?” said Ludwig.
“It’s a bit of the zoo where they keep smaller animals for young humans to stroke … I think in there they …”
“WAKE UP, HIPPOS! WAKE UP, REPTILES! WAKE UP, CAMELS!”
“… have chickens and stuff, yes.”
It was, clearly, a cockerel. Which meant that this was his last day of trying out being an animal: next time he heard a cockerel crow he wouldn’t be trying out being an animal any more. He would be one. For good.
He had to think of a way of getting into the zoo. So he could find his parents. Who, he was still assuming, would somehow know what to do.
Then Malcolm had an idea. He looked at all the animals, and said: “You know that facial expression? The one animals do a lot of the time … that one where you look cute but sad and lost?”
The animals all nodded. And did the expression.
“OK, let’s all stand here, face the entrance, and do that expression …”
They all did.
“What now?” said Ludwig, with a bit of difficulty, as he didn’t want to change his sad, lost expression.
“We wait,” said Malcolm.