Chapter Twenty-Six

Every storm has an eye, every melee its caesura, every battle a breath, collective:

Into our sudden silence waddled a large reptile, not happy. She snapped her jaw, once, twice, thrice. The impromptu council looked upon her, I from Inga’s shoulder.

“I speak,” she said. “I am Miz Caiman. Look at me. Belly on the ground, legs that wub water. Rushing the gaytz, that’s for the mammalians! It’s cold here in the freedomish, too cold for the cold-blooded, and it is for them I speak, for me. Happy we are that the mandrills let us out, grateful, and solidarity with you all, too, get us not wrong. But what of the animals who cannot? Cannot move quickly. Cannot tolerate chill. The dryness, the lacerations of this rough go-stone! Rush the gayt? Flee the grounds? Cannot! Cannot!”

“Wise Caiman,” the more thoughtful of the chirraffes said.

And everyanimal fell silent.

“There’s a shubble buzz,” Miz Caiman said. “It shubbles the daily lookers-at from a barking lot. I heard the announcements hourly, all my captive life. ‘Shubble buzz, barking lot.’ Shubble means back and forth. It’s a giant armadillo, but hollow, and holds a great many you-mens. It is green in color, which denotes helpfulness.”

Much murmuring of assent. Several animals knew the green shubble and of course the dingoes found the idea of a barking lot hopeful.

A nervous pangolin, newly free, was amazed: “The shubble is not an animal? I see it daily, too. I’ve often felt friendliest vibes therefrom.”

I said, “But comrades, how will we, animals all, commandeer a shubble buzz? Surely it doesn’t operate on its own!”

Ms. Caiman snapped her jaw again, one, two, three, commanding: “It’s guided by a you-men. A Greenie. And not just any you-men, but a hyper-sensitive. She drives here at the Bronzoo because of great wub. Great wub for the living world entire.”

Dingoes again, in chorus: “How does that help us?”

“This driver is a powerful emanator,” Ms. Caiman said. “She moodles to me every trip past the reptile house. Do you know what she’s been saying of late? She’s been repeating the prophecy. A you-men! ‘Freemonkey is coming!’ That’s what she has been saying.”

“A you-mee!” a meerkat said. “I’ve heard it too, but thought it was the giant green armadillo thing that spoke!”

“It’s called the shubble buzz,” everyanimal said.

“Let us mood,” I said. And in the resulting silence, I said, “Shubble buzz, shubble buzz, we animals are calling you.”

And distinctly, loudly, clearly, an instant reply: “On my way, darlings!”

A cheer went up, though none of us were quite sure what a shubble buzz could do for us.

“On whose way, what?” Inga mooded.

And a great moodle was aimed at her.

“What’s a shubble buzz?” she emanated, perfectly clearly, no trace of the you-men mind squeal, a complete thought.

And the welter of moods in reply flowed back over her, the newly freed thrilled to be in true mood with a you-mee, and moreso to know the latest news.

Urrrk bellowed.

Our moment of peace was done. The fray built back. Sounds of crashing guard carrs, fresh sigh-rings too, the shouting of you-mee males, the shrill of female, the roars again of cats, the smashing of wimdoes under the hooves of gnus, the barkings of canids, strange ululations. The grunts of the hibbos, and now Bish and Bash.

“Where’s the girl?” we heard some you-men shout.

“Stand down, stand down,” the reply. “Till we have her, continue to stand down!”

“Barking lot?” Inga moodled, undeterred. Her confusion was to be expected: how could we know more of you-men doings than she? “But, brothers and sisters and all in between, we have a monkeyniece to free!”

“Reptiles first,” I said.

And even as Miz Caiman explained (not even slightly amazed that this small you-mee was understanding her), we hurried back to the Reptile Howzz, as it was called, dozens of soon-to-be-former Bronzoo denizens, plus I, Beep, and Inga. Hearts pounding, we found the doors to the Greenie’s backrooom wide open: someone had run.

“Mrib couldn’t find the keys except mine,” Miz Caiman said.

Inga knew of a dezzk trait called drawers, and therein found the keeze, and soon dozens of snakes and turgles and froggs and lizards and biggers and smallers and slimies and moists were free among us, slogging, milling, inching.

“Outzide, outzide!” Ms. Caiman commanded, her reptile moodle more growly than the mammalian, less tweety than the avian, clear enough, however: “Everyanimal offer a ride!”

Our phalanx, slows and slowers upon the shoulders of fasters, made our way back out into the night: but there was no giant green conveyance. And then, just as we felt the grip of failure, a loud nonbird honking, a non-Beep beeping, filled the sky, the roar of a you-men motor.

Here came the shubble buzz!

The shubble buzz rolled right up to us on its wheel-feet, a loud purr coming from behind its bright eyes, rocked to a stop. A kind of gayt opened in its great neck, and down a few stars came a tall female you-men: “Greetings,” she cried, no smell of fear, her hair wildly purple and also white and orange, perhaps a you-mee subspecies, a rangy specimen. She spoke in wind-voice for the benefit of Inga, deeply low, simultaneous moodle: “I am Charlene,” she said, “I am here to aid the uprising! I’m so happy it’s begun here. But was that not the prophecy? That among the imprizzoned a Freemonkey would rise?”

“Freemonkey is here!” All the animals shouted.

How could this you-men know our stories? She seemed halfway between animalkind and you-men-ity, halfway between here and the clouds, halfway between male and female, too, on her chin and cheeks a dark, appealing stubble.

Still, all the attention turned to me.

I said, “Charlene, dear gentle, we have here all these slows and moists and must-be-warms we’re worried over.”

“I’ve heard the mood,” Charlene said, “and it’s for them I drive!” Her eyes were animal bright, big you-men grin, total confidence. “Into the buzz with them!” she cried. “Quickly, quickly, before the SWAT teams arrive.”

Noanimal asked what that meant: it meant trobble, plainly.

Four grizzly bears rushed past, stench of captivity.

“Where’s Urrrk?” they cried. “We hear he’s losing ground and we know how to gain it!”

I pointed, they ran.

Shortly, back on the bluff below the gaytz, we heard another skirmish in progress, felt the mood and read the moodvisions of scores of animals gathered there, or more now, hundreds of animals, the bears climbing the stacked carrs and taking their message of peace directly to the you-mens, whose shouts turned panicked. The hibbos meanwhile, with help from the wry-nose, had tumbled another guard carr onto its rooof. Just a few more to clear the way, open up a corridor to further freedomish.

“I wub your hair,” Inga moodled, so very clearly, you-men to you-men, even as she handed off a bucket of happy rainforest froggs, bright yellow. “I would like dye my hair. Why do you?”

Charlene accepted the bucket, mooded back, pan-animal sophistication: “Ah, and warm thanks, O Sensitive! You’ve already got all the red! I show my colors so that the shubble peebles know they are in the likeable hands of one like me and form a kind impression, for you-mens can be cruel and don’t always like difference. I enlist them with charm. Enlist them to their own humanity.”

I, Beep, am not saying I understood everything. But one thing we animals already know is how much humans think in black and white, yes and no, fruitless binaries, when the world we all live in is so clearly continuous in all things, a long and glorious road between either and or, animals among us that contain both sexes, animals that switch at will, wee things that are neither.

But Inga did understand, much thoughtful nodding, even as she handed Charlene a box of precious salamanders, late denizens of something called a terror-ium.

Quickly, meanwhile, the shubble buzz filled with creatures, reptiles in the main, a quartet of toothless old crocodiles, an orderly line of turgles, every conceivable type of toad, a writhing of fat snakes. The reptile howzz was quickly empty.

Charlene moodled harder yet: “I vow with Freemonkey as my witness to drive this buzz to the warmth far south of here so these creatures may enjoy their freedomish in peace-ish.

“So witnessed,” I said.

And with that, Charlene boarded the buzz, closed its dars in some magical way, backwardly lurched till it was turned just so, and then with a roar the mighty green shubble was gone.

“What of the fish,” someanimal mooded.

And came a burbling, up from the water-ish stored in pretend ponds all around us: “Leave us! Save yourselves! We are few, and cannot travel. The prophecy says it clearly: not all will survive.”

Dark truths.