17

He found Mrs F sitting in her office. She stood as soon as he entered, sheepishly, like she’d been caught with her fingers in the biscuit barrel. Joseph may have only known her for days, but he knew she wouldn’t have been sitting for long: the flush to her cheeks and stained overalls told him she’d been busy.

‘How was it, then?’ she barked, by way of a greeting.

‘What?’ he replied.

‘Parachuting into occupied France,’ she said. ‘School. What else?’

‘Fine,’ he said, eyes not meeting hers.

‘And... ?’

‘And what?’

‘Well, is that it?’

That wasn’t it. Clearly it wasn’t. The ache across his backside screamed otherwise, but to admit he’d been caned on day one would merely confirm what she already thought of him. And he was damned if he was going to give her that satisfaction.

‘So, what did you do?’

‘You know. Stuff.’

‘What, maths? Spellings? Reading?’

‘All those, yeah.’ The thought of the final one sent a red-hot streak of pain spiralling through him.

‘Were the other children welcoming?’

‘Not many others there,’ he replied, which was a better, more convenient truth than anything else he could offer.

She eyed him suspiciously, probably filling in the blanks herself, thought Joseph.

‘Right, well,’ she said. ‘Have you any homework to do? Before you get started here?’

The reading book in his bag was barely thirty pages long, but in that moment, it felt like he was carrying a dozen bibles. It was a burden that he simply couldn’t share with the woman, so he shook his head. Shovelling more camel dung was preferable to reading with her. Or explaining why he couldn’t.

‘Right. Well, your overalls are where you left them, and the wolves and camels are due a meal.’

He said nothing, just accepted the orders and shuffled back towards the door.

‘Oh, and when you’ve done that. You can sort out Adonis, too. His feed is already by his bars.’

Perfect, thought Joseph, feeling more imprisoned than the ape he was about to serve.

He shuffled slowly round the zoo, turning his nose up at any greeting that came his way. Not that the residents were great conversationalists: only the birds seemed to chirp at his presence, and even then, they seemed to be laughing at him.

He started with the camels, or rather, they started with him. Joseph had it in his head that camels were lazy beasts, prone to loping rather than sprinting, but at the first sight of him clutching a bale of straw, they came alive, pinning him in the corner of the cage, putting his fingers at risk as they fed greedily. He considered retrieving the book from his bag: he’d see if they were hungry for knowledge as well, but as they pushed him harder into the bars, he settled for leaving without being devoured himself.

The wolves were equally welcoming, but as with the camels, Joseph was under no illusions about why. When they saw him, they saw dinner: a veritable steak in comparison to the offal that slopped inside the bucket. Mrs F really wasn’t joking when she said that she took whatever food she could find. He was no lover of liver or tripe in the first place, but the serving he was carrying looked and smelled like it should’ve been eaten weeks ago, staining Joseph’s hands with a stench that he feared he would never shift.

All he could do was hurl the meat from a safe distance, flinching when the wolves fell ravenously on it, turning on each other when the rations were all too quickly gone.

He was relieved when the bucket held nothing but blood and the smell of death. The only problem was, now the wolves had been seen to, his ‘to feed’ list included only one word: Adonis. It took gritted teeth to make him shuffle in the direction of the ape’s kingdom, finding him imperious on his muddy throne, eyes fixed on the zoo’s entrance.

‘Oi! Food,’ Joseph called at him, without enthusiasm. Adonis didn’t spare him a glance, or even a blink, which didn’t surprise the boy, but served as a sad reminder of how he was regarded. He wasn’t sure how he was going to feed the ape, and get the woman off his back, if he was so invisible? He didn’t fancy approaching the bars like she had. He doubted he’d walk away with his arms still in their sockets if he tried.

Instead, he pulled a handful of grass from the pail and waved it in the air. ‘Come on,’ he shouted. ‘Grub’s up.’

There was no movement from inside. Not even a glance.

‘Come on,’ he huffed. ‘Give me a chance! I mean, you’ll take food off Mrs F, won’t you? And don’t think I didn’t see her in there with you either, being all chummy. So what’s wrong with my food, then? I’ll get a right rollocking if you don’t eat nothing.’

He couldn’t imagine how it would feel to be inside the cage with Adonis. The trust they must have in each other, to know that nothing was going to go wrong. Although he didn’t really know it, it was a trust Joseph had barely felt in his whole life.

Begrudgingly, he swapped the grass for a cabbage that had seen better days, and waved it in Adonis’s eyeline. ‘Any better?’

Not a flicker. His eyes didn’t move from the zoo’s entrance.

‘It’s no good staring over there,’ he said, ‘looking for your sweetheart. I know what happened. Syd told me. She’s gone, and she’s not coming back, so come and take this off me, then you can do something else. Hang off a tree, beat your chest, I don’t know, cos what you’re doing right now is a waste of time. I’m telling you this for nowt – once they go, they never come back.’

It may have been a coincidence, but Adonis chose that moment to notice the boy, head turning slowly, eyes singeing the space between the two of them. Joseph felt himself stiffen. Was Adonis going to charge at him again? He was scared, but didn’t want to be, so he pushed his chest out in defiance and vowed not to blink unless the beast did first.

‘Do you want this?’ he asked again, though he felt less confident when the ape slowly heaved himself to his feet and stepped towards him. It took every bit of bravery he had to hold his ground. It didn’t matter that the bars divided them; there was a force to the animal’s movements, a power that seemed magnified by the slowness of its stride.

‘Oh, you are hungry are you?’ What should he do with the food? Hurl it through the bars? Or dare he approach like Mrs F had done?

He daren’t do that. Adonis already felt too close for him to safely stand his ground, so he took a step back, while throwing the food through the bars.

If the ‘feast’ excited Adonis, he didn’t show it. His pace didn’t change, his gaze didn’t leave the boy until there were mere feet between them. Then, and only then did it shift, as he lowered himself into a sitting position, and surveyed what was on offer, as if perusing a menu.

Joseph watched as the leaves were sniffed and poked before being grumpily discarded.

‘Picky, aren’t you? Not keen on cabbage, eh? Better than sprouts, I can tell you. But only just. And there’s nothing better in here for you, pal.’

He tried a manky head of broccoli instead, but when it was propelled back at him at speed he took another step away, dumped the bucket on its side and retreated to the bench, keen to rest, but finding no way of sitting without his backside reminding him of his shocking day.

What was he going to do about school tomorrow? He had no intention of talking to Mrs F about his reading but knew Miss Doherty wouldn’t forget either. The instructions were clear: go home, read with Mrs F, and return with her view... or face Gryce and Clarence.

It left him with the most terrible of choices. Humiliate himself in front of the woman or face another freshly flayed backend. Well, forgive me, he thought, if both choices seemed as enticing as the contents of the wolves’ bucket.

Just then his thoughts were interrupted by the sight of Mrs F and Syd in the distance, lugging a bale of hay while deep in conversation.

It may have been due to his already fragile state of mind, but Joseph instantly knew that the subject could only be one thing: him, or more specifically, his shortcomings in class.

Syd wouldn’t dob him in, would she?he thought. Trust me, she’d said.

He watched her closely; the emotion on her face as she talked, nineteen to the dozen, and Mrs F shaking her head as she listened, every second compounding Joseph’s paranoia. She was giving him away. Despite everything she’d said.

He was on his feet in a flash, ripping open his school bag, pulling out the dog-eared book he was supposed to be studying.

Syd might want to humiliate him, to force him into reading for Mrs F, but he wasn’t going to have that. Instead, he clutched the book in his left hand and marched towards Adonis’s cage, not caring any longer about the consequences, only letting go when he was sure that it would land inside the bars. Then, turning to Mrs F, and in particular to Syd, he let fly: ‘Can’t read it now, can I? So you can tell who you like: Miss Doherty, the headmaster, Clarence himself, for all I care – in fact you can stick it. Stick it in your pipe and smoke it!’

His voice shook, but that wasn’t all, his hands and arms too. In fact as he tried to gather his possessions it felt like his entire body was quivering, betraying him, preventing him from getting away before Mrs F was at his shoulder.

‘Joseph, what in God’s name was all that about?’

‘You know what,’ he replied, pointing at Syd. ‘And you do too. You couldn’t wait, could you?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Syd, ‘What do you th—’ But she never finished, as her attention was broken by confetti falling around her. Confetti made from Joseph’s book by Adonis’s fingers.

The three of them stared at the ape, who sniffed at the remaining pages before dabbing them against his tongue. From the way he discarded them, they were clearly even less appetising than the cabbage.

‘Joseph,’ snapped Mrs F, ‘you need to explain yourself. And you need to do it now.’

But the boy wasn’t in the mood for helpful answers.

‘What’s the problem?’ he said. ‘You can clean it up next time you’re in there having a cuddle. And anyway, Adonis just told you everything you need to know. He likes reading as much as I do.’

And with one last deathly stare in Syd’s direction, he stomped away.