Mrs. Simson is having the time of her life.
She is zooming around Guyana in a police car, talking with people about missing boys and a missing sloth, seeing places she has never dreamed of seeing.
Her life up to this point has been cleaning at the museum and going to church. She has cleaning clothes and church clothes
Today, she is wearing her cleaning clothes.
When all this is over, she thinks, I’m going to buy some adventure clothes.
“Oh, my goodness,” says Officer Grant.
A small crowd fills the road in front of them. Rising far above it is the top of a creature that hasn’t walked the earth in ten thousand years.
Mrs. Simson leaps from the police car before it comes to a complete stop. She pushes her way through the crowd with the ease of an eel slipping through seagrass.
“Make way,” she says, her voice resonating with absolute authority. “Special deputy in charge of animal antiquities, coming through.”
The crowd doesn’t fight her. People push each other gently to get a better view, but no one shouts or throws things. Some raise up their smartphones and cameras to take pictures. Others lift their children to their shoulders so they can see.
Mrs. Simson moves through the crowd and then she is with Gather.
Looking like the Queen of the Continent, the giant ground sloth is surrounded by four teen boys — two in the front and two in the back — and a growing crowd of admirers.
Angel and Barnby walk behind Gather. Her caiman-sized tail sways from side to side. Sometimes the boys manage to jump out of the way. Sometimes, it knocks them down. When Angel gets knocked down, he laughs and laughs, then gets up to get knocked down again.
Barnby listens to his father laughing. He sees the smile on his father’s face, so wide, so bright, shining all the way to his eyes. Then Gather’s tail sways his way again. He gets swept to the ground and, with his father, he laughs and laughs and laughs.
“Gather! Gather, we found you!” Mrs. Simson shouts above the laughing and the crowd.
The sound of Mrs. Simson’s voice reaches Gather’s ears. The great sloth stops and slowly turns around. She brings her big head right down to Mrs. Simson and gives her a sniff.
“Hello, my friend,” says Mrs. Simson, stroking the fur on Gather’s prehistoric cheek. “It’s good to see you again.”
But Gather is hungry. She twists back around and starts moving again in the direction of her supper.
“Where’s she going?” Hi asks.
“Anywhere she wants,” says Barnby. Angel thinks that’s the funniest answer ever.
Officer Grant moves to the front of the sloth to keep the way clear and to walk next to Jomon.
“Are you taking me back to jail?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“You can’t have him yet,” says Hi. “He has something he has to do first.”
To get to the forest and the cannonball trees, Gather follows the road through the village. It is not a smooth walk. There are cars and bicycles, minivans and carts pulled by horses. There are mounds of melons, bright umbrellas over stands of plantain chips and colorful displays of dresses.
And there are people going about their ordinary day in their ordinary way — some with smiles, some with scowls, some looking tired and some so deep in their own thoughts that they barely see what’s around them.
Then they see Gather, and everything changes.
The frazzled mother about to yell at her kids sees Gather and holds her children gently out of the way. Two men in an argument about who owes who and how much, see Gather and the debt is forgotten.
No one shouts. No one is afraid.
The crowd behind Gather grows and sticks with her as she leaves the road and heads across a field that will bring her closer to the forest and food.
Jomon hears Mrs. Simson answering questions from the crowd.
“She won’t bite you,” says Mrs. Simson. “She only eats plants. You’re right, we don’t see many like her around anymore.”
Between the field and the trees is a cemetery. Gather walks straight through the rows of grave markers to a cannonball tree. To the oohs and aahs of the crowd, she raises herself up on her haunches until she is taller than most of the buildings in Guyana. She reaches out an arm, plucks a stalk of flowers with her long, curved fingernails, and begins to eat.
Everyone watches.
Jomon stands ten feet away in a line with Hi, Angel, Barnby and Officer Grant. People fill in behind them and around them, giving Gather plenty of space to enjoy her meal.
Jomon watches people take selfies with Gather, but from a respectful distance, not trying to pet her or interfere with her. He sees a camera crew arrive from a television station.
He sees tiny blue flowers, yellow butterflies and a procession of leaf-cutter ants crossing a fallen tree. He sees old people showing things to young people, and children pointing to a woodpecker high in a tonka tree.
All around him, people are pulling up weeds and tidying long-neglected graves. He sees people pushing others in wheelchairs, residents of the local care home, so that they can be part of the event, too. He hears some people praying, some people singing, and some people saying, “Here’s your great-aunt Ada’s grave. Did I tell you about her? She was always so nice to me. Eyes in the back of her head, though. I couldn’t get away with a thing!”
“What now?” he asks Officer Grant.
“I’m guessing Gather will make her way into the forest and go deeper and deeper into the heart of Guyana.”
“You’re not going to kill her and put her back in the museum?”
“Oh, no. My job is to find runaways and make sure they end up in a good home.” Officer Grant smiles. “Today, for Gather, my job is done.”
“Your mother is buried right through there,” says Barnby, nodding to a path through the trees.
Jomon looks at Officer Grant.
“Jomon,” she says, “the jail is not going anywhere. Go find your mother.”