Never had my eyes beheld anything so dappled and motley.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
What had caused that little shriek of delight the doctor had heard from the bottom of the stairs? It was the fact that the Rosemary (brown oxfords) coming to greet the Rosemary (worn dirty sandals) had been none other than Chloe. It was Chloe who had opened the attic door and realized from many clues who it must be behind the other Rosemary mask. She knew those sandals, too. Actually, from their experience of the night before last, she also knew quite well the knees and elbows and even other parts of the body that she could not see. She had tipped up the corner of her own mask far enough for Pooch to recognize her and it was then that Pooch had given the little shriek and the baby had gotten the hiccups. Chloe had hurried them both up the attic stairway, carefully locking the door behind her with the two huge bolts, one on the doorknob side and the other on the hinge side.
Once upstairs, Pooch and Chloe hug each other so vigorously that the baby begins to cry. But it is soon quieted, for Chloe brings granola bars and milk, and for Pooch a cup of Earl Grey tea from the hot plate. The baby begins to eat right away, but Pooch first hugs Basenji and makes a gesture in admiration of her presence and dancing at the meeting when she was a guard to the “real” Rosemary. Pooch does this with a pretty little bow and silent clapping. And there's Mary Ann to greet. (Later Pooch will find out that she came to be in the attic instead of the basement because the doctor could no longer put up with her looks and her inanities and simply threw her out as not only useless to his work, but a hindrance to it. Of course one of the Rosemarys went after her before she got lost and brought her back.) She is now completely palmiped, though one still cannot tell for sure whether her feathers are those of a swan or of a domestic duck. There are others, whom she doesn't know, one quite green and with big teeth and mouth, and there's even a man—a strange, sad-looking, very thin and very tall man, introduced to her as John, a clown, though dressed now in a conservative brown suit.
The attic room is large and cluttered. In the corner opposite the hot plate is a pile of rolled-up pallets, quilts, and pillows. Undoubtedly, Pooch thinks, what the Rosemarys sleep on. In the center, four antique trunks serve as a table, surrounded by folding chairs, stools, and old porch furniture. It is here that Pooch sits to sip her tea and milk, noticing as she does so the pictures tacked on the walls. There is a great clutter of them, some partly overlapping others and many slanting up into the eaves. All but one are of famous animals. Pooch recognizes many of them without having to look at the captions: Rosinante, Bucephalus, Flush, Checkers, Anubis (just as handsome and sexy looking as the big black-and-tan dog in the park; the picture makes her feel a prickle of awe and excitement), Sirius (also impressive, though Pooch feels no attraction to him—he's not her type), Washoe, Grendel (with his mother), a sacred cow, the god Ganesha, Pavlov's dog (pictured wired up and reminding Pooch of the experiences in the basement), Kashtanka (aka Auntie), Laika.... Ah, Laika! Pooch had thought of her often since first reading her story, and it always made her sad. She remembers a poem by Sec about her that ends “Man had never better friend.” She hopes also to be a friend to man—perhaps one particular man—in some similar way. But then there is Kashtanka, too. There is certainly a lesson in the fate of that poor mutt, but of course such a fate is not for her, for her master loves her so that she feels more a daughter to him than to her own mother, whom she can barely remember. Looking at them all, Pooch wonders if she might not one day have her own picture among such as these, dressed as Carmen, in red with a black mantilla; though without a voice—not even for speaking—that seems unlikely. Still, if not one way, maybe another. She must not despair.
The one picture that is not of a well-known animal is a large color photograph of five clowns. Two are dwarfs, while one is very tall and very thin, and though he has a large, painted-on smile, Pooch is quite sure it is the same man as the one she has just met wearing the conservative brown suit.
All the while that Pooch is sipping tea and examining the pictures, Chloe is explaining how she came to be there and how she became yet another Rosemary in a little candlelight ceremony at which she had made a solemn promise to uphold Rosemary standards and to work hard to make the world safer for females of whatever shape and size and in whatever state of change, regardless of whether heading upward or downward on the evolutionary scale. She had doubled back, she says, to the spcac meeting after helping to create a diversion so that Pooch could escape. The police had been searching everyone as they came out—or rather, trying to, but there was much too much confusion. Some of the creatures, though they can't actually fly, can almost fly, and these had fluttered about, and taken great leaps into the air with the help of their wings, or had sat, poised and unafraid, at the top of the ornamental lintel. Others crept about on all fours and then ran out between the policemen's legs.
Chloe does not mention that she herself had gotten quite carried away and, not being able to hold herself back, had had a great deal to do with all this fluttering about. (Were she at all canine, she surely would look rather sheepish telling about it.) She had chased hither and yon and pounced and had quite a romp, though no real harm done to anyone except for the loss of a few feathers and the tip of one tail, not counting that Chloe herself had gotten a feather stuck in her throat for a while. Very unpleasant. At any rate, the police were thoroughly confused and Chloe had had fun until a creature not unlike herself, but much larger, began chasing her. She does not tell this part, but rumbles out her tale, smiling, half in a whisper, half self-satisfied purr. And actually she has already forgotten the episode of being chased up into a tree that was already filled with creatures she had but a moment before chased up there herself.
"Then,” she says, “one of the Rosemarys brought me here and we had the ceremony, and after that a very good mackerel dinner to which I contributed my cream, butter, and smoked oysters from Valdoviccini's."
While talking, Chloe has handed the baby to a rather shapeless, fat-cheeked yet sharp-nosed creature with mixed white and orange hair swept back from her face. It is not long before she and Pooch recognize each other, for she is none other than Cucumber (Pickle for short), the very guinea pig who lived down the block back on Long Island. She is much changed, however, being now almost completely a young woman, though a bit dumpy and dull-eyed. Pooch remembers that reflex she used to have: the almost overpowering desire to chase, catch, grab Cucumber by the back of the neck, and shake. Now, thank goodness, that desire seems gone, either because Cucumber is much more a woman or because Pooch is. Or perhaps she's just too tired and grateful to Cucumber for relieving her of the baby for a moment. Pooch hopes that it is the womanliness, the humanity, that has changed her. That would be a good sign, indeed.
They kiss and a tear comes to Pooch's eye, for seeing her brings back memories of happier days with the master and mistress and of the scratchy mat by the door. Difficult as the work had been, she had had several chances to listen to the Saturday afternoon opera and once in a while she had seen Kenneth Clark's “Civilization.” A few times she had actually seen these through without interruption. Suddenly Pooch begins to cry in earnest. Actually, though tears have come before, many times and copiously, this is the first real “relaxed” crying she has done since all this began. Though this is not really “home” and her dear master is not here, she is safe and among friends and perhaps even about to be a part of some splendid and noble Rosemary movement.
They all gather round to hug her and stroke her and rub her under the chin, even the tall, thin, sad clown. Chloe heats up her milk, and Mary Ann—flop, flop, flopping about on her wide feet and sometimes tripping over herself—brings out one of the pallets. The green creature with the big teeth sheds a few tears of her own, grinning at the same time, but that's just her way and no harm meant. They put Pooch to bed in a corner, where she falls asleep instantly. While she sleeps, the various Rosemarys return one by one until they are all back except for the one real Rosemary, who is no doubt off on some mission more important than any of the others. Perhaps she has gone to check up on the recently formed Academy of Motherhood.
The doctor does not know how many Rosemarys there are. He waits and counts nine altogether, including the first two (Chloe and Pooch). Then there is a long, long period when none of them come at all. It's growing late. Almost ten o'clock and the doctor has had no supper, or lunch for that matter. He decides that now is the time to barricade the door. He'll do this first, hungry and tired as he is. Of course they will hear him hammering them in, but that won't make any difference. The roof is four stories high and there are no places to perch by the steeply pitched eaves and no places to climb down, even for one as adept as Phillip.
After nailing them in, using spikes and heavy boards, he goes down to make himself some supper, but he's no cook, and anyway he's too tired to do more than eat a few cupcakes from the cage dispenser. Finds they are delicious. He is thinking, thank goodness Rosemary had seen to it that they are full of nourishment. If not for her, where would the experimental animals be? Starved, maybe. He must admit that Rosemary is, has always been, a great help. But what about that phone call from the police? What has she been up to? As far as he can tell, she's always been on his side. But he'll not even call the police about those boarded up in the attic. He decides to get a good night's sleep and then he'll decide what to do about all this. He forgets that there's been no one around, now what with his locking in all the Rosemarys, to feed his experimental creatures in the basement, or to lock them back into their cages for the night. He even forgets that the window in his laboratory is still unbarred and wide open, arranged as it was for the escape of number 107 with a stool and a bookcase forming a ladder.