The Midnight Zoo by Sonya Hartnett Page A

He said,
I have learned a lot in the past night and day, Mikael. I know that your daughter, Alice, concocted the plan to destroy the train. I’m sure she meant well, as children in their escapades always do. But
what she did has made the village look bad in the eyes of the Leader, and that’s an unfortunate way to look, don’t you agree? A vulnerable way to look, Mikael. We must do something to prove to the Leader that we regret what happened to his dear good friend, and that we sympathize with his loss. A gift to illustrate our apologies. Something to assure him we’ll behave ourselves from now on.”
    The bear gave a groan, the sound of a log toppling in a fireplace. The llama too was bothered, lifting its feet fretfully. “I don’t like this story,” it whimpered.
    “Be quiet!” barked the chamois. “Let it be told!”
    “Alice,” piped the kangaroo.
    The wolf ignored them, its oak-colored eyes on the children. “The zoo’s owner thought that a gift was a good idea, but he asked the Mayor,
What can we do? We’re only a humble village. We don’t have anything that might console a man like our enemy’s leader — a man who wants nothing less than to own the entire world.”
    The lioness’s tail gave a sudden violent lashing, like an asp lunging out of a basket. “Wolf!” growled the bear, and the llama balked skittishly and made a frightened noise. The wolf glanced up, hesitating for a heartbeat before carrying on with the story. “The Mayor smiled at the zoo’s owner and replied,
No, Mikael, that’s where you are wrong. We have something rare and precious of which our enemy’s leader is very fond. Apparently he likes animals, dogs and pigeons and horses, and of course all magnificent and exotic wild things. I don’t suppose a man as preoccupied as the Leader has time for visiting zoos, however — do you? So maybe we should send a piece of our zoo to him. Make the Leader a gift of your finest beasts, Mikael, and hopefully his fury will be soothed. And maybe, in doing so, you can make some small amends for the danger that your daughter has brought to our door.”
    “Oh no.” Tomas looked around for help. “No, that’s not fair . . .”
    “Not fair!” The wolf was amused. “The zoo’s owner thought so too. He bristled like a terrier. A terrier with no teeth and no bark. He said nothing.”
    “What could he say?” snarled the bear. “What choice did he have?”
    “Tell the story!” screamed the chamois.
    The wolf flexed its claws against the stone. “The zoo’s owner said nothing. Perhaps because there was nothing to say. A cage door was opened, and something was done to console the Leader.”
    “Something terrible was done,” whispered the llama.
    The kangaroo echoed, in its odd static voice, “Something terrible was done.”
    “Was it the boar’s cage that was opened?” asked Andrej, for they’d seen and heard nothing of that animal and it was starting to seem ominous, the square of shifting blackness labeled KANEC, from which no sound escaped. “Did the boar go to the Leader?”
    “The boar?” The wolf snorted. “Do you really think a
pig
would impress the commander of a great ocean of army? No, it wasn’t the boar. They opened up the lions’ cage and brought out the lion and the three infant cubs.”
    The brothers stared into the moonlit haze, seeing the wolf’s words take the shape of a key in a padlock, a lion on a leash, cubs clawing and wriggling to be freed. Their gaze slid to the lioness, who had not risen from the ground. Whose tail lay lank and seemed hardly alive. “That terrible thing,” murmured the kangaroo.
    “That afternoon, the lion and his mewling cubs were coaxed into wooden crates; and the crates were loaded onto a truck; and the truck was driven away. We have not seen them since. The zoo’s owner traveled in the truck with the lions, to tend them during their journey. He gave us food and water before he went, enough for several days. We believe