The Midnight Zoo Read Online Free Page A

searched the gloom, but they couldn’t see the animal, and moved quietly away.
    A corner of the next pen was littered with small dark pellets, but the cage smelled no worse than a barn or stable. Tomas put his nose between the bars but couldn’t make out the details of the creature folded against the farthest wall. “A deer? A gazelle?”
    “A chamois.”
    “A
chamois
?” Tomas had seen chamois roasting on spits at feasts. Everybody he knew had eaten bits of one — he himself had eaten platefuls of the scarlet, spicy meat. It was ridiculous to have a chamois at a zoo — like having a
rat
in a cage, or a sparrow. He shook his head and strode on, resenting being taken for someone easily impressed. They had almost completed the circuit of cages and he hoped the last ones concealed something startling, like a dragon or a frantic crazy man who ate broken glass and chair legs, like the fellow he’d once seen in a sideshow.
    LAMA said the sign: the llama got awkwardly to its feet as the children reached its pen, staring at them through heart-meltingly large, lashy eyes. Its woolly coat, a patchwork of white and russet, reminded Andrej of the blankets he’d slept under in the caravan. Its bony face, topped by tufty ears, sat high on a shaggy neck, genial, and slightly daft. “It’s friendly!” Tomas decided, and slipped an arm between the bars. The llama bucked with alarm and veered away, gazing back at them grievedly from a far corner. Tomas withdrew his hand regretfully. “I only wanted to pet you.”
    The next cage was the last. Like the others, it had a smeared stone floor, an ornate roof of metal, iron bars across the top and around each side, and a shallow drinking tray that was stained by dried raindrops. The animal inside was the size of a sitting dog, and almost the same shape as one, except that in every aspect it was different from a dog. Its head was dainty but sturdy, like a jeweler’s hammer; its front legs were twiggy while its rump and rear legs formed a muscular, meaty ball. Its tail was long and pointed, its coat the color of smoke. “What
is
it?” asked Tomas. He’d never seen such a thing.
    Andrej sounded the sign out to himself before trying it aloud.
“Klokan.”
    “I’ve never heard of that.” Tomas leaned in to look. Andrej had never heard of kangaroos either, and wondered if Marin knew about them. “I like it,” Tomas decided: a kangaroo wasn’t a dragon, but it was pleasingly peculiar, and, for all that Tomas knew, might indeed be capable of breathing fire.
    They had reached the pebbly path again, having walked the complete circle of the zoo. Wilma was sucking Andrej’s thumb, almost asleep. Sleepiness weighed her down, she was heavy in his arms. He crossed the grass to the bench beneath the tree, and Tomas dawdled after him. Only when he sat did Andrej realize how footsore he was, how nice it was to sit. He arranged the baby on his knees, loosened her swaddling, sponged her drool. Tomas had stopped beside him and was looking at the cages, up at the peaceful maple, across at the marble mermaid. The monkey was still crying peevishly, but the other animals were standing and lying in a kind of resigned, silent, destitute grace. “What is this place, Andrej?” Tomas asked finally.
    Andrej looked up. “A zoo. I don’t think it’s a fancy one. It doesn’t have many animals.” And most of them — the wolf, the eagle, the bear, the chamois, and the invisible boar — were not exotic, but creatures which lived wild in mountains only a few days’ travel from here, animals of the kind Andrej had glimpsed occasionally during expeditions into forests with his uncle. The beasts he’d seen in the forests, however, had been quick and liquid and vital, alive in their skins; these caged ones were not like that. “Someone built it because they wanted to show how much money they had, or because they liked animals, or wanted to keep them prisoner. Or maybe the people from the village built it,