The New Moon's Arms Read Online Free Page B

lonely house.
    “You could do me a favour, though,” I said to Gene.
    “Anything.”
    “I’m feeling little bit shaky. You could shadow me in your car? Just until the ferry dock? I want to be sure I get to the waterbus all right.”
    He nodded. “I’m right behind you.”
    A LEXANDER TREMAINE UNLOCKED THE DOOR that would take him to the Zooquarium’s outdoor exhibits. Not this morning, he prayed silently. I just want a normal day. Alexander hated filling out Incident Reports. Since taking this job as manager of the outdoor exhibits six months ago, it’s like he had one every few weeks. They had to be in triplicate, and Mrs. Thomas smirked whenever he handed one in. Again, Mr. Tremaine? You sure?
    If Mrs. Thomas ever set foot outside the administration office, she’d see for herself what he meant. But she was very proud of the fact that she had been through the zoo only once: on the obligatory tour they’d given her on her first day at the job. Mrs. Thomas hated animals.
    Alexander stepped out onto the cement path that snaked around the outdoor exhibits. Look like Dennis had already washed the path down with the hose this morning; the cement was dark with damp, though it hadn’t rained. Alexander checked in on the turtle rehab, the first stop. Mountain Girl was going to be okay. She was recovering from her encounter with a speedboat. She was eating well. On his way to the spoonbills, Alexander murmured a good morning at Dennis, who was using a big yard broom to sweep leaves and fallen almonds off the path. The spoonbills were happily trolling in their man-made mangrove swamp. Their colour was a little faded. Alexander made a note to ask Dennis to put some more pellets in their feed. Visitors didn’t want to see roseate spoonbills that weren’t rosy.
    Only six-thirty in the morning, but the sun was beating down already. Management was in no hurry to install shade roofing for the walkway. If the heat kept visitors moving quickly through the exhibits, the Zooquarium could funnel more of them through in a day, plus fill up the Zooquarium cafeteria with people looking to sit down and have a cool drink or some soursop ice cream after the hike through the exhibits.
    The seals were next. Alexander could smell the heavy piss scent of seal urine. He slowed down. He took his handkerchief out of his back pocket and mopped his face.
    He couldn’t put it off any longer. He left the path, walked up the grass-covered incline that led to the seals’ enclosure. He reached the waist-high cement wall and looked down into the enclosure. Monk seals were nocturnal, and asleep or sluggish during the day when the visitors came through. Disappointed children would stand at the seal pen and whine that this was boring. Not a month went by that some visitor didn’t complain that the seals weren’t moving and Something Should Be Done. Every year, Management talked about closing down the seal exhibit and putting in a dolphin show instead. But the Zooquarium was funded by the Ministry of the Environment, which had a mandate to educate the public about the protected seals, so they stayed.
    There was Henny, dozing on the bottom of the pool. Well out of Henny’s territory was Penny. She’d hauled out onto one of the “dunes” and was snoring blissfully as she basked. Crab Cake and Hippo were sleeping on the rocks, too. Vampire (he bit) was in one of the sheltered caves, only his rear end sticking out.
    One, two, three, four, five, Alexander counted. Six. Seven.
    But the Zooquarium owned only five seals.
    Alexander sighed. It was going to be an Incident Report morning.
    T HERE WERE PARKING SPACES topside on the waterbus. I wedged my car between a beat-up old VW and a flashy new RV that was scarlet as an arac apple. Somebody was showing off that they had the money to import an expensive car from “foreign.” Dadda called cars like that “penis extensions.”
    Used to call.
    Gene had found a space for his car a few rows over. What was I