Eeeealllhhhhhhh! some sorry animal yawled. Eeeealllhhhhhhh!
The jackals’ bloodcurdling enterprise had begun. It is a journalistic cliché that when even the fiercest wild animal escapes from a sanctuary, or a circus, or from some foolish Floridian’s roadside zoo, these fugitives seldom show aggression or shrewdness. A loose puma’s dispassion near children, or the chimp found asleep on a park swing—all proof of the softening effects of captivity, it will be noted in the news, and with a firm touch of bathos.
But the jackals were not following clichés. They were obeying scent. From southwest of their broken pen had floated the intoxicating reek of the Children’s Zoo—sweet loafs of mule manure, oats, damp poplar, and yesterday’s spilled Mars chocolate drinks. The Children’s Zoo was the oldest of its kind in the world. It had in the 1930s caused a ruckus among the fellows of the Zoological Society of London, who were aghast that the public might be too amused. As far as they were concerned, the hoi-polloi’s most advanced questions of zoology involved matters such as the number of lemon Jelly Babies a given animal could eat consecutively. But as often happened during the experimental postwar period, the zoo’s uncommonly arty secretary, Julian Huxley, was adamant: amusement was intriguing, and it sold tickets. It was Huxley’s idea of safe, direct access to benign animals that made it the most unguarded of all the exhibits.
The Children’s Zoo was meant to look like an old-fashioned, working twentieth-century farm. It contained a half-size red barn with white accents, a miniature sty for the hogs, and a bank of wire rabbit hutches. Near the barn, a colorful set of panels posed questions for children. Is it true that goats will eat anything? The display was supposed to look like a set of stables, and you lifted little wooden “barn” doors to view the answers. Actually, goats are fussy! At the London Zoo, they are offered a blend of oats, barley, linseed and soya . . .
The jackals were not fussy. Two young bitches leaped over the picket fence and barreled toward the barn. Outside, in the corral, the llama let out a high, pulsing set of orgles. These caught the attention of the jackals, who paused and gazed at this Peruvian oddity for a moment, then roved toward a three-sided oak shelter where the llama stood.
It was a young, ungelded male, piebald with a black “mask” over its eyes. It bucked forward, darting and kicking. The jackals tried to nip at its cloven toes. They barked maniacally. The llama emitted piercing screams. Every time the jackals tried to get beneath it, it dribbled them back. Soon, a third, male jackal appeared. It scrambled into the fight with a fresh energy and tried to climb up the haunches of the llama, gnashing its teeth, frantically pulling up hanks of woolen hair like a boy who’d dropped all his pocket change on the ground and was trying to grab every last coin. But when the llama spun around and began to cough, it seemed to startle the jackals.
A bolt of dark slime shot from the llama’s mouth onto the male jackal. The substance was greenish and plentiful, at least a pint. It hit the jackal like an angry smack, spattering over its head and neck. There was a strong, sour stench. The dog whimpered like a puppy, and began circling pathetically, chomping at its own back like a dog chasing its tail. The bitches broke off the fight, and crossed the barnyard, away from the llama. They sniffed at their unlucky brother, and tended to him, but the stench was powerful and disturbing.
The pack members preened themselves for a full ten minutes, stopping to howl in ragged chorus, and to bite tenderly at one another. Soon, the two other male jackals released by Cuthbert appeared. There was a general refrain of pack-joy, a violent merriment.
We catch we kill we eat we live!
The llama, which had calmed down, watched them stiffly. It had defeated the canines, but they could find easier prey.
The jackals howled again, in furious bliss, and trotted along the edges of the corral, sniffing at a sun-blanched Ribena sip-bag and a tiny green butterfly hairclip and a lost ￡10 coin. Two stopped to lick at the glistening snails that crept up the fence posts at night like darkness’s very jewels.
Eventually the pack began ducking into the barn, one by one, stalking, then as a pack. With the spring, the keepers left the main door open in the evening. The mule, especially, enjoyed the cool air. Sometimes, a starling or mockingbird would fly in and perch on its hay feeder.