~~~
All three third grade classes lined up on two long buses parked outside about fifteen minutes after school started on Friday. Robert was of course assigned to Ricky’s group of four kids. He’d noted that most groups had five kids in the group, except for his own. He considered it a blessing. One of the other three children had a mom with the group and Rob was to be her student escort assistant. Each student was given a sheet to mark down things they saw at the zoo plus a couple extra items Mrs. Haversham had provided. Robert and the other mother, Mrs. Davis, split the papers up as well as the sack lunches the kids had brought with them and placed them into a backpack for Rob and a large hand bag for Mrs. Davis.
Kile was bouncing on his toes and eager to be moving. He hadn’t even asked for a morning snack yet he was apparently so excited, although Rob did notice him eyeing the sack lunches he put into the backpack very closely. Kile had kept his mouth shut about it, but there was just a small bit of drool coming off his lip for a minute before he went back to bouncing and looking all about.
Once on the bus the teacher kept the students entertained with some songs they’d learned and by telling jokes. It was a good thing too, because the bus ride to the zoo was a good thirty-five minutes and some of the students, Kile included, were near bursting out of their seats by the time they’d arrived.
After the group had collected their tickets, and the three teachers and principal had handed out large matching necklaces with names on them so that the students could be all rounded up at the end of the trip, Mrs. Davis, Robert and their collection of four little hooligans headed off down the first trail through tall Eucalypts, pines and other trees that had been planted to shade both animals and pathways. In May the sun was warm and could make for a hot day, but the annual third grade zoo trip was always started in the morning and done by about one. The park was cool and comfortable and the animals were active. Kile was ecstatic.
“Wow, Robbie! There is an elephant! Humans keep elephants as pets?!” the troll asked.
Robert tried to step just a ways away from Mrs. Davis and the rest of the group to try to keep the awkward questions from tipping off anyone to Kile’s disguise.
“No, no,” Rob replied in muffled tones. “These aren’t pets here. I mean…they’re taken care of, but the zookeepers try to make it natural for them in their cages.”
“Hmmmm,” Kile pondered, tapping his index finger on his teeth again. “Then, why do they put them in cages at all?”
“Uh…” Robert thought the answer was self-explanatory, even to a little troll. “Because you can’t have a lion or an elephant just roaming around the United States now, can you?”
“Why not?” Kile pushed back, as they started walking again to catch up to their group.
“Well…that would be pretty dangerous. Probably for both the humans and the animals.”
“Then humans should not bring them here and leave them where they belong,” came the reply.
The conversation bantered back and forth for over five minutes while Robert felt some sort of obligation to justify why humans had zoos. Apparently, mountain trolls did not keep zoos. In fact, he learned, even the animals they use for food were all free range and permitted to live as they’d like until needed. Rob was wise enough though to stay quiet about human farms and slaughter houses. He thought that could be another hour long conversation on its own.
And then they arrived at the native animals section. Kile and Robert were suddenly surrounded on both sides by displays with big horned sheep, a bobcat, and then a larger containment that housed three wolves. One wolf strode right up to the fence where Kile and Robert were looking and the other two paced about behind it, seemingly keeping an eye out.
Kile very quietly mumbled, “They can see me.”
“Of course they can.”
“No!” Kile looked at Robert and spoke, still in a raspy whisper, more urgently. “They can see me.”
“Oh!” Rob replied and paid closer attention.
“Do you think they will give me away?” Kile said, slowly extending a hand, palm up towards the fence as far as he could reach by stepping up on the guardrail.
“No…but climbing up like that might!” Rob hissed and pulled Kile down by his shirt. “I don’t understand, can only the wolves see what you are?”
They started walking again to catch up with Mrs. Davis, just as she turned to eye them both suspiciously.
“Oh, they can all see me, Robbie,” Kile gleamed, looking up at him. “But trolls don’t really talk to bobcats, or goats much. …We eat goats though.”
Kile’s eyebrows cocked for a moment while he considered that.
“Mmm…actually, that’s maybe why goats and trolls don’t talk much.”
“Yeah, I could see how that might mess up a conversation a little,” Rob said with a smirk. “So, when you say you talk to the animals…are you saying you actually talk to the animals?”
Kile giggled in his trollish laugh as he kicked a pebble and skipped a bit on the path. “Not with words like humans, no. But we know what they are saying.”
“So…Kile…”
“Hmmm?”
“What was that wolf saying to you then?” Rob asked. He was dying to pin Kile down to some ridiculous fantasy. It was hard not to be, particularly when it was so much like talking to his doofus little brother about something he’d just made up in his head. But he was also honestly curious, or perhaps worried.
“He said he knows Dronosh,” the troll continued strolling casually towards the big cats display area. “He also said he wants out.”
“Really?” Robert scoffed.
“Yes. He does not like it in there. He says he and his mates cannot run long enough and they don’t hunt in there.”
“No, no, I mean about Dronosh!” Rob interjected.
“Oh! Yes. He knows Dronosh.”
“Well, that’s an interesting coincidence. How do you suppose a wolf that knows Dronosh ended up here at the zoo?”
“Mmm…” Kile pondered with his finger. “Maybe humans tricked him.”
Robert was a little perplexed at Kile’s casualness about it. “No, I don’t think so. But how is it the couple wolves we see in the zoo also happen to know Dronosh? Have you ever met these wolves before?”
“No. But I don’t get to talk to the wolves very much.”
“Why not?” asked Rob.
“Well…King Karapace says I provoke them,” Kile said, still casually.
“Ha!” Robert blurted out loud, surprising the other three kids and Mrs. Davis a few yards down the path looking at a lynx in its display. “I bet that’s true. By the way, your English is getting a lot better.”
Kile looked up at Robert and squished his nose and grimaced. Rob had learned in the near week Kile had been in his home that the look he’d just received from the troll was one of incense. He hadn’t meant to offend Kile, but it was likely true about the provocation bit.
“Alright, so you and the wolves don’t get along too well. But what about that wolf? I mean, if he knows Dronosh, don’t you think he probably doesn’t belong here?” Rob continued to feel out the little troll. “I mean, really. What’s the chances of meeting a wolf that you guys actually know? He shouldn’t be trapped in here.”
“Brother Robert. Dronosh is an entrance guard. He knows all the wolves.” Kile said in a very serious tone, placing his big broad troll palm up upon Robert’s shoulder and pulling him down somewhat to speak to him eye to eye. “None of these animals belong here.”
After releasing Rob’s shoulder he returned to walking casually up the path to the group. He quietly said one more thing to Robert though. “I’m going to break them out.”
Rob stopped in his tracks and hissed at Kile. “You can’t do that! If you take the wolves out someone is definitely going to figure out what you are. They’ve got video cameras here, Kile!”
“I’m going to break them all out.”
Because they had caught back up to the rest of the third grade tour group Robert didn’t say anymore, but just stewed, worrying about what Kile might do. Kile played it absolutely cool. He was casual, asked a question about the tiger pacing about in its cage, and continued on beside Mrs. Davis. He’d certainly figured out how to use human mannerisms much better since he came down the mountain with Robert the previous Saturday.