CHAPTER 3
“I miss my brother,” Tubthumper said one morning, as we were gathered at the waterhole—something we animals normally did at that time of the day. Wanderlust had led Tubthumper to join us on our trip to Zenia. She had never been out of Africa before in her life, and had wanted to see something new.
“Chum irritates me sometimes, but still . . .” she trailed off.
Tubthumper calls her brother Chumbawumba ‘Chum’ for short, and he affectionately and teasingly calls her ‘Tubby.’ Truth be told, he is considerably larger than she is, but they are both surprisingly svelte considering their bone structure.
“I know what you mean, Tubthumper,” Drako said. “I would like to go back to Australia to see Yookie again. I miss that old leaf-eater.”
At first, I had a hard time sympathizing with how Tubthumper and Drako felt. I had no yearnings to go back to Oconomowoc, Wisconsin—I guess that’s because I have no real memories of life prior to going to live with Albert. You can’t miss what you don’t remember. Albert and my friends around me here—that is to say Tubthumper, Drako, Stripes, and Marmalade—were all that I felt I needed at the time.
Marmalade’s mindset was similar to mine. Her best friend was her “big brother” Stripes. She always wanted to be wherever he was; location or geography didn’t matter much to her.
As for Stripes, prior to “adopting” Marmalade as his little sister, he had always kept more or less to himself, and for that reason he had no burning desire to go back to India, either. He said so in his calm, low voice, which made Marmalade happy. She was content to stay in Zenia forever, as long as Stripes was with her.
On hearing India spoken of in particular, though, something stirred in me, although I couldn’t make out just what it was, at first. I stood there, kind of dazed, and gazed off into the distance, trying to figure out what it was that was bothering me all of a sudden.
“Oh my ears and whiskers, look at Taterskin!” Marmalade said. “What’s wrong with him? What is he looking at?”
Marmalade’s voice came to my normally hypersensitive ears as if from a long distance away, or from underwater. She sounded like fish do when they’re whispering to each other at the bottom of a lake. So it took a little while before what she had said sunk in, and for me to understand what she meant by it.
Still feeling a little day-dreamy, I finally answered, “I was thinking . . .”
“Yes?” Marmalade prodded me.
“Do you remember that dog I talked to in India—the one who told us where to find Warble and Mary and the others?” I asked.
Marmalade remembered her, and thought she recollected the dog’s name as being Spotella, or Buddalina, or Fidette, or . . .
That was enough for me to recall her name: Rovette!
Thinking about her, I felt something stirring deep within me that I had never before experienced. I didn’t know what it was, exactly. It was confusing. I couldn’t tell if I was happy or sad when I thought about Rovette.
Do you know how it is when you try a new type of food, and you can’t tell at first whether you like it or not? When I have something new to eat, I know right away that I have an opinion about it—or will—but sometimes I can’t decide right away whether I love it or hate it.
Have you had that experience? That’s how I felt about this memory of Rovette. Was it a sweet memory, or a bitter one? If sweet, then why did I feel this confusing terror of possible impending loss? If bitter, why could I muster up no humanosity against her?
By the way, ‘Humanosity’ is the word we animals use when a human would say ‘animosity’ (by which they mean strong hostility). After all, it is humans, not animals, who are unkind to one another in that they lie, cheat, pollute the environment, and wage warfare.
I tried to explain these feelings to my friends, but realized I wasn’t making myself clear as I groped for the words to express myself.
Never before had I felt so confused. Surprisingly, it was the loner Stripes, of all animals, who figured out what was going on with me.
You can listen to Chapter 3 here:
The book is available here.