Above His Station (13 page)

King Simba flopped back into his throne and wiped behind his ears with a big furry paw, giving himself a little wash. He was purring away, but I had to yet to define whether this was a good thing or a bad thing. With cats, purring is generally a sign of contentment, but I wasn’t sure whether that extended to lions (and the Attenborough in my head was notably silent). King Simba wasn’t giving any indication that I was still going to get killed, but then he wasn’t exactly slapping me on the back congratulating me for a job well done either. So I just stood there on my little podium, shifting nervously from foot to foot.

King Simba coasted his emerald glare along the line of cats next to him (in sequence from his right to left, the obsequious ocelot and each of the two lithe lionesses). ‘Nala?’ he said to the lioness at the far end.

‘I thought it was very,
very
enjoyable to watch,’ said Nala. ‘It was a little shaky to begin with, but that’s probably just nerves. I actually thought you were going to struggle with that upper range, but once you started to feel the song, I saw your whole body relax, so it’s a definite yes from me.’ She glanced along the line to the other lioness. ‘M’Jesta?’

‘I thought you totally
smashed
it!’ M’Jesta said and the crowd applauded with gusto, chanting the lioness’s name and stomping their feet (paws) on the floor. ‘It was totally fearless, so it’s a million per cent yes from me too!’

More frenetic applause from the audience and I was starting to feel hopeful…2 down and only 2 to go…but the ocelot was next up and he and I had never seen eye to eye.

Was his to be a damning verdict?

Or had he seen something within my performance that showed potential?

‘I’ve got to say….that was brilliant,’ he said, and I sighed with relief. ‘You walked onto that stage like you owned it. It’s definitely a yes from me.’

There was a rumble of dissent amongst the audience as it was then King Simba’s turn. He leaned back in his throne as if he was bored senseless, flicking his claws in and out, barely looking me in the eyes. The crowd was on tenterhooks (as was I). Every second felt like an hour, every heartbeat a clap of thunder, every nervous bead of sweat a sudden downpour…

‘I’m going to be honest with you, human, because I think that’s important. Quite unlike M’Jesta, I didn’t think it was fantastic.’ The audience erupted into boos and jeers and catcalls (unsurprisingly). ‘I thought it was
super
-fantastic!’ The audience did a sharp U-turn and went wild. ‘I thought you made it your own, I really did. Confident, powerful…
intense
. Some of those high notes I couldn’t even reach with a step-ladder, so I’ve got to take my crown off to you. Congratulations - you’ve got four yes’s.’ And then King Simba raised his huge furry paws, signalling quiet in the enclosure. He didn’t once look at me, instead he looked around with those piercing green eyes of his, making sure that he had every cat’s attention. ‘It is clear to me now why this human was permitted to live when all his brothers perished. On the basis of tonight’s performance, I have decided to spare his life.’

I felt my legs buckle. Not only was I now not going to get killed after all, but if this mission to fix mankind didn’t work out, I might still be able to apply for a residency on the Big Cat stage three nights a week, so every cloud…

‘More than that,’ continued King Simba, ‘I decree that he shall be sent forth from this place towards his goal.’ And then the lion looked directly at me, whilst still addressing his subjects. ‘What he discovers will not be an easy burden to bear, and he may wish that he had shared his brothers’ punishment. Farewell, last human of Earth. May you find what you seek…and may your god help you when you do.’

‘But…find what, Your Majesty? Find it where?’ I enquired.

‘You will go to the Reptile House,’ advised the King. ‘There you will learn from Astrid, and she will guide your next steps. I wish you good luck, human.’

I bowed my head and took my leave. I’d made it just in time too, for as I climbed up the ladder to the observation level above and out of the metal cage, the door swung shut behind me and I watched the light on the access panel turn from green to red.

I could not relax fully until after we had made it back outside. I looked up at the dark sky above my head; grey, depressing, prone to outbreaks of thunder - exactly how I felt.

‘That was so much fun!’ said the rat, crawling out from its hiding place now that we were in the clear. ‘I’ll say this for you, Gramps, you’ve got balls of steel. What’s it like going toe-to-toe with a lion and living to brag about it?’

‘You won’t catch me doing it again, let’s put it that way!’ I said, out of breath. ‘But you’re the one that deserves all the credit.’

‘Oh, stop it.’

‘I’m being serious!’ I insisted. ‘That was a fantastic idea. And your singing voice is surprisingly good for such tiny lungs.’

‘I missed my vocation,’ said the rat. ‘My Gramma always told me I should pursue it as a career, but I guess I was just too afraid of rejection.’

‘You?
Afraid?
’ I laughed. ‘Now that I find hard to believe.’

‘I’ll tell you something else I’m afraid of…reptiles,’ said the rat. ‘Snakes, most of all.’

‘Isn’t that going to be a problem considering where we need to go?’ I asked.

‘I guess I’ll just have to brave it. We don’t have much choice, do we?’

‘No, I suppose not,’ I said. ‘And you’re not the only one that wishes we did.’

9

The Reptile House was less than five minutes’ walk through the zoo from the Big Cat enclosure. Along the way, I noticed that all the congregations of animals that had been milling about previously were thinning out, and now only a few foxes, dogs and cats were around. As well as the odd vole or mouse trying to avoid the prowling owls that swooped like Spitfires. That made me feel somewhat safer, even if that position was only relative to the great big mess that I had found myself in. According to King Simba, the catastrophic event that had affected not just London but the whole world had been caused intentionally, and moreover, it had been orchestrated with intent to punish mankind. Why he/she/they/it had singled me out for immunity, I did not know. I wondered if that was significant in some way. I could imagine how Molly would laugh at such a thing.

“
Oh, you silly old goat, do you think the Universe revolves around you?
” she would have said. “Now
stop worrying and just do what you have to do!”
She was very much like that, my Molly. Very practical. That’s one of the reasons why I married her. She balanced me out nicely. I was always one to think too deeply about things, whereas Molly was so slight that she barely left footprints, content to flitter from place to place on a whim. I hated whims. Whims required no planning and adhered to no pre-defined schedule, one step shy of making things up as you went along. Molly was always trying to get me to ‘
go with the flow
’ as she put it. I didn’t know where ‘the flow’ was going, but for me it always seemed to be in the opposite direction to where I wanted to go.

*

We arrived at the Reptile House; a place that (with any luck) held answers to so many questions, according to a self-proclaimed king of the jungle, any rate. I was clueless what to do for the best, so I would have rather taken the word of a talking lion than have to walk into that place with no plan whatsoever.

The rat wasn’t its usual chatty self.

‘Something on your mind?’ I asked it.

‘Me? No, I’m cool. In fact, I’m cooler than cool. I’m ice cool.
Ouch
! I just bit my lip and gave myself a freezer burn. That’s how cool I am. Why?’

‘No reason,’ I said, smiling to myself. ‘It’s just…you seem a little distant.’

‘I’m sat right here on your shoulder!’

‘That’s not what I meant,’ I said. ‘I know we’ve only been friends for-’

‘
Friends?
’ interrupted the rat. ‘Is that what we are?’

I shrugged. ‘I…I think so. We get along, don’t we?’

The rat grinned. ‘Yeah, I guess we do. Who’d have thought it, eh? A streetwise rat and an old dude. In fact,
the
old dude…the oldest dude in the World.’

‘On second thoughts, friends don’t remind each other how old they are,’ I said.

‘Okay then,’ said the rat. ‘If we’re not friends then what am I to you exactly?’

‘My partner,’ I said.

‘Too camp.’

‘My buddy,’ I said.

‘Too American.’

‘My sidekick then,’ I said.

‘Too Batman…which doubles up as too camp if we’re talking the Adam West version.’

‘All right, so do you really want to know what you are?’ I asked it. ‘You’re not just my friend. Right now you’re my
only
friend, which in my book makes you my best friend by default.’

‘Best friend? Really?’ said the rat. ‘So you promise you won’t let anything eat me?’

‘I’ll do my very best,’ I said, looking up at the sign above the entrance to the Reptile House, decorated with pictures of all sorts of lizards, snakes, iguanas and crocodiles.

Just then, for some reason I felt afraid, yet I didn’t know why. I wasn’t scared of reptiles in the slightest. Now, had we been directed to visit the spiders I might have understood, but this was a new feeling to me. And furthermore, I
knew
that it was new; as if I had only just recalled a forgotten memory, one in which I feared reptiles (snakes most of all). So far that day I had faced a ravenous tiger, a pack of wolves, two silverback gorillas and an enclosure full of big cats. Why was I so nervous? The snakes would all be behind glass, so I’d be as safe as fucking houses.

I stopped dead in my tracks.

What was that??? I rarely use the ‘F’ word in my daily vocabulary, so why did I feel the need to then? It was quite out of character. I put it down to the stresses of the day and trained my mind back onto the task at hand. For this, I would need all my wits about me.

I pulled open the doors to the Reptile House and walked into the foyer. As luck would have it, on a podium next to the ticket booth there was a Visitors’ Guide with a handy illustrated map of the whole place.

The Reptile House consisted of several large rooms connected by fibreglass-moulded tunnels, with lots of video screens presenting interesting facts, as well as a variety of interactive exhibits for the kids. Lining both sides of the first tunnel were lots of glass tanks with strange beasts in every one. Eerie music was coming from concealed speakers set in the low ceiling and I walked through the area slowly so that I could read the names of the tanks’ inhabitants, searching for this mysterious ‘
Astrid
’ that was supposed to guide me. It was like walking along Death Row and the reptiles in the tanks were all glaring at me.

‘
The tuatara is a native reptile of New Zealand
,’ I read aloud from the plaque fixed to the wall by the side of one of the tanks. The lizard inside was mottled with patches of light and dark green, with a row of spines along its back, looking for all the world just like a miniature dinosaur. ‘It says here that its name comes from the Maori, meaning “
peaks on the back
”.’

‘Fascinating, but can we just find this Astral chick and get going?’ said the rat.

‘It’s
Astrid
,’ I corrected it. ‘And I don’t know why you’re so jumpy. It also says that one of the biggest threats to the tuataras’ natural habitat is the rat, would you believe?’

‘I don’t like the way it’s looking at me,’ said the rat. ‘It’s like it’s holding me personally responsible for the crimes of my species.’

‘As unfamiliar with modern slang as I am, I think the correct response is ‘
Welcome to my world
’. Now come along,’ I said. ‘Without anything more detailed to go on as to what Astrid looks like, we’re going to have to inspect every one of these tanks. It would have been more helpful if King Simba had told us what
species
to look for.’

‘King Simba?’ said a voice from across the tunnel and I hurried over to find another lizard, a bearded dragon this time. It was quite a funny little thing to look at, with a blade of skin running along the length of its back and down its long tail. 

‘You know King Simba?’ I asked the lizard.

‘Hell, everybody knows
him
,’ it replied. ‘Lording it up over at the cat house, thinking he’s all that and the bomb dot com! Why? You a pal of his or something?’

‘Not really,’ I said. ‘In fact, only a few minutes ago he was going to kill me.’

‘That sounds like Simba,’ said the lizard. ‘He likes to throw his weight around, that one. He’s even got the gorillas jumping through hoops!’

The rat sniggered. ‘Shouldn’t that be the dolphins?’

The lizard shot out its long tongue, leaving a globule of unidentified mess on the glass, and the rat darted back under my anorak’s collar.

‘Look,’ I said, getting back on track, ‘we’re trying to find Astrid. I don’t suppose you know where we can find her, do you?’

The bearded dragon nodded. ‘I do, as it goes.’ It pointed its bladed tail up. ‘Second floor is where you’ll find all the snakes.’

‘Snakes,’ whispered my furry companion. ‘Why did it have to be snakes?’

‘But I warn you, human, Astrid is as mad as a box of crickets,’ said the lizard. ‘She talks like she’s from another frickin’ planet to the rest of us!’

‘Second floor, you say? Jolly good,’ I said, moving away quickly.

Consulting the Visitors’ Guide, I walked through the darkly-lit tunnels and past yet more lizards staring at me as if I’d done something wrong. In front of me was a steep double staircase but my muscles refused to speak to me for all the trouble I’d put them through, so it took a while to coax them to perform.

‘I’m getting too old for this shit,’ I said, huffing and puffing as I mounted the stairs.

‘Class film,’ said the rat.

‘Excuse me?’

‘You just did a quote from
Lethal Weapon
,’ the rat informed me.