The studio was so dark I could see little in its cavernous space, only the set itself where AnnaLee Harris, wearing enough makeup to sink the
Titanic
all over again, sat under glaring lights on a small sofa. She was holding a book up to the camera. Across from her sat a bewildered-looking elderly man, whom I took to be the author.
“As Mr. Greenwald here has so movingly pointed out,” AnnaLee was saying, an unsettling smile on her face. “
Growing Up on an Arkansas Chicken Farm,
which he will be signing today at noon at the Book Beast in San Sebastian, makes delightful reading for those who wish to return to those less-pressured days of yesteryear…”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say less pressured…” the author began, then a voice in the darkness interrupted him. “And we’re out for commercial!”
The smile left AnnaLee’s face as she turned away from the author like he no longer existed. “Next!” she snapped to Suzi.
Suzi rushed forward, hauled the author off the sofa and pushed him toward the Green Room. Once he’d disappeared, muttering to himself, she said to Bernice, “Give whatshername the bear now.”
“Teddy. Koala.” Bernice opened Wanchu’s cage.
As Bernice picked her up, Wanchu gave a grunt and opened her eyes.
Where in the world am I
? she appeared to be thinking. When Bernice handed her to me, she snuggled against my neck and fell back asleep.
“Get over there,” Suzi said, shoving me toward the sofa. “You’re on in thirty seconds.”
For a moment, I panicked. “What’ll I say?”
“Follow AnnaLee’s lead. And for God’s sake, do what you’re told. If you don’t, she’ll take it out on me.”
Another shove, and suddenly there I was, sitting on the sofa with twenty pounds of dozing koala wrapped around my neck, staring at a red light on a camera that seemed to be looking up my nose.
“Five, four, three, two…” Suzi counted.
“Welcome back to
Good Morning, San Sebastian
!” crowed AnnaLee, smiling again. Then, as if someone had flipped on the Sadness Switch, her face assumed a tragic expression. “As KTSS-TV reported yesterday, the accidental drowning of my dear, dear friend Koala Kate, everyone’s favorite zookeeper, has profoundly affected us all. I first met Kate when…” AnnaLee continued to describe Kate in such glowing terms that I suspected she’d not known her outside the studio.
When she turned to me, her mad smile was back. “But now the baton has passed to my new friend…” She checked her notes, “…zookeeper Theodora Esmeralda Iona Bentley, but who prefers to be known as plain old ‘Teddy.’ Tell me, Teddy, are you one of the famous Gunn Landing Bentleys?”
Oh, dear. Surely she wouldn’t ask about my father. “Uh, yes, I am.”
“Well, I’m certain that you had no knowledge of your father’s criminal activities, but tell me…”
Oh, crap. “No knowledge whatsoever, AnnaLee, and look whom I’ve brought you today. Wanchu, one of the Gunn Zoo’s most popular koalas! Now let me tell you about this adorable Australian marsupial. As I’m certain you know, a koala’s diet consists purely of eucalyptus leaves, which makes them difficult to care for in most zoos, but our zoo is fortunate in that the Gunn estate has a large blue gum eucalyptus forest situated right next door.” Before she could start up on my father again, I jiggled Wanchu awake. As she gazed sleepily around, I continued jabbering about koalas and their rapidly diminishing natural habitat.
Just as I finished describing a koala’s backwards-facing pouch, Wanchu roused herself, loosened her sphincter, and deposited a load on my lap. It didn’t faze me. “One of the great things about taking care of koalas like Wanchu is that they’re so easy to clean up after. See how tidy their fecal pellets are? Why, you just brush them away like cookie crumbs!”
Smiling madly away, AnnaLee turned to the camera. “And now a word from our sponsor, Harmon’s Boat Works at Gunn Landing Harbor. You sink ’em, Harmon resurrects ’em.”
Bernice sprang forward, and with a paper towel, cleaned the koala pellets off my lap. Wanchu, deciding that she’d done enough work for one day, started snoring again.
“Do koalas always sleep this much?” AnnaLee said, when we went back on the air.
“From nineteen to twenty hours a day. If you want to see an active koala, visit the Gunn Zoo in late afternoon. That’s when they wake up and bounce around. We have two koalas, by the way, Wanchu here, and her mate, Nyee. We’re very hopeful that one day we’ll have a baby koala—known as a pup, by the way—to increase the Gunn Zoo’s koala population to three.”
“Fascinating.”
I jiggled Wanchu. “Wake up, pretty girl, and tell the viewers hello.”
As if on cue, Wanchu opened her eyes, stared at the glowing red light, and said, “Eeep!”
“Awwwww!” the studio technicians chorused.
Gratified, Wanchu went back to sleep.
Recognizing that Wanchu’s act was over, AnnaLee asked, “What else have you brought for us, Teddy?”
Bernice rushed forward, snatched Wanchu away, then returned with Malka-Malka, the numbat. Unlike Wanchu, the non-marsupial numbat was wide awake and wriggling his snout in curiosity.
More
awwwww
’s from the dark shapes in the studio.
“My, he’s a lively one!” AnnaLee said. “What’s his story?”
While the squirrel-sized Malka-Malka struggled in my lap—I suspected he wanted to play with AnnaLee’s flappy artificial eyelashes—I gave the viewers a condensed version of numbat lore, ending with a segue I thought quite clever. “Because of a numbat’s diet, which consists almost entirely of termites, you could call them Australia’s version of a giant anteater. And as I’m sure you know, KTSS viewers, the Gunn Zoo is holding a naming contest for the giant anteater’s baby. Whoever wins gets a free one-year pass to the zoo, so mail in those entries today!”
Another mad smile from AnnaLee. “And now a word from our sponsor, The Foot Fetish, more than two hundred sexy styles, located in beautiful downtown San Sebastian.”
As soon as the red light blinked off, AnnaLee leaned forward and scratched Malka-Malka on the head. He thanked her by embracing her wrist with his long, sticky tongue, then struggled toward her eyelashes. Before he could reach them, Bernice sprang forward again, wiped numbat spittle off AnnaLee’s hand, and with a lightening-quick movement, snatched him up. A few seconds later she staggered onto the set lugging Tuang. The wombat looked barely conscious. By now my earlier anxiety had vanished, and although Tuang was obviously no adolescent—he had to weigh at least forty pounds—I settled him as comfortably as possible in my lap.
“Back again, this time with something called a wombat!” AnnaLee couldn’t have sounded more exited if she’d just won the Powerball. “Tell us about that big boy, Teddy! He looks like a giant gopher!”
As Tuang dozed peacefully, I ruffled his thick fur and delivered a basic run-down on Southern hairy-nosed wombat habits and habitat. They were grass-grazing, burrowing marsupials, and like koalas, seldom drank water because they received most of their moisture needs from plant life. Wombats were like koalas in another way, too, in that they were rapidly losing so much of their native habitat that their species had become highly endangered. Once during my spiel, Tuang roused himself enough to crap on my lap, but I didn’t mind because it gave me another talking point.
“See Tuang’s fecal matter, AnnaLee? Unlike the koala’s, it’s cube-shaped and is about the size of gambling dice. Cool, huh? Scientists believe this unusual shape keeps the fecal matter from rolling away on a slope, thus aiding wild wombats to successfully mark their territory. But kids, don’t try making fecal cubes at home!”
“Uh, and now a word from our sponsors, Cappuccino & Chowder.”
I was feeling good. Confident. Knowledgeable. A credit to Gunn Zoo. A keeper able to work on live TV, regardless of whatever organic matter an animal deposited on me. But I’d forgotten an important life lesson. During my teen years at Miss Pridewell’s Academy for Young Ladies, I’d been taught that the Greeks called this kind of confidence
hubris
, known to us contemporary folk as the pride which goeth before a fall. Alas, I’d been so thrilled with my interview skills that I neglected to remain cautious, because away went the placid Tuang and here came Abim the wallaby. Looking alert, he hopped slowly ahead of Bernice, with a blue rhinestone-studded leash attached to his matching collar. Goody, he wouldn’t defecate on my lap; he’d go on the floor.
Bernice handed me the leash. “Better be carefu…”
“We’re back!” AnnaLee trilled, flapping those immense eyelashes as the red light blinked on and Bernice faded tactfully into the shadows. “Oh, look what we have here! A baby kangaroo! You folks sitting at your breakfast tables or sipping your full-bodied coffee drink at the nearest Cappuccino & Chowder location, isn’t he simply the most adorable thing? And look at his pretty collar and leash! Why, they’re just as sparkly as he is! Teddy, I’m going to walk him…”
Before I could explain that Abim was a full-grown wallaby and not a baby kangaroo, and say that no, of course I wouldn’t let a stranger walk him, AnnaLee snatched the leash from my hand and stood up. She made it two steps from the sofa before all hell broke loose.
After one tentative hop, Abim looked behind him only to see that neither Bernice nor I held the other end of his leash. Instead, his handler was a vividly dressed, garish-cheeked creature with flapping eyelashes the size of an Australian bird-eating spider. With a coughing sound—the wallaby version of “Holy shit!”—Abim gathered himself and gave a great, arcing leap, ripping the leash from AnnaLee’s hand. Once loose, he bounded off the well-lit set and into the darkness beyond, fear-coughing as he went.
I flashed a quick smile at the red light, and with an Aussie accent, yipped, “Crikey, mates! Wallaby on the loose!” Leaving AnnaLee looking at her empty hand as if she hadn’t yet figured out what had just happened, I hurried after him, Bernice following close behind.
Once out of the spotlight’s glare, it took a moment for my eyes to grow accustomed to the relative darkness. I was kept apprized of Abim’s general whereabouts by the series of shrieks and curses spreading throughout the studio. Keeping silent myself, since my voice would simply add more noise to the chaos, I quick-stepped toward the loudest screams. Considering that the wallaby was so small, it was surprising to see two grown men cowering in the corner. What did they think Abim was going to do? Nibble their pinkies with his tiny teeth? Hoping to quell their whimpering because it would further frighten the wallaby, I put my finger to my lips. At that, the duo fell silent. One even made an excuse for his wussiness, saying, “Oh, we were just getting out of his way.”
Only one cameraman remained at his post, pivoting his camera to follow the wallaby’s hopping progress through the studio. Oops; make that camera
woman.
Taking my cue from the direction in which her camera was pointing, I spotted Abim hopping toward a glowing red
EXIT
sign. Fortunately, a line of desks barred his way.
No problem for the wallaby. Abim did what wallabies are famous for. He gave his greatest leap yet and bounded onto the center desk, sending papers and coffee mugs flying.
“Huh-huh! Huh-huh!”
he coughed, his distress growing.
His feet started a tap-dance, another sign of wallaby terror. After splashing coffee all over the room, he leapt down to the ground and continued bounding his way toward the
EXIT
sign as if he was trying to get back to the zoo.
But before Abim could reach the door, he caught his leash between two of the many cables that snaked across the floor. His head disappeared briefly from sight. Then I heard another cough, followed by a straining grunt, then a crash. Freed, Abim appeared again, hopping on until he managed to trap himself in the corner by the EXIT door. His chest heaved in and out, and his forepaws trembled. I knew that if I approached him, it would frighten him even further, and I didn’t want the poor thing to have a heart attack, which had been known to happen with terrified animals.
Then I remembered something. Abim was an adult wallaby, but during times of fear even the adults often regress and seek security in anything that resembled a pouch. Keeping my voice low, I said to Bernice, “Bring me that burlap sack from his carrier.”
“Gotcha,” she whispered back, then tiptoed away.
Mere seconds later Bernice was back, sack in hand. Humming the tune to “Waltzing Matilda”—marsupials particularly liked my rendition—I unfolded it slowly, facing the dark opening toward Abim.
“Hey, baby,” I murmured. “Come to Mama’s big, soft pouch.”
The wallaby blinked at the sack a couple of times, then looked around nervously. Except for the camerawoman still filming, the now-silent station crew remained frozen in place.
Abim cocked his head and gave a tentative hop forward.
Encouraged, I began to sing.
“Waltzing Abim-boy, waltzing Abim-boy
You’ll come a-waltzing Abim-boy, with me.
And he sang as he shoved that jumbuck in his tucker bag,
You’ll come a-waltzing Abim-boy, with me.”
Another hop and he was in.
As the camera crew erupted into applause, I closed the sack, handed Abim off to Bernice, then walked back to AnnaLee with the camerawoman swiveling to follow me.
“And that’s how you catch a runaway wallaby, mates,” I said, smiling at the red light.
After returning to the zoo, Bernice and I left the animals in the Animal Care Center for Dr. Francks to check out, then she made her way back to Monkey Mania. I headed up to the administration building, where I found the zoo director eating her way through a cheese-and-anchovy pizza while the squirrel monkeys watched from the other side of the window.