June passed into July, and by then Harry had quite the menagerie hiding in their backyard. There were the old-timers, Dab-Dab and Gub-Gub, Scrits and SSLL, Bap and Rib, and in addition he now had four chickens, two hedgehogs, an old, grizzled poodle called Jib, twenty-six mice, a monkey named Chee-Chee, and an owl named Too-Too. How his family didn't notice them all was a mystery. How his aunt didn't notice the food disappearing for their afternoon teas was a wonder. He could only imagine she thought it was Dudley and Vernon sneaking snacks since she had them yet again on a diet.
No one noticed anything until the crocodile.
Scrubs, the crocodile, had escaped from the Circus the moment he heard about Doctor Dolittle in number 4, Privet Drive, who cared for all animals. Poor Scrubs suffered from continuous headaches. It started each morning when he saw his trainer and didn't let up until nighttime, after the performance, when he got to bed. Harry soon worked out it was because he was constantly told what to do, just like uncle Vernon was at work, and he encouraged Scrubs to go on a holiday. Uncle Vernon certainly enjoyed holidays where he did nothing but stay on the couch. Perhaps he'd like the beach?
But Scrubs didn't like saltwater, he was an African crocodile; he saw how all the animals in Harry's garden enjoyed their life and asked if he could live with Harry instead. Harry thought of his aunt who would have a conniption if she saw a crocodile in her garden, and he wondered how he would be able to sneak off with all the bacon Scrubs would need for breakfast, but he hadn't the heart to say no. So he said yes.
Then came the issue of where exactly Scrubs would fit. The Tupperware lake behind the Ramanus Roses was much too small for Scrubs; he wouldn't be able to dip more than a leg in it and besides, Bap was already living on the muddy bottom. Scrubs didn't enjoy the smell of pumpkins in the vegetable patch. Scrits's children were too noisy in the oak tree. After trying everything, he explained that he was used to sleeping with the circus artists in comfortable beds, so Harry snuck him into his cupboard when his family was watching the telly.
"Your mother was something, but you are quite something else," said Harry's aunt the next morning when she finished screaming, having opened the cupboard door to find him cuddling up to a crocodile.
"Was she?" Harry asked curiously; she never talked about her sister. "Was my mother something else? Did she not like animals then?"
"Oh, she did," Petunia said darkly. "They were all animals, if you ask me."
Harry still had no idea that words could sound like one thing and mean another—you learned that in second grade—and he was only too happy to hear that his mum had loved animals too.
"What will we do with you?" his aunt asked, holding a hand to her pale forehead. "It's bad enough we have to suffer with you, and now this?"
Harry did not know how to help his aunt. Next to him, Scrubs tapped his tail and fiddled his hind-claws, which meant he said, "Can I eat her?"
"No!" Harry hissed.
"Why not?" Scrubs asked, blinking and grinning. "I'm hungry, and it's always better to eat the nasty ones first; that way you do a service, making the world a better place to live in."
Harry was all ready to discuss this, and Petunia was all ready to wake Vernon to call pest control, when Chee-Chee came rushing into the house.
"Doctor Dolittle!" the monkey screeched, and Harry's aunt gave one shrill shriek and finally reached her limit. She fainted right away when Chee-Chee bounced over the sofa. "I've just had a message from a cousin of mine in Africa. They need your help!"
She swung from the ceiling lights and rolled around the floor, screeching and scratching, which all meant: "There's a terrible sickness among the monkeys in Africa. They are all dying in the hundreds." And she explained that they had heard about Harry all the way to Africa and were asking him to go help.
His aunt woke up, saw the monkey was still there, and fainted again.
"Who told you this?" Harry asked Chee-Chee. He knew Africa was very far, having learned all about it from his animal friends, and he didn't think monkeys would use the phone.
"A swallow," she said. "She's out in the oak."
"Okay." He was watching his aunt who seemed to be waking again and thought quickly. "Why don't you go make her a jammy bread, she must be very hungry, and I'll ask my aunt if I can go to Africa."
Vernon came down in search of breakfast, saw Scrubs, saw Petunia lying on the floor, imagined she was dead, and fainted also. Harry and Scrubs sat down on the sofa and waited for them to wake up together.
"You want to go to Africa?!" his aunt shouted when Harry finished telling her he was needed there. "Don't be silly!" She and Vernon was sitting on the sofa opposite them, and they were hugging each other and trembling each time Scrubs gave a toothy smile. He had many teeth.
"Yes," Harry said and explained, "The monkeys are too sick to come here, you see?"
"And do you expect us to go with you?" Vernon asked horrified. "With-with that?!" he pointed a fat finger at Scrubs.
"I don't mind if you want to stay," Harry said quickly. It was true. He didn't. "I'll take Chee-Chee and Scrubs with me."
"And us!" Dab-Dab called from where she was listening at the door with the rest.
Petunia and Vernon were extremely shocked to see all the animals in their house and needed over an hour to get over it, but luckily they didn't faint again.
"I say we should let them go," Petunia said in a tremulous voice when she got her wits back.
"Do you expect them to walk there, Pet?" Vernon asked. "They'd not manage to get two blocks before someone called Social. And it's across the ocean too! They'd need a boat."
"A boat!" Petunia said. "Exactly! We'll buy a boat and send them to Africa!"
She thought it was a splendid idea. Harry would be far away before any social workers could bring him back, and, let's be honest, a five-year-old alone in Africa? They would never see him again—everyone knew Africa was a wild place where gorillas adopted orphans. Gorillas wouldn't care about her nephew's… quirks. It took her no time to convince Vernon. It went even faster when SSLL poked his head out of Harry's pocket, finally waking up.
So that was what they did. The animals decided, Scrubs, Chee-Chee, Bap, Rib, Dab-Dab, Too-Too, Gub-Gub, Jib, SSLL, the sparrow, and Harry would go to Africa. The rest of the animals were small; they would miss their jammy tea afternoons but would be fine to stay behind and live off the land. When that was decided, the crocodile, frog, and the lizard began to sing and dance because they would be going back to their real home.
Chee-Chee took charge in organising since she had been on a boat before.
"We will need things," she said, "to survive." And Harry relayed it to his Aunt.
"We must have plenty of hard biscuits," Chee-Chee insisted. "And beef in cans and an anchor."
"I imagine the ship will have its own anchor," Petunia said faintly when she heard this. Chee-Chee told Harry he must make sure of it anyway, and added that they would also need a bell and lots and lots of rope.
"Why the bell?" Harry wanted to know. He wanted to know about everything, and was starting to feel excited about the trip. If he wasn't so worried about all the sick monkeys he would also be singing from happiness.
"To tell the time by," said the monkey. "You ring it every half hour, and then you know what the time is. And tell her to buy a captain's hat for you; no one listens if you don't wear a hat."
Harry nodded. That made sense. He relayed all this to his aunt and asked her to buy medicine too. Lots. Enough for a few hundred monkeys. His aunt started to ask where Harry thought she would get the money for all of this, but Scrubs knew women like her from his days in the circus, so he showed his teeth and she went shopping.
Then Harry packed his book and his clothes, gathered his friends, said goodbye to everyone that stayed behind, and took the train with his aunt and uncle to Seacliff.
"We're from the circus," Aunt Petunia told the ticket seller, a high, unhappy flush to her cheeks. She disliked anything out of the ordinary with a passion and this certainly was that.
"We're taking them back to the zoo," Uncle Vernon told the passengers when they asked why a crocodile was sitting next to them.
"And they feed them jammy sandwiches at the zoo, do they?" an old man dressed in odd clothes asked suspiciously.
Petunia and Vernon was tired of answering questions by now and pretended they didn't hear him.
"Do you want one too?" Harry asked where he was sharing sandwiches out. He passed the sandwich-box to the old man. "We've got extra."
"Don't mind if I do."
They ate in a companionable silence, broken only by various chewing sounds, and the old man didn't ask any more questions and took a nap after.
Seacliff was the smallest harbour Petunia could find. No more than twelve meters long and two metres across, it was a one man harbour, and Petunia Dursley chose it because she thought one spectator was more than enough. They had to rent a car at the station and drive through the woods to get there, and the last bit needed them to go on foot. Down the beach they slithered and hopped and waddled and trudged. First went Vernon, then came Harry, after him his friends, everyone carrying some part of their supplies, and at the very end was Petunia, making sure no one was left behind. They passed smelly lobster pots and stared in awe at the high waves, rushing at the cliffs. Ahead, one small blue and white ship lay in the harbour, and the animals chittered excited that it was just the right size. Harry agreed that it looked lovely.
"We're going to Africa!" Dab-Dab pattered with her feet.
"We're going to Africa!" Rib, ribbited where he sat on her back, taking a breather, for it was a hot afternoon.
"We're going to Africa!" Chee-Chee cackled.
"We're going home!" Bap waggled his tail, slithered his belly, and winked with a happy tear in his eye.
By the time they came to the harbour, Vernon was thoroughly vexed from the sun, sand, and the animal noises at his back, and when he asked the old captain how much his ship would cost, he did not raise an eyebrow at the exorbitant price and paid it out of his pocket there and then. It was nearly all their savings. So what if there would be no family holidays for the next three years? There would be no Harry which was a boon, he thought.
"Here now," the old captain said when only Harry and the animals climbed aboard. "What's this?"
"We're going to Africa," Harry said, putting his captain's hat on. "Thank you for your ship."
"Wait a minute," the captain called when Chee-Chee scrambled up the mast. "This is not right! You cannot go alone!"
"Who says?" Vernon Dursley asked and pushed the ship with a great big grunt into the water. He nearly fell in after but the captain and Petunia caught him in time and only his nose got wet. The ship released from the system of pulleys and weights that was keeping it from bumping against the steep vertical sides of the cliffs, and splashed into the water. It looked much too big to exit the small harbour but astonishingly it managed to do so without a hitch.
"Bye, Aunt Petunia!" Harry called as they sailed away. "Bye, Uncle Vernon!"
"Good riddance," Petunia said.
"Go away," Vernon muttered.
"Come back!" the captain called. "Come back right now!"
But they didn't turn the ship around. They were already too far to hear.