Brother Bear 4
Jack went up to the sewing room, where Andy was sleeping. This wasn't where Andy usually slept. He usually bunked with the two youngest boys, Little Pete and Bob. Sissy had thought everyone would sleep better in separate rooms. She was probably right. If the strange whale-call like sounds of Andy's sobbing hadn't kept the other two awake, the chemical smell might have.
He poked his muzzle into the room and the smell was very much like deep fried, sweaty gym socks.
Andy was quiet now, well, quieter. The door squeaked a little and he gave what amounted to a brave little sniffle for a Reptile. Reptiles were not generally as overloaded with excess body fluids as the Warm Blooded. Warm or cold, no little boy liked being caught crying.
Jack felt very bad for the boy; but he could at least do this one thing. He pushed his face in deeper.
"Andy, are you awake?"
The little green head shook itself no.
"Oh, that's too bad." Jack said quietly. "I wanted to tell you about this thing that happened today. My partner, Bole Brown, and I were walking our beat, flirting with all the pretty girl we saw... when we heard gun shots. We saw two guys run out of the store a block and a half from us... there were a cat and a gut.. um, no I'm sorry, one was a cat and the other a Lemur, and we could tell they were the bad guys because they had guns in one hand and money in the other. So, we gave chase and, we almost caught up but we were out of breath and Bole fell -SPLAT! – onto the sidewalk. But, just before the bad guys could get away, a great big green and blue streak cut them off."
That got Andy to turn his head. Jack flinched when he saw how hard it was for the little tortoise to turn his body with the stiff shell on his back.
"The bad guys shot at the streak and it threw the bullets back at them half speed. And then it ran around them so fast, the bad guys got dizzy and knocked themselves out. By the time I helped Bole up, Fastback was standing there with the bad guys all tied up with a big blue bow around them."
In the little bit of light coming into the sewing room through the door, Jack could not make out the expression on Andy's face. He was attentive, but Jack sensed that maybe he was dubious. Maybe he thought his "Uncle Jack" was mocking him or humoring him. Maybe the bow was overdoing it; it seemed like something a superhero would do in a comic book.
"So, Fastback gave a statement to me and he gave Bole his phone number. And then he ran off, right up the side of a building."
"I got his phone number, too" Andy said, in a very, very quiet voice and then held out his little green hand where there was a slightly worn business card. It looked like Andy had been making a fist over it all day.
Jack held out his hand, and Andy's hand moved back a fraction of an inch. "May I?" Jack said and Andy nodded, letting Jack gently take it from his hand. It was a business card all right. Jack stepped into the sewing room and closed the door behind him. He turned on the light as he studied the card.
Robert Menke
Director of Public Relations
Direct Current Publications
555-212-5504
"Can I write this number down?" Jack said, "In case I need it?"
Andy nodded, his face serious. His eyes were extremely red. Jack wondered if most of that was the smell.
He jotted down the number in his note book. He felt very cubcop at the moment, ready to solve a minor mystery. He handed the card back to Andy, who read it again, and closed his fist around it protectively. "You know, if you keep doing that," Jack said gently, "You'll rub all the letters off."
Andy started and gave it one last look. Then he held it out again with reflectance. "I was supposed to give this to Mr. Hewitt, but things got bad really fast and the other boys were mean to me."
Jack took the card. "I'll give it to your foster dad," Jack said, sitting down on stacked bolts of fabric. "Do you want to tell me what happened today."
Andy struggled to sit up and Jack was tempted to try to help. He learned early in his travels not to casually touch reptiles. Without fur, it was direct palm to skin contact on the Zoos without scales. It was more intimate to them than it would be to most mammals. It was complex, too, because mammals wanted to touch their skin and their scales... horns and spurs, too. A mammal letting himself touch a reptile like that was performing what they called a micro-aggression. It felt too damn proprietary, as if the nearest Rept was no more than a pet.
An older man touching a naked boy in a foster home also carried additional issues that Jack thought best to be avoided.
The guest bed was too soft for him to do this easily, but Andy eventually sat up. "Mr. Hewitt took us to the park. He made the boys play with me; but that made them mad, so I wished he hadn't. He took Roosvelt with him, and that made it worse. Juan and Jarvis hate me. They call me Meat, behind my back. It makes the other boys laugh. And I'm so slow and funny to them; so they think that makes it ok."
Jack nodded. "Kids can be mean. I'll talk to Juan and Jarvis."
Andy shrugged. He obviously thought it would just make things worse.
Jack smiled. "I won't talk about you. I'll took about how old they are and what's it like to work out in the real world. They are big boys; we will expect them to act like big boys. Maybe get jobs."
Andy shrugged again. "I caught the disc and I thought I won. I didn't see the other boys running away. They were just gone when I went to toss it back. So, wandered off to find some other kids to play with. But I dropped the disc down a hill and it landed in some water. It didn't look too deep, and there was a log right next to the water and it ended where the red disc was. I figured I could do it myself." Andy made a fist again. "I fell in, right into the deepest part, right over my head."
Jack nodded, looking at Andy's squat legs and roundish feet. They did somewhat resemble an elephant's leg, except that they were green. "You can't swim?" Jack asked because you don't want to assume someone's limitations just because you knew their species.
Andy shook his head NO, but he also nodded slightly from his shoulders in Rept agreement.
"Turtles can," Andy held up his little right hand and spread his stubby fingers wide. "They have webbing to help them paddle. And their legs and arms are longer."
"I know, I saw a Turtle today." Jack reassured the boy. "he didn't look anything like a Tortoise."
That made Andy smile a little. "We both have shells, that confuses people."
"It does," Jack agreed. "How did you get out of the water?"
Andy made scraping motions in the air. "I tried to climb out, but I couldn't. I was able yell for help when I almost made it out. Then... something hit the water... like... did you ever skip rocks when you were a kid, Officer Hewitt?"
"You can call me, Uncle Jack, Andy," Jack said patiently. "And, yep, me and your foster dad would skip rocks on the pond whenever we could."
"Well," Andy said, his eyes seeming to glaze over. "That's what happened... Fastback heard my cries for help and hit the water like a skipping rock. He then ran around in circles and sucked all the water out of the lake. Then he grabbed me before the water could come back down and ran to the ground. He gave me mouth to mouth with his super-breath and then ran off to help someone else. Maybe you, Uncle Jack."
"Maybe," Jack said. But Jack could see the story details that made Bobby smell BS. From the moment Andy mentioned that something hit the water, the word choices, the sentence structure, and the concise action points seemed all wrong for a little boy famous for his rambling stories. "When did he give you the card, Andy?"
"Oh, he had a helper. Mr. Monkey. Although he was a Rabbit, not a Monkey. He was dressed funny and had metal framed glasses that seemed too big for his head. As soon as Fastback disappeared, Mr. Monkey was there making sure I was ok. He said the Zoo Crew was going to have an anti-prejudice event in the park and that my whole family could be guests of honor and meet the Zoo Crew.
Jack had to bite his lip at the thought of his conspiracy-minded brother meeting Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew.
"That would be super cool," Jack said. "But I think his name is pronounced Men-Key. Not Monkey."
Andy thought about that. "What kind of name is Menke?" He asked.
"I don't know," Jack said honestly. "I've heard it before, tho. I'm not good with names. I don't even know where Hewitt comes from. What kind of name is Costley?"
Andy went very still. "It's a Slave Name. The family that used to own my great, great, great grandfather down south. They were named Costley."