I know I said last chapter was the end, but I wanted to put an epilogue to tell what happened through letters.
Epilogue- one year later
Dear Skipper and team,
Hey! It's me, Oreo. How are you doing? A lot has happened in the year since we met you. I have a piece of bad news as well as good news. The bad news is that Mac got really sick about two months after you left and he didn't make it. I think it was kidney failure. The doctors tried to give him one of Steve's, but by the time they got ready, Mac had passed on. A few weeks after that, Steve was transferred to an Aquarium in Long Beach. I guess they were looking for beavers.
I'm writing to you from Virginia. Yeah, that's right, I GOT ADOPTED! I'm so happy! It happened three months ago and we're sort of settled in. And would you believe my luck? Miles and Oscar are here too! Apparently they had to put down their panda, I feel bad about that, because it was sick and then I was here. Did you know that Oscar was actually a Gerenuk? Everyone except me did…I thought he was a deer. Anyway, he's getting loads better at self confidence because the other two Gerenuks are females. He thinks he should be a strong leader so he's trying to be brave…until I scared the pee out of him. There are a lot of peacocks here, and Miles needed more interaction with them so they brought him here. He has a great role model in one of the older peacocks; but for me, Joe will always be my role model.
Speaking of Joe, his granddaughter Lucy is here too. The humans let me bring her when they realized I wouldn't go without her. She lives at the pond in my habitat. Speaking of ponds, Arthur and Peter are here too. If you don't remember, they're the ducks, and they're nearby. Almost all of us are together again. Speedy is at an animal reservation park, but I don't know which one because I was transferred before him. He said he'd try to keep in contact, but I don't think he wants to get off any tree branches. So, how are all of you doing? I hope to hear from you soon, I have to go because I snuck in here to send you the email.
From,
Oreo and friends
…Email sent, have a nice day :)
The panda smiled and returned to his habitat.
In New York, a certain pair of chimps printed out the email and delivered it to the penguins. After setting off a diversion, a penguin typed out his response before Alice came back.
Dear Oreo and friends,
Hello, this is Kowalski responding. I know you expected Skipper, but he's temporarily unavailable. Rico's keeping guard so I have to type fast. First, sorry about Mac; I hope Steve's finding good friends at the aquarium.
Skipper wants me to congratulate you all on getting adopted into the zoo. Though it's not this one, I hope you stay together for a long time. As for Oscar, I had a hunch he wasn't exactly a deer, but at the moment it wasn't a good time to bring it up. We're glad he's not that paranoid anymore, though Skipper says paranoia is good to have. I researched Speedy and discovered he's in Georgia.
A lot has happened here as well, and that's the part I was concerned about getting to. Whatever concoction I made Skipper drink helped him, but it didn't last for long. Three weeks after he returned, he went into cardiac arrest. Luckily, Rico was able to keep him alive long enough for the doctors to get there. Apparently, he had a delayed reaction to blunt force trauma. He suffered from internal bleeding, which was stopped, and damage to his organs. He had a few operations and looks scarred, but healthier. Two months ago, his heart almost failed again. This time we almost lost him. His body went into a strange paralysis and he couldn't move for a week.
He's not allowed to do anything strenuous until he's officially off all the medicines they give him. You can be certain that he didn't like that. He screamed and yelled, but finally gave in. Right now, he and Private are doing a few therapy exercises to get Skipper used to slowly moving again. He still gets angry because he can't do much. He has surgery next week to repair some damaged tissue near his heart. Hopefully, he'll be alright. Rico won't like it because it means drawing his blood. Did you know he was the closest in blood type to Skipper?
We're doing better and everyone is supportive, except for the loudest and most annoying lemurs in the world. Even though Skipper is doing better, we're still worried about him. Our otter friend, Marlene, doesn't want to leave him most of the time. Neither do I, really. Private still blames himself whenever something goes wrong. We're taking it one day at a time.
I hope we see you again, good luck at your new zoo!
From,
Kowalski, Skipper, Rico, and Private