The Initial Insult - Mindy McGinnis Page 0,32

the cafeteria lady to cut the crust off her sandwiches. The first time Cecil showed me how to dig carrots for the animals I asked if he was going to wash them first. He’d thumped me on the head with the bunch, dirt raining down on my hair.

“Probably do you a little good to eat some dirt, too,” he said.

In the paddock, Zee brays at me. He saw me come into the garden with the shovel, and he’s no dummy. It’s snack time. Goldie-Dog leaves my heels, trots over to Zee’s paddock, and slips between the slats, craning her neck so they can touch noses.

Goldie’s rear end is a mess of mats, mud, and probably some poop, too. Cecil won’t let her in the house, so my dog has had to settle for finding a spot in the barn. She made friends with Zee real quick, but Dee—the ostrich—didn’t like Goldie at all. Cecil wasn’t too happy about that; Zee and Dee came as a pair, and they share the same paddock. Having Goldie zip in and out was causing “hostilities,” according to Cecil, and if I wanted to keep my dog, she’d better learn her place.

Two months ago, I still had the nerve to plant my feet and stick my chin out. I’d told Cecil that I’d run away before I let him take my dog to the pound.

“Who said anything about the pound?” Cecil said, and pointed at the shotgun propped in the corner.

So Goldie had to learn her place, which meant I had to teach Dee that she wasn’t a threat. I guess that’s how I learned my place, too, out there with the animals. Just a week in the paddock and Zee was nudging my back, checking my pockets for treats. And while Dee and I weren’t exactly friends, the ostrich stopped flapping her wings at me and making herself big every time I climbed the fence. She’d only charged me the once, when my back was turned.

That’s how I learned not to turn my back. On anything.

Cecil kept the pens cleaner than the house, on account of the ASPCA people doing unannounced drop-ins. It didn’t take long for me to figure out the animals were better company anyway; I’d learned not to turn my back on Cecil, either.

And how to haul manure and clean hooves. How to brush a coat and trim a mane. How much to feed each animal and where to catch the biggest fish out of the creek for the alligator. I shudder, remembering the flash of silver scales as a tail disappeared down her throat. I lean against Zee to absorb some of her warmth. She grunts deep in her throat and crunches on her carrots, the orange ends disappearing into her mouth, the green tops following behind.

Dee spots us and comes over, her bulk shifting from side to side. She stretches her neck out and pecks me, like a reminder that she’s here, and hungry, too.

“You’re ugly,” I tell her.

It’s hard to like an ostrich.

You can’t like or dislike an alligator; you just have to be careful around it. She keeps to herself in her little pond, and we turn off the electric fence to pop in and check that it’s decently stocked with fish . . . but only after being sure she’s well-fed with a few big ones from the stream first.

“Can’t trust her,” Cecil told me gruffly, the first time we walked into the alligator’s pen. It seems to be the basic rule around here.

But mostly Rue, Cecil warned me. It took me the longest to warm up to the orangutan. He called her the o-rang-o-tangy and said she’d tear my face off if I gave her the chance. I wasn’t allowed to go in her pen—a large, fenced-in open-air area with a single tree growing in it for her to swing in. There was a closed-in building attached, where she could go if it rained, or when the vet came for medical attention. But for the most part Rue stayed in her tree, eyes following me when I moved around the paddocks and cages.

I hadn’t liked it. Hadn’t liked the way she was almost human . . . but not quite. How sometimes she walked along beside me when I came near the cage. I’d felt stalked, hunted, until the one day she stretched an arm through the fencing and handed me something. I’d reached out automatically, palm up.

And Rue had put a piece of shit