Jacqueline Hodder
Our world flipped upside down the day Mum and Dad bought a zoo and told us we were moving to the country. No one lived in the country, not since the Great Eradication, which was why buying a zoo was a stupid idea. My younger brother Elliot didn’t think so but what did he know, he was only 12.
‘Just imagine, Ana, there’ll be tigers and elephants and dogs and dodos.’
‘Stop it.’ I covered my ears. ‘You know none of them are real, right?’
He shut his mouth and went running off to find Mum and Dad. A few minutes later I was in trouble. Again.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ Mum tsk-tsked her finger at me. ‘Your brother’s excited. Why can’t you be too?’
I scrolled my phone as I chewed a piece of strawberry-flavoured gum.
‘You’re lying to him,’ I said. ‘The animals aren’t real.’
‘Of course they’re real,’ said Mum. ‘Or they were once.’
I rolled the lump of gum around my mouth. Even the strawberries weren’t real, just a mockery of what was once a fruit.
Dad cornered me next.
‘What’s this about spoiling Elliot’s fun?’
As Dad sat down next to me, I curled up my legs to form a barrier between him and me.
‘It’s not my fault you’re lying to him.’
‘Look AnnaMaria,’ Dad said, using my full name. Never a good sign. ‘You may be too old and worldly for this adventure but at least let Elliot enjoy it.’
‘So he can be more disappointed when we get to the zoo?’
‘So he can enjoy his innocence while he still has it.’
Animals were a thing of the past. For years the Controllers who governed our country proved over and over again why we didn’t need nature, how it was better to rely on technology than unreliable weather patterns and soil conditions.
Mum’s thing was zoology and even though she hadn’t worked with animals since the last Great Eradication, she hankered after the past. You could tell by the way she talked about the last hummingbird darting its long tongue into a feeder or the last bee buzzing around a plastic flower, searching for, but never finding, sweet nectar. Dad was the same. He used to be a farmer. He met Mum because she was in the mountains looking for remnant insects. But when the countryside became uninhabitable, they’d come to the City as part of the Re-Working Initiative. They’d never been back.
The only animals I’d seen were flashed up on the screen one day at school by a beak-nosed teacher who thought it was his job to explain the Great Eradication. I remembered the shock of colours when the teacher showed us images of a yellow butterfly, a prowling orange and black striped tiger, and a creature with an elongated neck and soft eyes called a sloth. A girl screamed when she saw a bird called a ‘peacock’. I wondered if it was her who’d complained and got the teacher sacked.
We never saw him again. Principal Collins stood in front of the class the next day and reminded us why our country was devoid of creatures and anything else that might ‘stain our beautiful world’. Then she announced a replacement teacher. A few weeks later Mum and Dad told us they bought the zoo.
‘I thought we weren’t supposed to have anything to do with animals,’ I said.
Mum hesitated before answering.
‘True,’ she said. ‘But the Controllers realise that not knowing anything means people idealise what they think the animals were like. They want people to see images of them in a Controlled environment and so they’ve set up zoos all around the country.’
‘But why us?’
‘It’s not all about you,’ said Dad, watching Mum pack her microscope kit. ‘This gives Mum a chance to use her zoological skills.’
‘By running a fake zoo?’
‘By reminding people why we’re better off not having to fight animals for food and space.’
Over the next few weeks, Mum piled boxes of science equipment in a corner of the lounge room. She hadn’t done any science since the Great Eradication. Since then, she’d worked in Central Control monitoring the Workers through thousands of cameras set up throughout the City. She called it ‘monitoring’, I called it spying.
Our last day arrived. I took a long last look around the apartment. I’d said goodbye to all my friends and now I waited downstairs with the transport, arms crossed, feeling bereft. All I’d ever known was in that apartment, this neighbourhood, and now we were going into exile—or that’s what it felt like.
As we drove out of the City, I sunk further and further into my seat. It was the first time either Elliot or I had been out of the City. We were silent except for Elliot who chatted away, oblivious to the tension in the car.
‘There’s nothing out here,’ he said after we’d been driving a few hours.
It was true. The landscape was barren and there was no one on the roads. The only human we saw was a rogue dressed in rags. I shut my eyes and fell asleep.
When I woke, the landscape was still the same but the car had slowed and was turning off the highway onto a thin rutted track. We drove under an arched iron gate, rusted away in parts and into a wide area dominated by nearby mountains. Dotted over the land between us and the mountains were a series of fences encasing white objects that rose high up into the sky. As we neared the first area, I saw the object was a screen. There were dozens scattered all over the place and I realised I was looking at the animal enclosures.
‘When do we get to see the animals?’ Elliot asked.
I sank back in my seat dreading Elliot’s reaction when Mum and Dad told him the truth.
‘We’ll get the screens going later,’ said Mum.
‘Great,’ said Elliot.
I jerked my head around.
‘Wait,’ I replied. ‘You mean you know they’re not real?’
‘Yeah,’ said Elliot as if what I’d said was the most obvious statement in the world. ‘There’s been no trace of animals since the Great Eradication.’ It was as if he were reciting from a textbook, as if I was confused, not him.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘But I thought—’
‘The Controllers can’t allow real animals,’ Elliot went on. ‘Just imagine. Nature’s too uncontrolled, too unpredictable for that. Remember what happened to Dad’s farm?’
I did. We weren’t born then but I remember Mum and Dad telling us about it. Overrun with aphids like the rest of the country. Whole crops failed. The Controllers took charge that day and decided we’d never be left at the mercy of nature again.
The transport rocketed past screen after screen. Tears pricked my eyes. It was so lonely here. The empty land echoed the emptiness I felt inside.
Dad pulled up in front of a house tucked away at the rear of the last and smallest screen which, it turned out, was the Insect Enclosure. The house was small, much smaller than our city apartment, but surrounded by vast plains and tall barren mountains. I liked the cosiness of the house, it felt manageable compared to the expanse outside.
The front of the house faced the collection of screens while the back opened to a trail that led directly uphill, around rocky escarpments and up and over the shoulder of the mountain. I decided to explore.
As I climbed the path leading from our house, I scoured the bare earth and barren grey rocks for signs of life but there was nothing. I climbed up to the pass leading over the shoulder of the mountain. Here the path dove beyond into a deep valley. I sat down on a wide stone in the middle of a dried-up rivulet and lifted my face to the sun, hidden in the yellow pollution that lay like a thick fog between us and outer space. The warmth of the day, the weak sunshine and the hard climb made me sleepy. I lifted a flat rock and shifted it close to the one I was sitting on so I could make a mini bed for myself and that’s when I saw it, a little creature no more than the size of my smallest fingernail. As I watched, it flitted into the air right in front of my face. The tiny thing landed on my finger, fluttered its wings for a moment and then was still.
With great care I lifted my finger to my nose. The creature opened its red spotted black wings and walked from one end of my finger to the other, its little feet tickling my skin.
‘I know what you are,’ I smiled. ‘I’m calling you Ladybird.’
‘What you got there?’
I span around so quickly that Ladybird took flight and disappeared. I eyeballed Elliot who stood staring at me, hands on hips.
‘You’re not allowed to have nature,’ he said, narrowing his eyes.
‘I’m not having nature, Elliot. I found her.’
‘Where is it? You have to destroy it.’
‘I’m not going to destroy her.’
‘You have to. It’s dangerous.’
‘She’s not hurting anyone.’
Just then Ladybird fluttered back into view and landed on my outstretched hand. I brought the little insect closer to Elliot.
‘Look. She’s not dangerous, she’s beautiful.’
‘That’s not a ‘she’, that’s an it. And it’s not beautiful, it’s ugly and horrible and dangerous.’
‘She is not.’
‘You have to kill it.’
I leapt back, Ladybird clinging to the back of my hand.
‘I’m not going to kill her.’
‘You have to,’ said Elliot taking a step closer. ‘The Controllers said so.’
‘Elliot,’ I said, pointing to the little bug. ‘She’s a ladybird. A ladybird’s not going to hurt anyone.’
‘We’re not allowed nature. It’s too uncontrollable, too unpredictable.’
‘You sound like them.’
Instead of making him ashamed the comment made him smile. Suddenly I thought of how little I knew my brother and my stomach turned.
‘Elliot.’ My voice was thin, nervous. ‘It was you, wasn’t it?’
‘Me what?’
‘It was you who told on the teacher and got him fired.’
‘Humans have no use for nature.’
Elliot sounded exactly like Principal Collins and my heart went cold.
‘Can’t you just be Elliot and not a mouthpiece of the Controllers?’
‘They’re the rules,’ Elliot shrugged and then, with a suddenness that caught me off guard, he lunged for Ladybird. I dodged him just in time. Ladybird flew away, landing on the ground a few paces from where we stood. Elliot glanced at me then pounced again but I jumped in front of him just in time.
‘Leave her alone,’ I shouted.
‘Leave her alone,’ Elliot mimicked.
‘Elliot,’ I seethed. ‘This isn’t funny.’
‘This isn’t funny,’ he copied.
He made another leap but I blocked him. Elliot stamped his feet.
‘It’s not allowed!’
He was white in the face now. He leapt towards me, beating me with his fists. One of them hit me in the jaw and I fell, landing on the ground with a thump. In a flash I was on my feet again, rubbing at my jaw as I scanned the ground. Ladybird fluttered nearby. Elliot lunged again but I was too quick. I grabbed his arms and pinned them to his sides. We wrestled for a few moments then Elliot jerked an arm loose and punched me. I grabbed his arm and held it against his body, kicked his legs out from under him and sat on his back. He wriggled and spat and cursed but I held him down. Finally, he quieted and we stayed there on the ground, both of us breathing heavily while Ladybird landed on a nearby rock.
‘Why’re you doing this Anna?’ Elliot wriggled but I held firm.
I lifted my face as a pale shaft of light shone down. I licked my lips, tasting grit.
I thought of beak-nose teacher’s images once more. All those animals, snarling, snapping, pouncing and the birds that flapped and flew and I wondered how crowded the world must have been, not just with colours but with sounds too. What must it’ve been like to be in a world that was full of noise and not this dull, horrible silence?
Elliot squirmed but I ignored him, lost in terrible thoughts. What if Elliot was right? What if there really was no purpose to nature? We’d survived okay since the Controllers took charge, and we had enough food, bland as it was, so then what did it matter if nature didn’t exist?
But I knew deep down that the Controllers were wrong, especially because of how their warped ideas had affected Elliot. My brother was happy with fake animals in a fake zoo and even worse, he didn’t care if they were alive or not. There was something so fundamentally flawed in what they were doing to us that I felt like thumping the ground, bursting into tears, running down to Mum and Dad and exploding at them all at once but then Elliot struggled against me, his breath coming in big gulps.
I shifted my position so Elliot could breathe a little easier. He turned his face towards me as I spoke. I studied my brother’s dirt and tear-smeared face as sunlight filtered through the haze.
‘I think it might be good to be uncontrolled for a while.’
Elliot shifted underneath me. He frowned and then, without warning, kicked my legs off his and jumped up.
‘You’re wrong, nature lover,’ sneered Elliot. ‘We don’t need this.’
Elliot leapt across to where Ladybird sat, her wings dipping. He tipped her off the rock, stamped his foot on her tiny red spotted dome, squished her underfoot and ground her into the ground.
‘Elliot,’ I cried.
‘There’s no point,’ he shouted before disappearing down the mountain towards home. He didn’t once look back.
I sank down to the earth, wishing I didn’t have to go back and face the fact that my brother had turned traitor. I sat there as the sun moved past midday and the shadows lengthened. It grew cold and bitter.
I shivered as the sun faded into grey but then something made me lift my face and look around. A small movement. I swept small clumps of dirt away, one bit at a time to reveal the little bug squirming in the ground. Ladybird was alive.
I put down my finger. The ladybird flapped her wings once, twice, then rose and landed on the whorl at the end of my forefinger. I raised the little bug to my eyes and watched as she turned around, fluttered her wings and flew skywards, into the fading sun. I watched until I lost sight of her against the backdrop of the grey mountains.
The world might not care about nature anymore but to me, it was precious, and I vowed then and there to do what I could to nurture what fragments remained.
Jacqueline Hodder is from Naarm/Melbourne. Her stories have featured in Locative (Aus) and Bottle Rocket (US) magazines and she has won or placed in several short story competitions such as the Odyssey House, Nillumbik and Peter Carey Short Story Awards. Her short story, The Butterfly Effect was recently published in the Newcastle Short Story Award anthology. Jacqueline is currently involved in the Melbourne and Leeuwarden City of Literature’s Bar-tailed Godwit poetry project. Most days, Jacqueline can be found daydreaming and birdwatching at her local wetlands reserve. Follow Jacqueline on Instagram here.
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