Endangered by Eliot Schrefer Read Free Book Online Page A

happen.”
    â€œDarling, I’m really upset right now. Please, go upstairs with Otto and let me deal with this problem.”
    I unwrapped Otto from her head and pressed him to my chest. My fingers played over his ribs and he panted happily. He felt his first tickle with me , I thought, somehow pleased within my frustration and sadness. At least something in this horrible world was working right; Otto was getting tickled.
    But my mom … I worried that, as much as she tried, she would now always have this feeling of disappointment every time she looked at me.

I slept terribly that night, especially since Otto woke up every hour or so to eat. By morning, evidence of his hunger was piled at the side of the bed: the remains of eight mangoes, two cartons of milk, a knee-high pile of sugarcane husks — the ones that I was able to rescue from Otto’s mouth before he wolfed them down whole — and a mound of peanut shells. Though sugarcane gave them a run for their money, peanuts were quickly becoming his favorite food. I’d shell them and then he’d delicately peel them further with his front teeth — he didn’t like the papery red coverings.
    When the sun came up I went to brush my teeth and returned to find Otto spread-eagled on the bed, asleep. Near daybreak he’d moved on to oranges, and their juice matted the hair around his face as he snored away. I sat beside him and tried to wake him, but all he did was sleepily crawl into my lap, producing occasional citrus burps.
    Finally I had him awake, out of bed, and bathed. We lumbered to the front yard, where Patrice was directing the staff as they unloaded metal cages from a truck. Bonobo-sized cages. “What’s going on here?” I asked, jostling Otto on one hip. He playfully slapped my cheek and murped.
    â€œThe trip to the release site. Four more bonobos are going.”
    My mom’s most recent success had been to get a forested island set aside as a bonobo preserve. A local tribe served as wardens to keep the bonobos safe from hunters, in return receiving funding for a local school and clinic. The project had been a success, andshe was adding four more bonobos to the original six. Ideally, all the orphans would end up there someday, settling in with their new families. But this latest transfer hadn’t been scheduled to happen until after I went back to the States.
    â€œThe plane schedule,” Patrice explained when I asked. “We have to fly them in on a charter since there aren’t any roads going north. We’d reserved a plane for next month, but for some reason the government’s grounding non-commercial flights starting tomorrow, probably to get bribe money. So it has to be today or never.”
    â€œWhere’s my mom?” I asked.
    â€œShe’s off with the handlers in the enclosure, getting the bonobos ready for sedation. Want to go say hello to her?”
    I wasn’t sure how to answer. We hadn’t had a fight last night, not really, but I could tell she didn’t know where to put her misery over my mistake, and I was scared to find out where things stood today. So I changed the subject. “I assume no one found those two bonobos?” I asked.
    He shook his head sadly.
    â€œIs there any way I can help you guys here?”
    â€œYou should keep Otto away. We have to tranquilize the adult bonobos to travel, and seeing the dart guns can be upsetting to the infants. Reminds them of the last time they saw their mothers, and they think the same thing is happening all over again.”
    So Otto and I played more modified Scrabble while I sneaked glances at the driveway through the window. My mom held and comforted the adult bonobos while they slowly fell asleep. She looked like she did in the photos of her holding me as a child — except, bizarrely, with giant hairy apes in her arms. Once the bonobos were out cold, the men lifted them into the cages and then heaved those