Down Under
Violet settled in early at her big, leather-top desk to review photos of baby giraffes. She heard a tap at her door, and Jerry, the zoo’s chief veterinarian entered. “The lactating kangaroo has a sore on her leg. Okay if I give her an antibiotic?”
“I’ll do it,” said Violet, with a sweep of her arm. “I need to keep a hand in with the animals — don’t I?” As one of a new wave of zoo directors, she was trained in zoology rather and agriculture.
“But you don’t know beans about giving injections to kangaroos.” The men reporting to her fought her. Always. But she ignored this. She was in charge, after all.
“I’m good with marsupials. I did one of my internships in New South Wales, remember? Make up the syringe, and I’ll give it to her.”
Jerry grumbled, the way they all did.
“I’ll come by your lab to pick it up in ten minutes.” She looked over the day’s schedule, put her desk phone on voice mail, and grabbed the backpack.
Violet was the first woman director of the zoo — worth moving to North Carolina for. Even if it meant leaving her husband, Devon, behind for the last eight months at his job in a Boston research hospital. She was 36 years old and eager to have children. She had a secret drawer with the tiny animals she’d crocheted for her first daughter’s miniature zoo. After her second miscarriage, she was eager for Devon to join her in North Carolina so they could try again.
The morning sun lit up the surface of the flamingo pond as Violet strolled across the park. This was her favorite part of the day. The handlers were walking a female elephant down the path from the large-mammal barn to the elephant habitat. The staff had two hours to tend to the animals before they opened to the public.
Nan, the assistant keeper, let her into the pen with the mother kangaroo and her baby. “Rusty’s acting a little lethargic this morning,” she said.
“Poor old Rusty. Give me the key. I’ll lock up when I’m done.”
Nan looked uncomfortable but handed over the key. “Are you sure this is all right? You know the protocol.”
“I ought to know the protocol. I wrote it.”
Violet patted the shoulder of the female roo, slumped against the concrete lip of the water trough. “Poor old Rusty,” she repeated as she administered the injection.
She scooped up the baby kangaroo and popped her into her backpack. The little red ball of fluff was small. She was warm. She was clingy. Violet would take her home and make a bed for her out of old blankets on the kitchen floor. Even with her long, wedge-shaped nose, the baby was perfect. Violet couldn’t wait to take the roo to the grocery store in her backpack and show her off to the moms with their babies in strollers.
Ann Russell’s fiction has been featured in The Bellevue Literary Review and accepted for publication in Epoch. She has been nominated for a Pen/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers.
