The Secret of Tayburn Zoo: 10

A/N: There's a bit about elephants painting here. This is the first mention of this since the first chapter in which it was mentioned that painting with their trunks was the elephants' act in the zoo. I realise that might be a bit far back to expect people to remember from xD

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For the rest of the next day, Patrick could not get the image of an elephant twirling her trunk at MacLean out of his head. It was so familiar, so much more familiar than he ever was with the larger animals who couldn't fit in the underground. He was just about to push open his room door, his hand already brushing the door handle, when the urge that had been building finally took him. He lifted his hand away and took a step back, then jogged off to the left in search of the ladder to the elephant enclosure.

Instead of a hut, which an elephant obviously would never fit into, this trap door opened into the floor of a small wooden building that was closer to a stable than anything else. There were places for the elephants to eat, and little fenced off areas where they could feel a little bit like they had their own rooms. Each one had a window they could nudge open with their tusks to let the sun in during summer, but with temperatures dropping steadily all had been tightly bolted shut.

Ignoring the slightly eerie whistling of the wind through gaps in the window frames, Patrick folded his arms tightly across his chest and padded quietly outside. The elephants were still wandering around near a little pond up the back of their enclosure. Beneath their tusks and trunks, it was almost impossible to tell from this distance if they were talking to each other, let alone from the air, so Patrick hadn't imposed any restrictions on conversation for the elephants.

As he approached, the wind brought him snatches of conversation about a "nice young woman", as well as the "look on Patrick's face". Patrick jogged up to them before he eavesdropped too much and called up to the nearest elephant.

"Hey, Keira!"

Keira's tail whipped around to the side as she tried to turn her head round to see him, nearly getting Patrick in the head.

"Sorry, Pat," she called over her shoulder. The other elephants backed out of her way so that she could step around in a tight circle to look properly down at him.

Patrick waved. "Evening, all."

"Why hello, Patrick," Keira said, giving him the same flourish of her trunk he'd seen her give MacLean the night before. His eyebrows shot up, his eyes went wide. Keira immediately began to chortle and look around at her friends. "Guys, that's the look! That's what I was talking about!"

The other elephants chuckled, but didn't say anything. Most looked to Keira to see what she would say next. Patrick sighed. All the species had group leaders who were his first point of contact - Treego for the frogs, Chip for the monkeys, although his easy-going kindness had never seemed particularly well-suited - but the dynamic was never quite as crystal clear as with the bigger animals. He wished more than anything he could have found a way to integrate them better, but the Skype signal just wasn't up to scratch out in the paddocks.

"So," Keira said, "What can we do for you, Patrick?"

Patrick suddenly felt rather small compared to the crowd of elephant eyes staring down at him. He tried to peer forward as if he was inspecting something about them; looking like he had angered a herd of elephants was not good from the air or for his confidence.

He put his hands in his pockets and scuffed the frosted dirt. "Nothing in particular. Was just, uh, wondering how the inspection went for you all yesterday?"

"Ah, I see." Keira's lips widened into a smile, which was wide enough that Patrick could see the tips of it peeping out from behind her trunk. "Jealous of Ms. MacLean, are you? Finally realised there might be someone out here worth talking to?"

Patrick froze. The elephants were glaring at him now, and their tusks were sharp.

"I, uh-"

"Relax, I'm just messing with ye," Keira said, waving her trunk in the air as if to dismiss his fear.

Patrick's shoulders slumped, a relieved sigh whistling out of him. He blushed as he saw the other elephants relax and start to chuckle, most of them wandering away as they did so. Eventually it was just him and Keira. He spotted an easel just behind her that he could pretend to work on. Not exactly normal for a zookeeper, but relative terms mattered in Tayburn Zoo.

"Well, you're not wrong," Patrick said, patting down some wrinkles in his shirt that the wind had caused. He strolled over to the easel and started fidgeting with some of the screws. "I did come up here because of MacLean. It's just, I was thinking... What sort of questions did she ask you? I assume you did talk to her, unlike everyone else who had to put up with Crothers."

Keira nodded, then went through the long process of stepping back around in a circle to face him. "We talked, yes. She told us she was nervous, we told her not to worry. So far you're doing brilliant at following her lead, now that I think about it."

Patrick started to chuckle, then hesitated, but he realised it must have been obvious that he'd started, so he followed through on it and tried to confidently follow it up. "I'm glad I can fill such big shoes. What I'm thinking about though is this: did she ask you about my progress in figuring out what happened to all of you? Crothers never has, but that didn’t really surprised me."

Keira tilted her head to the side, a gesture which an elephant's ears really were not built for. She glared at the inside of her own ear as it flopped over her eye and shook her head to flop it back off.

"I guess she didn't," Keira said. "She really was nervous though. Maybe she forgot."

Patrick shrugged. "I suppose… So, how is painting going? Is there anything you need?”

Keira’s eyes widened a little. “Um, it’s all fine, I think. Why, is there a problem?”

Patrick waved his hands frantically, accidentally whacking his knuckles against the easel. “No, no, nothing like that. I just… you always seem to have such a handle on this. I never get to hear how you’re getting on.”

"Oh," Keira said, smiling a little. "Well, we've been experimenting with surrealism, some palettes that overly emphasise some colours, Sadie went on a sci-fi tear for a bit. Actually-"

She was cut off by the beeping of Patrick's phone.

"Ah, sorry," Patrick said, hopping down off the ladder, which his knees immediately regretted.

Patrick gulped when he saw the name on his phone. It was Sue Haldane, Crothers' boss. What could Crothers have complained to her about anyway? He'd barely paid a scrap of attention the entire time he was there.

He accepted the call and warily raised the phone to his ear. "Hello, ma'am?"

"Hello, Patrick. I hope I've not caught you on your way to bed," she said. Her voice was deep and her words clipped.

"Not at all," Patrick said, "I was just... doing some maintenance. Can do something for you, ma'am?"

"Actually, it's something I need you to not do," she said. "Do not open the zoo to the public tomorrow morning. The recent bi-monthly inspection carried out by Freddy Crothers and Tracy MacLean highlighted some pressing issues that must be addressed."

Patrick's stomach tingled with butterflies. He swallowed, trying to get some saliva into his suddenly very dry mouth. "May I be told what the matter is?"

"It's about the panda. The one that speaks. Speaks, McAfferty. I will be in contact further tomorrow."

With that, she hung up. Patrick's hand went numb and he dropped his phone in the grass.