Young Writers Society

The animals of Tayburn zoo were all crowded round the wooden tables in the lounge's left side. All those who could fit, that was. Patrick had offered to let the bigger animals try to Skype in, but they had declined. He would talk to them later. Those who had made it to the lounge were pressing as tightly they could onto the wooden charity-shop chairs. Birds were perched on the curved bars on the chair backs, frogs sat on the shoulders of monkeys.

They all looked up at Patrick.

He was sitting on the back of the couch, his backside protesting angrily at the narrow wooden strip it was balanced on. Every muscle in his body hurt, but he forced himself to his feet, sure he could hear his joints creak. He looked from face to face and started to speak.

"I just want you to know that I love you all, and we are going to figure this out," he said. His voice came out quieter than he'd realised it would, but soft was probably the way to go anyway. "Neuromax can't get rid of me. I'm the one that's done all the media interviews about you guys and your ‘amazing tricks’, so the public would ask questions. But of course, they also know I won't talk, because I don't want my part in what happened to all of you revealed."

A few eyes shifted, glancing at each other but looking hastily away.

Patrick cleared his throat. "Sorry, that's not to say I regret what happened. You know that. I'm just not eager to be called Dr Frankenstein and for the public to start calling for all of you to be sent to... well sent to Neuromax. So it's the five of them, or all of you."

Patrick took a deep breath. He glanced at a group of three young monkeys, all of whom were holding back tears. Tears sprang to his eyes at the thought of what it must have been like for them to lose Chip. Then his gaze drifted towards Rita, the crocodile who until that morning had barely spent a moment apart from her best friend Dexi. He thought of the other two, Gerry the toucan and Lisa the young frog, whom he knew less well. It didn't matter how well he knew them; these were tight-knit communities.

And Aurora. Of course, Aurora. She had nobody to miss her, not properly yet. But Patrick felt her absence like a gaping wound in his heart.

He looked back out at the group, his vision swimming in tears. "I am still not sure about Treego's plan, but it's all we've got."

Treego sprang up from the nearest table and clung to Patrick's wrist. He scuttled up, then settled on his head. Patrick glared up in his direction, forcing back a giggle, but the smiles from the rest of the assembled animals suddenly felt like a very good idea, and he let himself give in to the laugh.

"Alright, listen up!" Treego called, pacing back and forth on Patrick's head. "We have exactly one way of communicating with our friends, and that is through Neuromax rep Tracy MacLean. Patrick is understandably nervous about this, given the mixup, but all of you heard the way Crothers and his boss spoke about her, and you know that she is definitely not on their side."

Patrick grumbled, wishing he'd witnessed this in person. Apparently she’d been referred to as traitor, softie and several other more explicit terms as she’d been ordered around the cages, taking the five animals away to Neuromax. He trusted the remaining animals, but that didn't mean he could quite bring himself to trust MacLean.

"Good good, no objections from the main man here," Treego said, tapping his foot on the crown of Patrick's head. "Which is good, because we're going to need him. Patrick is going to put his gadget construction skills to good use and make tiny cameras, one for each of our friends. He is going to deliver these to MacLean at a coffee shop in the city, and she is going to sneak them to the animals. It's just good luck for us that they didn't let her go completely."

"Yeah, if she's such an enemy of theirs, why didn't they?" Patrick muttered.

"Because!" Treego shouted. "If you would just give her a chance you would realise that she is actually rather smart. I really do think the two of you would get along. She explained to Crothers and co, admittedly with somewhat nervous stammering, that they would need to cooperate with the animals and that she had by far the best rapport from them."

"This seems thin," Patrick said.

"I think the idea was that if Neuromax became too unbearable they would take the option of going public, since they had nothing to lose." Treego went very quiet. Patrick decided to stop bothering him. Clearly he was troubled by the thought of how bad it could get for his friends that they would risk public reaction. Treego went on, "MacLean is there to convince them this is the better option. Well, that's what Crothers thinks. She is of course our mole."

"Okay," Patrick said, "I will give her the cameras. Do you want to get to the end of this so I can go start working on them?"

Treego cleared his throat. "Right, yes, of course. Once they have these cameras, they are going to film what Neuromax does to them. At the end of each day that will sync with a computer here - we thought about livestream but worried about a signal being detected if the connection was constantly active. They are going to pretend to desperately miss Patrick - sorry, not pretend, emphasise."

Patrick slitted his eyes, but once again Treego had got a laugh from the assembled animals, so he attempted another smile with one side of his mouth.

"We will use this to build their story, to, well, humanise them. Then, once we have enough that makes Neuromax the bad guys and Patrick here the loving, caring father who took all the stranded animals under his care - which, again, not to suck up or anything, but that is true," Treego said. This time Patrick smiled properly, widely, symmetrically. Sincerity from Treego was a thing to be treasured. Treego continued, "Once we have that, we put it online. Of course people will think it's fake, but then they'll come to the zoo, and they'll see the truth."

A spider monkey raised her paw slowly into the air. "Why can't we just do that now?"

"Because Patrick would be Neuromax's scapegoat," Treego explained, "We need evidence to counter that attack. Any more questions?"

The monkey shook her head, and nodded for Treego to continue.

"Sorry, didn't mean to sound harsh," Treego said, "Genuinely, does anyone have any more questions?"

Nobody said anything, other than a few murmurs to the negative. Some shook their heads as well.

"Okay, good," Treego said, "Patrick, to the lab!"