On the way back, Dad remembered he forgot to refill the leaky radiator with water as the thermometer rose. We had to stop the car, wait for the engine to cool and add water before we could continue home. Fortunately Mom managed to call Maria, our maid, to keep lunch warm before she took off for her weekend break.
Our first inkling of trouble came when Dad saw the front door ajar and exploded, “She forgot to lock the door again! I bet that bloody cat has pooped all over the sofa!”
“What is wrong with Maria?” Mom replied. “She knows how many break-ins we’ve had in this area! You’d better go in first!”
Dad pushed open the door and sniffed the air. “I smell something unusual. What the devil has Maria cooked up this time?”
“Salmon porridge, the way you like it,” Mom said. “It’s the smell of sweat, I think!”
A musky disagreeable odour filled my nostrils as I followed Mom and Dad into the house. The kind of stench you normally associate with zoos. I had to cover my nose with a hanky.
Mom suddenly gasped as she noticed the opened drawers. “Somebody has been going through our things!”
“And look at my chair!” I cried. The sight of my Bugs Bunny stool lying broken on the floor brought tears to my eyes.
Dad clenched his teeth as a growl rose from his barrel chest. “I’ll rip his lungs out if I catch the one who did this!”
“Shall we call the police?” Mom cried.
“Call the police?” Dad snarled as he pulled at his dark brown hair. “Do you know how long it’ll take them to get here?”
“Dad, you’d better have a look at this.” The kitchen was in a mess. Cupboards were open, the floor was covered with broken crockery and Maria’s porridge was all over the dining table. Our precious honey was dripping from the overturned pots.
“I’m afraid,” Mom said in a panicky voice. “It looks - and smells - like some wild animal has been in here!”
“Calm down,” Dad replied. “All right, you try to get the police while I check upstairs. Bruno, stay with your mother.”
I disobeyed as usual and sneaked up behind Dad. The animal stench got even stronger as we ascended. The hair on my back was standing upright. Dad became very quiet at the landing. He looked around the hallway before moving silently to my room where a soft purring seemed to be coming from. He peered in before signaling me to approach. I crept over and stared in amazement at the creature sleeping in my bed. It had light yellow fur and the ugliest hairless face I had ever seen.
“What is it?” I whispered.
“I don’t know. Some kind of exotic monkey, I suppose.”
Back downstairs, Mom said the police had promised to come by tomorrow evening. Dad grabbed the phone and made a call to his zoo-keeper friend, describing the creature to him. The keeper promptly came over with a big net, caught the animal and locked the screaming repulsive thing in his van.
“Phew! I’m glad that’s over!” Dad said to his keeper friend.
“It’s only just begun!” Mom replied. “Look at the cleaning we have to do! We’ll probably have to disinfect the whole house and burn Bruno’s bed sheets!”
“I’m not sleeping in that bed again!” I protested. “It probably has fleas!”
“No,” laughed the keeper as he and Dad bear-hugged and shook paws. “She – yes, she’s female – smells a bit but we keep her very clean. And she's quite intelligent too – managed to pick her lock with a piece of wire. But much lower in the evolutionary ladder than we bears are. A rare species closed to extinction. Some call her Goldilocks but her real name is homo sapien.”
[First published in Write Out Loud]
