Extinct Doesn't Mean Forever (8 page)

Since arriving, I was forever feeling as though I were standing at a great height, looking downwards. Too much past flooding into the present, I had discovered, produces vertigo. I’d had to come, but I wished it were easier. Perhaps, leaving it all too late, this place could never be anything more for Jack than someone else’s story.

“We can do something special tomorrow,” I told him.
“How about that?”

So I took Jack to see the thylacine. Hell, I thought, it’s something for him to tell the grandkids.

“Ohhh,” Jack exhaled when he saw it.

He went to caress the jar. I pulled it back.

“It is very precious,” I told him.

“Its paw is cut,” he said.

The right paw was almost gone.

“That’s to make more of them,” I explained.

His eyes filled. “Can’t we bury it? It looks so sad.”

“It’s not ours. Besides, it can’t feel anything anymore. It doesn’t know what is happening to its body. The real beast, its essence, is exactly in the place where it belongs.
Some cool, green plain where it can run and laugh and be its true self.”

Since the afternoon Robin had first shown me the beast, I had been reading everything I could find about it.
Dog-faced dasyurus
, it was called once,
dog-headed opossum, striped wolf,
Van
Diemen’s
Land tiger
. I knew all the names.
Thylacinus cynocephalus
, meaning pouched dog with wolf’s head, named for the backward pouch in which it carried its young. But also, I liked to think, for the way it carried its testes, folded softly inside a partial pouch, protected by the lateral folds of the belly skin. And
slut
, too, it was called. Used, of course, only when speaking of the female of the species. Ironic really, for one who bred so rarely, and never in captivity.

Meanwhile, Jack had fights. He turned vicious. Telling me over dinner what he would do to his enemies. I couldn’t believe it. Where was my gentle boy? The child who cried in sympathy when other children did? Had I brought him too far? Made him leave his own natural and true habitat? I was so
worried,
I talked to his father about his going back. I felt sick when I did that, actually physically sick.
And even worse afterwards.
I had to lean over, my hands touching my knees, my hair dangling over my head, draping the floor.

In the end I couldn’t do it. I kept an eye on him, though; kept that radical plan behind glass in case of emergencies.

I had forgotten about the island, about it being a place of outrageous extremes, of fairy tale animals, of terrible, dark cautions. I wanted the middle ground again, just for a day. I did not want the dark forests, the imaginary creatures, the yowling beasts. But I was drawn to it too, of course. It was my own childhood, my territory, my nature. And sometimes our nature makes us sick to our stomachs.

I began to collect books on the beast. Many island people did, just as if they were collecting biographies of family members. I read the books over and over. Jack did too. We read that its tail was heavy and stiff, as inflexible as a kangaroo’s. It was a dog that could not wag its tail. How disturbing it must have been to own a dog whose tail you could not encourage
to wag
. It could make a person resentful, a tail like that. The creature had had a surprisingly large brain capacity, much larger than expected. I wondered what that large brain had been used
for?
Dreaming?

Caged in zoos, thylacines were seen by most people as boring. The creature did not seem to know that what was required of it was a performance of some kind. Even a rebellious, zoo-crazed frenzy would have been something. But having no understanding of people, they showed no fear. We simply did not exist for them, and to be ignored is, for human beings, the worst thing in the world. Mostly, the beast sat in its cage looking pitiful, meekly accepting the situation it found itself in, without protest. Alive, it had been completely without entertainment value. Now that it is dead, it is a vacant space, able to be filled with anyone’s fantasies. It is replete with potential. People can’t get enough of it.

There were protests over the research, of course. Some mornings I had to cross a picket line. I know how you
feel,
I wanted to tell the protesters. I know all the issues. I think about them too. You’re right. This is a publicity stunt, a way to attract funding. But it is also so much more than that. Think of it as a resurrection, the raising of the dead. Such a thing has only been done once or twice before, and then by gods. How marvelous it would be!

Or is that what worries them?

But I was being unfair. Miracles, by their nature, provoke fierce, uncontrollable response. That is their purpose, surely.

And lately the creature was being spotted everywhere. People saw it in paddocks and scrubland, on mountains, even in small, suburban backyards. Dream tigers leaping suddenly out of the island’s subconscious and, just as suddenly, being sucked back in again, disappearing immediately, covering all tracks. Most sightings, I noted, occurred at night. That made sense, I thought. The beast, after all, had been a nocturnal hunter. But, also, night is the time of shadows and dreams, the time of yearning. It has been seen on the mainland too, though it has been extinct there for thirty centuries. Resurrection is an effort of the imagination as much as anything.

I hoped the effort and expense of the work would be worth it. Humans rarely change their habits, however. We might bring the beast back only to see it quickly become extinct once more.

~~~

It happened slowly, at continent-forming pace, but Jack began to ease into the island. He found a group of friends, sometimes even staying over with one or the other of them. He smiled a bit every now and then. He relaxed enough to give me a hard time. That was a good sign, believe it or not. It meant he was getting his confidence back. I took him to a small zoo one day with six or seven Tasmanian devils. He couldn’t believe them. “They’re just like cartoons,” he said. One of them opened its obscene mouth wide and growled, setting all the others off. Jack howled with laughter.

I loosened up enough to plan a veggie garden. We stopped being tourists. This crazy idea of mine was actually working. Sometimes we just stood there grinning at each other. It was probably the relief more than anything. After such a grim time, one or two good things made us giddy, hysterical, as if we were particularly lucky and fortunate people. I don’t know how it happened, except maybe that we just persevered. After all, we couldn’t go back, not really. It happened because we’d had no alternative.

One lunchtime
, I saw old Dot Lutin in the street, a neighbour from my childhood. She screamed and hugged me, and made everything about the past seem instantly solid and graspable. We had a good old chinwag over a cuppa. It calmed me right down. For the first time since we’d arrived, I felt like I belonged.

That afternoon I stayed at work until the corridors were silent, and I made my way to the dark, chill room where the valuable specimens were kept. It was not the only specimen, I knew, but it was the best. I opened the jar, removed the thylacine, insured recently for two million dollars, wrapped it in a newly bought baby blanket, and took it to the forest, where I buried it under the canopy of a vast tree. Jack made a strange face at me that evening as we were watching the news, as if he knew exactly what I had done.
I just smiled back at him.

~~~

JEN WHITE is an Australian author of speculative fiction who has had short stories published in various anthologies and journals. Her short story “
An Ordinary Boy”
appeared in the anthology
The Tangled Bank: Love, Wonder and Evolution
. She also has stories in the anthologies
Bewere the Night
and
Dead Red Heart
.

Keeping a baby dinosaur safe and secret from prying TV people and scientists is no easy task for a kid. But when your
family have
been keeping their sacred traditions secret from those same people for generations, it might make things just a little easier.

MY OWN SECRET DINOSAUR

by
Jo Antareau

“The sore is from when Addy scratched me. He’s only a little dinosaur.
Didn’t mean to hurt me.
He’s just bored from hiding in my room all the time. He’s a plantivore, so he’s not gonna eat me.”

Em stares at me as if listening will make her brain explode. “Get a band-aid on it and shut up. I’m Skyping.” She turns back to the screen. “Yeah, I’m stuck home babysitting the Piglet.”

I get on with caring for my toe. The sore isn’t deep, but Addy — and his claws — are getting bigger. He doesn’t look like nothing I’ve ever seen, except in a picture. His legs don’t stick out to the side like a gecko’s.
Got big back legs and short front legs, like a T-Rex.
First, I thought he was one of those chicken-sized dinosaurs, but now I reckon he might grow taller than the house.
Already bigger than the cat.
I’ve tried to teach him to catch a Frisbee in his mouth, but he’s as keen about that as the cat was.

He still needs his breakfast.
He’s woke
up properly now that the day’s getting warm, but I hardly let him out in the backyard no more.
Plants starting to look sick coz Addy’s
been chewing them.

“Hide, boy,” I tell him, stomping my feet. I chuck a dandelion under the bed, and he has to wriggle to get under. Soon be too big to fit. I hear him snap his mouth,
then
he sticks his head out again, looking hopeful. I’m still stomping. “No, boy, stay hidden till the footsteps have stopped.” We do it again and again till I’ve run out of dandelions, and he sticks his snout in my hand for more.

I been
getting his food from the park. Fallen twigs and bits of grass aren’t a good feed no more. Now I gotta take a hacksaw and drag some branches home, and get rid of them once he’s eaten the green bits. People give me funny looks.

I tell Addy he won’t need to wait long, he’ll get food soon — yummy leaves. When Em’s on Skype, which is most of the time, she wouldn’t hear a bomb. So she won’t notice if I go out and come home with half a forest on my back. Addy tries to follow me, but I shut the door just in time. He’s getting faster.

Em calls out, saying she’s off to the beach soon. She’s meeting her friends, and I’d better hurry and get my gear if I know what’s good for me. I ignore her. She’d be dead meat if Dad finds out she’s left me alone. Dad’s paying her to stay home with me, which
is
a pain, coz I haven’t had a seizure for ages. So I tell her I’ll be ready in my own good time, and sprint to the park. It doesn’t take long to get some thin, new branches. I sling them on each shoulder.

On the way back, Len calls out “Hi.” He’s an old guy with grizzled white hair and beard. He says something about Birnam Wood going to Dunsinane, which makes no sense, but I figure it’s about the branches.

“To feed my dinosaur,” I tell him, and he chuckles.

“Just like yer Grandfather, you are. ‘E always liked a good laugh.”

Len knows that Dad and
me
like hearing stories about Dad’s dad, coz we never knew him. But I really gotta hurry; Em might hear Addy scratching. Len starts telling me about how the Blackfellas use these branches. The smoke’s sweet and good to heat rocks and cook fish, but already I’m walking away.

“Ah,” Len calls out after me, disappointed. “This one
won’t never
make a Blackfella.
Likes ‘is food from a supermarket.”

I tell him I wanna hear about how Blackfellas live, but later. When I get to my room, Addy gets all excited. I figure he’s a type of Iguanadon, coz he’s got a spiky sort of thumb that sticks up.
Been googling when Em’s not hogging the computer.
Not sure what type of Iguanadon, coz there’s heaps of them. He grips his branch with his spike when he sits on his back legs and tears the leaves and green bits.
Leaves the tough bits behind.
His huge mouth works hard, like a person with a heap of gum.
Gets a dreamy look to him when he’s eating.

But he shat when I was out, so I get to work
quick
on the mess. When Addy shits, he don’t muck around. Lots of runny green
stuff,
sorta like a cow pat. Heaps for a little guy, but I’m used to it. So I scrub with an old towel.
Once used Em’s towel by mistake.
So funny when she found it; wanted to know who spilt the spinach curry over it.

Em’s stomping down the hall, asking if I want her to kill me. So I tell Addy to hide, and shove him in the wardrobe with his breakfast. Just in time, coz Em sticks her nose in. I’m leaning on the wardrobe door. If she saw what was in there, she’d upload pictures on Facebook and YouTube fast as you could blink, then tweet everyone about it.

“What’s with the leaves?” she says, scowling at the bits left on the floor. “
You making
a pretty flower arrangement?”