“But what about the humans?” I asked.

  “That’s where these guys come in,” Yolanda said, and nodded to Angus and Sharif and Johnson.

  Sharif and Johnson were still smiling the stiffest of smiles. Everyone stared at them, and they said nothing, as if not wanting anyone to confuse the plan with anything they would have concocted themselves.

  “The doors will be open,” Yolanda continued, “so it’s just a matter of Bertrand and I finding the right time.”

  “To fly in?” I guessed.

  “Indeed,” Bertrand said. “We’ll fly in, one at a time, though we’ll immediately take different routes, both of us heading toward the top floor.”

  “It’ll seem logical to the humans,” Yolanda added, “to have the crazy birds head upward to the skylights.”

  “There’s a room up there that has a door,” Bertrand continued. “We’ll fly into that room and perch up in the highest window frame. All of this is in hopes that all the humans in the building chase us, get all worked up, and spend a bunch of time trying to catch us, get us down, et cetera.”

  “And meanwhile I roam the museum?” I asked. Something about it jabbed at me. It wasn’t quite enough. It wasn’t the right higher purpose.

  “In part,” Bertrand said. “But Angus will also be waiting at the doorway to sound a warning if any of the humans head down in your direction. If that happens, you’ll have plenty of time to either hide, or make for the exit. Same way you came in.”

  “And how many humans are usually there on Mondays?” I asked.

  “About eight throughout the day,” Yolanda said, “but no more than four at any one time. We were thinking the best time would be midday, when there’s only two there. That’s between shifts, I assume.”

  “Once they see us all, they’ll call the Control-the-Animals people,” I noted.

  “Of course they will,” Bertrand said. “But it usually takes them a few hours to get here—to get anywhere.” Bertrand then turned to me. “You think that’ll be enough time?”

  I didn’t know what to say. I’d never been inside that building, and didn’t know what was in there. “I have no idea,” I said. “And I haven’t agreed to this yet.”

  “No,” Yolanda said, with compassion.

  “I mean,” I continued, “couldn’t we all get caught? Or at least one of us?” I had a terrible premonition just then that it would not be me that got caught, but one of the birds. I pictured fragile wings mangled in a heavy net, beaks straining, terrified eyes. But the birds themselves seemed wholly unworried.

  “The beauty part comes in there,” Bertrand said. “When the Control-the-Animals people come, they rush up to the third floor with their nets. That’s when you, Johannes, exit.”

  “You’re first out of the building,” Yolanda said.

  “All of the humans head up to the third floor,” Bertrand said, “because they’ve been told it’s two birds. But right when they’re on the stairwell heading up, Sharif and Johnson appear, heading down.”

  “They run right past them!” Yolanda said, laughing suddenly and helplessly, her eyes wet.

  Bertrand was grinning. “Sharif and Johnson lead the people onto the second floor, leaving the third floor pretty much empty. That’s when we get out of there. We both fly down to the loading dock and out, while everyone’s chasing the raccoons.”

  “What about Sharif and Johnson?” I said.

  All along, the raccoons continued their tense, unsettling smiles. There was no animal more clever and open to wily and even diabolical plans, but they seemed unsure about this one. At the same time, they were clearly afraid to hurt the feelings of the birds who had planned it so carefully.

  “Apparently there’s a garbage chute?” Sharif said dubiously.

  “There is,” Yolanda said. “It leads to a dumpster in the basement.”

  “It’s been proposed that we go through the garbage chute,” Johnson explained to me. “And into the dumpster.”

  “And how do they get out of the dumpster?” I asked. I thought I was looking out for my raccoon friends, but Sharif didn’t take it that way. He looked at me like I’d asked how they know how to eat food.

  “We can get out of a dumpster,” he said flatly.

  TWENTY

  I was still keeping a low profile, so I stayed out of sight, turning my friends’ plan-to-get-me-into-the-museum into my plan-to-get-the-Bison-out-of-their-enclosure. This, I knew now, was the nobler purpose Bertrand had talked about.

  The planning kept my mind off my own troubles, and gave me the same sense of mission Bertrand spoke of. Every reasonable creature knows that the worst thing any creature can do all day is think of themselves. If there are troubles in your mind, you should think first of the troubles of others; it is the essence of liberation. That is, freedom begins the moment we forget ourselves.

  And my purpose, I was convinced, was to liberate the Bison. The idea intoxicated me. Every moment of the day I pictured them running free, on the beach and then on plains and through forests. I was unsure where these plains and forests were, but when I saw Freya and Meredith and Samuel running, free of fences, I smiled and felt it might be the work I was meant to do on this earth. And that they would be proud. They would be proud, would be away and running in some other place, and I would likely never see them again, but they would look back on me and feel proud of me.

  It was not that I did not feel their pride in me. Freya had entrusted me with being the Eyes and had never wavered in her support of me. And yet I felt something, some creeping lack—some sense that they expected only so much of me.

  But what if I did something extraordinary?

  What if I liberated them and sent them into some new and transcendent level of existence?

  They would think differently of me.

  They would be surprised by my ingenuity. My ability to rally the animals and pull off the impossible.

  So I continued to work out the wheres and hows and whos. I wondered how many raccoons we would need: as many as possible. I thought about the escape being at night: it must be. I thought about the escape being during windy, stormy weather: this would help. I thought that our best chance would be on one of our dark and moonless nights, when the winds whip and hunt. When branches crack and break, when the human lights go out, when the roads are closed by fallen trees.

  That! I thought. That would be the time!

  TWENTY-ONE

  During this low-profile time, even though I couldn’t be the Eyes myself, my reports to the Bison still needed to be made, so for the next few days I skulked to the rounded rock—going slowly, slowly, skulking so slowly it pained me, it ruined me, it was so humiliating to go so slow, but going fast would bring attention. At the rounded rock, I would scamper to the top to meet the Assistant Eyes and ask them for their reports. I would listen to these reports, determine what was important and what was not, and then Bertrand would convey my report to the Bison. It was not a perfect system but it was all we had.

  This particular day, I waited at the rounded rock for the Assistant Eyes to arrive. First was Sonja, and as usual, she acted as if she had interrupted a private gathering.

  “Oh, hello,” she said. “I’m just here for the meeting. But I can leave if you want…”

  I reminded Sonja that she’d been coming to our meetings for six hundred years, that she was a valuable member of the team, and our friend to boot, so there was no need for this shyness. I wanted to tell her that I’d said exactly this to her a million and one times, but didn’t, because already she had begun to smile.

  “Okay,” she said. “So I guess I’m here.”

  Angus scampered up at that moment, which was startling, because never before had he been close to on time, and by my estimation, this time he was early.

  “I got a clock,” he said.

  I didn’t know what a clock was. I turned to Sonja, hoping she did, and that she might explain it, but her look was blank.

  “It’s a human thing,” Angus said. “It tells you when to do things and go places. I got one, taught myself time, and now I’m always prompt. By the way,” he added, “our meetings are at noon. That’s the time-word for when the Sun is straight above us.”

  This was too much information for me to take in all at once. Angus was using a human device and would always be prompt? It seemed against the natural order of things. But then I remembered I was wearing an unsightly human-made sweater, and thought: Hm! Seems we are all going through some significant changes!

  And I decided not to say anything more about it.

  A great warm shadow swept over us and I knew Yolanda was above. She landed with her usual chaos-clatter of wings and feet. I said hello, and Angus said hello, and Sonja just squinted through her remaining eye in a way that seemed friendly.

  We waited for Bertrand on the rounded rock, and I wanted badly to begin. To get our reports out of the way, first, and then begin to plan again for the escape of the Bison.

  “Anyone seen him?” I asked.

  “Not for a bit,” Yolanda said. “I saw him by the windmill earlier in the morning. But that was some time ago.”

  “Speaking of time,” Angus said, and started talking again about his new clock, and I found myself losing interest, and so I looked up to the Sun bright above. The Sun appreciates it when we appreciate her, we must remember, so even as Angus droned on about the definition of time, we raised our faces to the Sun and took in her warmth.

  Finally we heard a sound from above, a whistle growing louder. I looked up and it was a dot, then it was a bird, then it was Bertrand.

  “Whoa boy! Whoa whoa whoa!” he yelled. This is what Bertrand said when he descended quickly. It was something he’d heard a human say once while riding a horse. He landed, and paced back and forth on the rock, his back arched and his feathers still ruffled.

  “Do I have news!” he said. He was huffing loudly. “There’s a bunch of weird animals near the windmill. They’re unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”

  “Are they raccoons?” Angus asked.

  Bertrand gave him an exasperated look. “I just said they’re unlike anything I’ve seen. You are a raccoon, and I have seen you, so how could these be raccoons?”

  “So they’re not raccoons,” Angus concluded. There was something in his eyes, though, that hoped—suspected even—that they really were raccoons.

  “How many of them?” I asked.

  “Hundreds!” Bertrand yelled. “Millions! They’re all over the park by the windmill. We gotta go now,” he said, and turned to me. “And you don’t have to worry. No one will be looking at you in that sweater with this going on.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  And so we all scampered down and made our way to the windmill. Bertrand and Yolanda flew overhead. For years the windmill area had been covered with tulips, a gorgeous chorus of colors that bloomed like a million tiny sunrises. But then, a short time ago, some kind of weed had taken over the area, killing the flowers and every other nearby plant. These were weeds with prickles and spikes and barbed stalks. Every one of us, even the birds, had had unfortunate experiences with these weeds and their anti-social features. I had scars on my legs and hindquarters, and Angus, who had tried to scamper under them, had a nasty streak that started on his shoulder and ran all the way down his back. As we approached the windmill, I got pre-emptively annoyed about Bertrand bringing us all to see these stabby weeds and their floral victims.

  But then we all gathered behind some bushes, on a rise with a view of the windmill and its environs. From there we saw the hundreds, or maybe millions, of new creatures that Bertrand had promised.

  “They’re eating the weeds,” Angus said.

  Indeed they were. We watched as the animals continued to fan out. When we arrived, they were in a close formation, but as we watched, they spread like water, devouring the tough and spiky weeds like they were the most delicate desserts.

  “What are those creatures?” I asked.

  No one knew. They had long hair or fur, curved horns and four legs—skinny legs—and stood a bit like horses, but they were more the size of large dogs. And they were eaters. They ate and ate and ate. It was astounding the way they ate.

  “I would have never thought to eat those weeds,” Angus said.

  “They go at them like they’re dandelions,” Sonja said.

  “I don’t understand it,” Yolanda said.

  These weed-devourers never paused. We watched for hours and they never stopped eating.

  I didn’t know what we’d be reporting to the Bison.

  “Maybe tell them a hundred tiny horned horses are about to eat the windmill?” Angus said.

  I knew we needed more information. For example, where had they come from? Every so often there was a new animal in the park. We all remembered, for example, when the first loon arrived. The ducks were so happy to have a bird nuttier than themselves. But we’d never had an invasion like this: a species like no other, and in such vast numbers.

  “Do we talk to them?” I asked.

  “I think we do,” Bertrand said.

  But we couldn’t just barge down to the mass of eaters and announce ourselves. The way they were eating the weeds was chilling. Would they eat us, too? They seemed like vegetarians, but how could we be sure? There were so many of them. A thousand? A million? They could disappear the five of us in seconds.

  “Look,” Angus said, and pointed to two of them, both a bit smaller than the others. One was black-spotted and the other was the dull color of red clay. They had wandered away from the pack and were making their way to us.

  “I can get closer,” Bertrand said. Bertrand was always brave and never scared, and always liked to be first in line for danger. And he didn’t really think much of it. He said these things and did these things naturally, as naturally as I ate pupusas and Angus opened complicated containers. “If they go under the bough of that pine,” Bertrand said, “I’ll be close enough to talk to them but far enough away that they can’t eat me.”

  We all told Bertrand to take care, and he rose into the sky, circling high before swooping low and heading to the tree in question. Meanwhile, we all hid in a dense thicket where we could hear the ensuing conversation.

  Bertrand dropped in with great elegance and settled on a bough. He looked down to the two sample creatures. “Hello friends,” he said to them. He was perched above, looking friendly enough, casual even, though decidedly out of eating range if they thought him delectable.

  The two animals looked up, mumbled hello with mouths full, and went back to eating. This was a start, we all thought. They spoke our language, and they chose to speak—or mumble—to Bertrand, and not to eat him.

  “Welcome to our home,” Bertrand said, and smiled down to them. I thought he sounded very regal and magnanimous, and I was proud of him, but the eaters didn’t look up this time. They nodded almost imperceptibly and continued eating. It seemed very rude to me.

  Bertrand cleared his throat. “Can I ask where you all come from?” he asked.

  The two eaters looked sidelong at each other, as if imploring the other to be the one to answer the question. It was clear that neither of them wanted to stop eating. Finally the black-spotted one raised his head. He was still chewing with a rounded, incessant motion of his powerful jaws.

  “We’re from the main-land,” he said, his mouth full. Then he went back to eating with renewed devotion.

  Bertrand nodded calmly, as if he’d just been told the most logical and expected thing. But none of us had ever heard of anything called the main-land. We knew what main meant, and what land meant, but the two words together meant nothing to us. Angus looked at me and I shrugged.

  “The main-land, eh?” Bertrand said. “Remind me, where’s that again? You mean the gray human settlements surrounding the park?”

  I was so happy Bertrand asked that, because it was precisely the question on my mind, too. I would have been too embarrassed to ask.

  Again the two eaters looked at each other, begging the other to be the one to explain. Every time one of them had to speak, this meant time away from eating, and neither could abide the sacrifice. I thought I saw one of them roll his pale eyes. Finally the reddish one raised his head.

  “The main-land?” he said. There was a know-it-all tone in his voice. “The main…land? The main…land?” He did not sound so polite or so respectful of Bertrand, and I found myself growing impatient with the impertinence of these two furry eaters.

  Bertrand looked down at this reddish one, smiling but befuddled. “I don’t understand,” he said.

  “You’re on an i-land,” the red one said matter-of-factly. “A very small i-land. When you leave here, you cross the sea and you hit the main-land, which is a billion times bigger than this place.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  It’s difficult to convey the effect this information had on me, on all of us. We stopped breathing.

  And then a human voice emerged from the pack of weed-eaters. He made a kind of high-pitched sound, and the two animals we’d been talking to turned and abruptly left. They joined the rest of their kind, never saying Excuse us or Goodbye.

  “What a strange species,” Bertrand said.

  Because there was a human nearby, we thought other humans might be nearby, too, so we slunk away, planning to regroup on the rounded rock. Once there, we were all individually more confused than before, and collectively more confused than that.

  “They sure like to eat,” Yolanda said. “Anyone notice that?”

  “And what about that main-land thing?” Angus said. “Do you really believe we’re on an island?”

  Bertrand was silent, and I had the feeling he felt responsible—that knowing the extent of the land we stood on was something his perspective might be uniquely suited to.