Page 25 - Fables volume 3

All Aboard?

“Hey! Watch where you’re going!”
The giraffe looked down and around for the angry speaker. It was
a skunk, on the verge of lifting its tail.
“Sorry, sorry!” The towering ungulate tried to move in the
opposite direction, but was hemmed in by a bristling porcupine, a
coiling adder and a snorting rhinoceros. “Nowhere to go. I don’t get
it: why have we been trapped and forced into this enclosure? Is it for
a zoo or a circus? Do those people intend to eat us or sell us or
what?”
The skunk calmed down. “You just got here, right?”
“Well, it was earlier today, if that’s what you mean,” admitted the
giraffe. “I heard a jackal saying that it would be like speed dating: but
everyone here is a different kind of animal.”
“You’d better listen more closely, my friend. It’s not for dating that
we are here. It’s for mating. Look over there.”
The giraffe craned his neck around, getting a better view than his
shorter fellow detainees of what was happening beyond the sturdy
corral holding the loud and smelly collection of diverse fauna. He saw
a man leading a goat up to the pen and searching through the posts
and slats. Suddenly another goat broke through the milling mob and
ran toward that unpenned member of its own species. They bleated
at each other. Another man jumped into the holding area and led the
captured goat toward a gate. It opened briefly, and the two goats
regarded each other—but not for long. The men yoked them and led
the couple down a path to a riverbank jetty, where a huge vessel was
tied up. Then they were coaxed up a gangplank and disappeared
inside the boat.
“The goat’s fixed up.” The skunk did not seem enthused about the
development. “I wonder who’s next.”
“What does that imply, ‘fixed up?’ I have a feeling those two never
met before. They were simply relieved to see another of their own
kind.”
The skunk sighed. “Here’s the deal. The guy who owns the boat
thinks the whole world is going to be under water in a few days, and
he is supposed to save a breeding pair of every animal. So his sons

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