Annie rolled onto one side and lay propped on an elbow, staring at him. She was lovely. Fifteen years old, her fur was glossy and coppery, her small yellow eyes in the fleshy face expressive and intelligent. She started to rise up toward him, but turned toward the road.
The mail jeep was coming down the highway.
In a blurred movement, she set off at a four-point gallop down the half-mile drive toward the mailbox. Vernon swung down from his tree and followed, making a small groan.
Reluctant to go out in the sun, Douglas put down the tea and followed the apes down the drive. By the time he got near them, Annie was sitting with mail sorted between her toes, holding an opened letter in her hands. She looked up with an expression on her face that he’d never seen—it could have been fear, but it wasn’t.
She handed the letter to Vernon, who pestered her for it. “Douglas,” she signed, “they want to buy my story.”
Therese lay in the bathwater, her knees sticking up high, her hair floating beside her face. Douglas sat on the edge of the tub; as he talked to her he was conscious that he spoke a double language—the one with his lips and the other with his hands.
“As soon as I called Ms. Young, the magazine editor, and told her who Annie was, she got really excited. She asked me why we didn’t send a letter explaining it with the story, so I told her that Annie didn’t want anyone to know first.”
“Did Annie decide that?” Therese sounded skeptical, as she always seemed to when Douglas talked about Annie.
“We talked about it and she wanted it that way.” Douglas felt that resistance from Therese. Why she never understood, he didn’t know, unless she did it to provoke him. She acted as though she thought an ape was still just an ape, no matter what he or she could do. “Anyway,” he said, “she talked about doing a whole publicity thing to the hilt—talk shows, autograph parties. You know. But Dr. Morris thinks it would be better to keep things quiet.”
“Why?” Therese sat up; her legs went underwater and she soaped her arms.
“Because she’d be too nervous. Annie, I mean. It might disrupt her education to become a celebrity. Too bad. Even Dr. Morris knows that it would be great for fund-raising. But I guess we’ll let the press in some.”
Therese began to shampoo her hair. “I brought home that essay that Sandy wrote yesterday. The one I told you about. If she were an orangutan instead of just a deaf kid, she could probably get it published in
Douglas stood. He didn’t like the way Therese headed for the old argument—no matter what one of Therese’s deaf students did, if Annie could do it one-one-hundredth as well, it was more spectacular. Douglas knew it was true, but why Therese was so bitter about it, he didn’t understand.
“That’s great,” he said, trying to sound enthusiastic.
“Will you wash my back?” she asked.
He crouched and absently washed her. “I’ll never forget Annie’s face when she read that letter.”
“Thank you,” Therese said. She rinsed. “Do you have any plans for this evening?”
“I’ve got work to do,” he said, leaving the bathroom. “Would you like me to work in the bedroom so you can watch television?”
After a long pause, she said, “No, I’ll read.”
He hesitated in the doorway. “Why don’t you go to sleep early? You look tired.”
She shrugged. “Maybe I am.”
In the playroom at the school, Douglas watched Annie closely. It was still morning, though late. In the recliner across the room from him, she seemed a little sleepy. Staring out the window, blinking, she marked her place in Pinkwater’s
He had been thinking about Therese, who’d been silent and morose that morning. Annie was never morose, though often quiet. He wondered if Annie was quiet today because she sensed that Douglas was not happy. When he’d come to work, she’d given him an extra hug.
He wondered if Annie could have a crush on him, like many schoolgirls have on their teachers. Remembering her mating with Vernon days before, he idly wandered into a fantasy of touching her and gently, gently moving inside her.
The physical reaction to his fantasy embarrassed him.
“Douglas,” Annie signed. She walked erect, towering, to him and sat down on the floor at his feet. Her flesh folded onto her lap like dough.
“What?” he asked, wondering suddenly if orangutans were telepathic.
“Why you say my story children’s?”
He looked blankly at her.
“Why not send
He repressed a laugh, knowing it would upset her. “It’s… it’s the kind of story children would like.”
“Why?”
He sighed. “The level of writing is…
