Chapter Text
If mama and papa would let me play,
Inside my lion friend all day,
I'd learn to roar, I'd learn to bite,
I'd run through Brooklyn streets all night,
I'd hide inside my lion lair,
And think up good ideas in there.
Like a jungle safari to Sheepshead Bay
Just me and my lion so far away.
--Maurice Sendak & Carole King, "Really Rosie"
The sun beat down on the concrete pathways of the Riverside City Zoo, making everything shimmer like a mirage. Eight-year-old Jamie trudged along behind their parents, who were having another one of their "discussions" – the kind where Mom's voice got sharp and Dad's jaw got tight, and they both pretended Jamie couldn't hear every word.
"I told you we should have taken the map," Mom was saying, waving her phone at the air. "The GPS doesn't work properly in here."
"We don't need a map to walk around a zoo, Sandra," Dad replied, his patience worn thin as tissue paper.
Jamie stopped to retie a shoelace that didn't need retying, letting the distance between them grow. Their parents didn't notice. They never seemed to notice much about Jamie these days, too caught up in their ongoing war of small grievances and big silences.
The zoo was crowded with happy families – parents pointing out animals to excited toddlers, older kids racing from exhibit to exhibit, grandparents buying ice cream for sticky-fingered grandchildren. Jamie watched them all with the detached curiosity of an anthropologist studying an alien species. What was it like, Jamie wondered, to be part of a family that actually wanted to be together?
A group of children about Jamie's age ran past, laughing and calling to each other. One of them bumped Jamie's shoulder without stopping to apologize. Jamie didn't mind. Being invisible had its advantages. No one expected anything from invisible people.
The path split ahead. Jamie's parents, still absorbed in their argument about the map, turned left toward the big cats. Jamie turned right.
The baboon exhibit was quieter, tucked away in an older section of the zoo. Most visitors walked past it quickly, eager to get to the more exciting animals. The enclosure was large and naturalistic, with manufactured rocks and real trees creating multiple levels for the baboons to climb and explore. A troupe of about fifteen baboons went about their business – grooming each other, chasing juveniles, foraging for hidden treats the zookeepers had scattered around.
But it was the solitary figure sitting apart from the others that caught Jamie's attention.
This baboon was different. Ancient, somehow, though Jamie couldn't say exactly why. He sat on a high rock ledge, separated from the chaos of the troupe, holding what looked remarkably like a walking stick – though it must have been just a branch. His fur was gray-white around his face, giving him the appearance of an old wise man with a beard. Something about his posture suggested deep thought, or perhaps meditation.
Jamie moved closer to the glass, drawn by an inexplicable pull. The viewing area was deserted except for a bored teenager taking a selfie at the far end. Jamie pressed their palms against the warm glass and stared.
The old baboon's head turned slowly, deliberately, until his eyes met Jamie's.
The world seemed to pause.
Those eyes were nothing like what Jamie expected from an animal. They held depth, knowledge, and something that looked impossibly like recognition. The baboon tilted his head slightly, as if considering Jamie, evaluating them. Then, so deliberately it couldn't be coincidence, he nodded.
Not the random head movement of an animal, but an actual, purposeful nod. A greeting. An acknowledgment.
Jamie's heart hammered. Without thinking, they nodded back.
The baboon's face crinkled in what Jamie would have sworn was amusement. He shifted his stick – and it really did look like a purposeful walking stick now, decorated with some kind of fruit or gourds hanging from the top – and seemed to lean forward slightly.
Jamie wanted to speak, wanted to ask a thousand questions, but their throat felt closed. Instead, they just stood there, maintaining that impossible eye contact, feeling for the first time in months like someone actually saw them. Really saw them.
The old baboon raised one long finger and pointed directly at Jamie, then placed that same hand over his own chest, right where his heart would be. The gesture was so human, so deliberate, that Jamie gasped.
"Are you trying to tell me something?" Jamie whispered, breath fogging the glass.
The baboon tilted his head the other way, and Jamie could have sworn he was smiling. Not a threat display of teeth, but something gentler, knowing. He tapped his stick against the rock twice, a sound that somehow carried even through the glass and distance, resonating in Jamie's chest like a drumbeat.
Time stretched like taffy. Jamie didn't know how long they stood there, locked in this strange communion with the ancient baboon. It could have been minutes or hours. The rest of the zoo faded away – no more chattering families, no more distant roar of lions, no more smell of popcorn and sunscreen. There was just Jamie and this impossible creature who seemed to see straight through to Jamie's lonely heart.
"Jamie! JAMIE!"
Mom's sharp voice shattered the moment like a rock through glass. Jamie spun around to see both parents striding toward them, faces pinched with irritation.
"We've been looking everywhere for you!" Dad said, his tone suggesting this was somehow Jamie's fault despite them being the ones who'd walked off. "You can't just wander away like that."
"I didn't wander," Jamie protested weakly. "I just—"
"Come on, we're leaving," Mom interrupted, already turning back toward the exit. "I have a headache from this heat, and your father refuses to buy a bottle of water because the prices here are 'highway robbery.'"
"Three dollars for water is ridiculous, Sandra."
"Oh, here we go again..."
Jamie turned back to the baboon exhibit for one last look. The old baboon was still watching, still in that same position on his rock. As Jamie watched, he raised his stick in what looked unmistakably like a farewell salute.
Then he did something even stranger. He pointed his stick toward the exit, then up at the sky, then finally tapped it against his chest again. The message seemed clear, though impossible: Go now. We'll meet again. I'll remember you.
"Jamie! Now!"
Jamie raised one hand to the glass in goodbye, then hurried after their parents. At the exhibit's edge, they looked back one more time. The old baboon was still watching, his ancient eyes tracking Jamie's movement with that same knowing look.
As the family walked toward the parking lot, parents arguing about who had the car keys, Jamie felt something had shifted. The loneliness was still there, heavy as a backpack full of stones, but underneath it was something new. A tiny spark of possibility, as if the universe had winked at them through the eyes of an old baboon.
That night, Jamie would dream of vast African skies and ancient baobab trees. And somewhere in those dreams, they would hear the sound of a stick tapping against stone, keeping time with a rhythm as old as the world itself.
But that would come later. For now, Jamie climbed into the backseat of their parents' car, buckled their seatbelt, and watched the zoo disappear behind them. They didn't see the figure in the tree near the parking lot – couldn't have seen it, really, because surely baboons couldn't escape their enclosures.
And surely that wasn't the sound of knowing laughter carried on the afternoon wind.