All of these things were too big for me; the pants I had to roll up at the ankles and scrunch in at the waist by means of a belt she also fetched for me, and the green sweater clung loosely to my form with flapping sleeves. She said these clothes belonged to her older brother, who was away at college and wouldn’t miss them. Later, she unearthed from a closet an old pair of her father’s shoes. They were black leather loafers, slightly worn and like everything else too big for me, but serviceable enough. Prompted then by my cries of thirst and my belly that snarled audibly with hunger, she even brought me food and drink. (Oh—where would I be but for the kindness of women?) She restored my strength with a tall glass of water and choice viands—a dish, a great dish of chocolate chip cookies!—which she procured from somewhere downstairs. She warmed to me a little, then a little more, and then we sat in her bedroom and talked for a long while of general things. She was in the ninth grade, she said, and a freshman student in high school. She spoke of her father and mother and her older brother in a tone of bilious vituperation, and I replied that I only wished I had a family like hers, and that she ought to count herself fortunate to be raised in a good home with a nice family, and she riposted by giving me the finger. Of course she inquired about my own unusual circumstances—i.e., how I came to be discovered hiding in her “Little Princess Playhouse,” trembling from cold and fear, with flesh badly lacerated, mud-spattered, and nude. I stalled and stammered and creatively perambulated the truth—which I admit was morally wrong in theory but right in practice, for although I puttered and obscured and flat-out lied to her about certain ticklish specifics—I think I may have told her that I was born with gruesome birth defects, and my impoverished parents had sold me at a young age into a life of indentured servitude with a traveling circus, from which I had just escaped (which was plausible enough)—if I slightly fudged my autobiographical facts it was only because I was afraid of how she might react if she knew the truth.
Little Emily did not guess that the being who kept her company in her bedroom that afternoon and night was actually a chimp—and not just any chimp!—but Bruno, the speaking chimp of Chicago, who had already attained a dubious and unwanted degree of celebrity, as much for his iniquities as for his accomplishments. News of my daring escape from the New York University’s nearby Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates (LEMSIP) in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, appeared on the front page of the newspaper the following morning (tucked away in a quiet corner of the front page, but on the front page nonetheless). I don’t think little Emily suspected me then, though. I allowed her to continue in her belief that I was merely some sort of deformed midget. It’s a testament to her sterling character that she took me in, believing even this (which is unusual enough), and nursed my wounds, and gave me clothing, food, and shelter. After the initial shock of discovering me, she saw that I was articulate, and moreover that I was kind, and her first fear—that she would come to some harm at my hands—abated more with every passing minute we spent in conversation; but I suppose what put her at ease with me the most was a combination of the erudition I have by learning, and the charm I have by nature.
Little Emily and I had become so engrossed in our discourses that she forgot the time, and when she heard the sound of the front door of the house opening and shutting—faint as the sound was, her hyperattentive young ears immediately detected it—the color drained from her face, her eyes widened in fear, and she said: “Shit! My mom’s home.”
Downstairs, the dog went berserk with yapping; keys tinkled, shoes hit the floor. Then the voice of a woman calling: “Emily?”
“What should we do?” I said.
“You stay here,” she whispered. “I’ll deal with her. She knows she’s not allowed to come in. She respects my personal space.” (What