Читать книгу Michael’s Ark - Alex Nuller - Страница 5

One morning Mike started off on a walk, while Camel stayed home. Camel fussed around the room, pacing back and forth, and just couldn’t get comfortable. Sometimes he stopped, sat down on the rug, stretched out his hooves in front of himself and laid his head on them. Then he would stretch out one hoof from the bunch, scratch behind his ear, sigh deeply, grunt and let out a sustained “Hmmmmmmm…pf!” And after Camel let out his fifth “hmpf!” and scratched himself behind his ear for the third time, a rustling noise came from behind the arm chair. A large plaid throw blanket moved on the floor and Moosie popped out from underneath. He had just woken up and he was trying to scratch his nose with his short little paws, but without much success. He thought the matter over, and began rubbing his nose on the leg of the arm chair, when all at once he saw Camel. The two animals stared at each other.

“Who are you?” Moosie was the first to speak. Camel took his time carefully examining Moosie, at length letting loose his usual “hmpf” and articulating:

“I see that I have not yet made the acquaintance of all the residents of this household.14 It would seem that other species of cloven hoofed fauna are harbouring15 here.”

“What did you call my hoofs?” Moosie asked.

“I said nothing about your hoofs”, Camel answered, “I merely observed that there are various herbivorous16 creatures of the cloven hoofed order residing in this house, the existence of which I was not previously cognizant17.”

“Yes”, Moosie said, “I live here, but how did you get here?”

“Let us relegate as parenthetical18 the actual facts of my arrival in this house and maintain the hypothesis19 of Christmas and Santa Claus”, Camel said.

“Ah!” said Moosie, calming down. “So Santa Claus brought you. So where’s Relegate, his parents and Hypo? Did they all come together with you?”

Camel wiggled his ears, raised his brows and gave Moosie a disapproving look.

“Yeeees, I see!” he drawled, “Lovely company we have here, I must say!”

“Yeah? Where is this lovely company?” Moosie asked. But Camel didn’t answer him. Then Moosie asked:

“So it’s Christmas already?”

“Allow me to inform you”, Camel said, “I beg your pardon, I don’t have the pleasure of your acquaintance, and hence I do not know your name – that Christmas arrived exactly two days, eleven hours and twenty-five minutes ago. And you, I take it, have been slumbering?20”

“Slobbering?“Moosie asked, wiping his mouth.

“I merely observed that you were asleep”, Camel answered.

“Yeah”, Moosie said, “I fell asleep for a while. I wanted to sit in the arm chair, but I fell behind the back and went to sleep. And nobody woke me up. And now I missed Christmas and everything!”

“No great loss”, Camel said. “Another year over, a new one just begun. Life goes on, everything changes! “Sic transit Gloria mundi’, which translated from the Latin means “thus passeth earthly glory’.

Moosie wanted to say something else, but he couldn’t get it out, so he asked:

“So what’s your name?”

Camel slowly raised his brows at Moosie. “I do beg your pardon, I have forgotten to introduce myself”, Camel said, my name is Camel Dromedary, although I have recently acquired the new name “Dreamer’. Allow me to inquire as to your name.”

“My name is Moosie”, Moosie said, “I’m little white Moosie”.

Camel’s eyebrows rose even higher. He stood up, walked around Moosie, carefully scrutinizing him from horns to hoofs, and then back the other way. Then he unhurriedly returned to his former position, sat on the rug and said:

“The ancient Roman philosopher Seneca once observed “Errare humanum est’, which in Latin means “To err is human’, although in that particular case he was not alluding to moose. Possibly, I can now expand the application of that statement: “Errare mammali est’, which means “To err is mammalian’21. A silence descended on the room.

“Dreamer”, Moosie said after some moments, “do you mind if I sniff you?”

“Why would you do that?” Camel asked. “Allow me to be more specific: to what purpose?”

“Well, so I can get to know you better and we can be friends.”

“I already have one friend in this house”, Camel said, “Nevertheless, if you wish, by all means sniff as much as you like.”

Moosie stuck his big nose into Camel’s face and carefully sniffed him. Camel couldn’t resist and started sniffing Moosie too. Then Moosie happily snuffed right in Camel’s nose to show he had finished sniffing him.

“There”, Moosie said, “we’ve sniffed each other all over. That means that now we’re friends!”

“Right!” Dreamer offered, “Right on the nose, I dare say!”