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JULIE

Fathers

By Felicity HarleyPublished 3 years ago 3 min read
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Photo thanks to Warner at Unsplash

Today the girl is going with her father to see the man who talks to animals. His name is Gerald Durrell. He lives across the mountains. They get into her father’s green jeep. Her mother isn’t coming. She stands at the door waving to them. Her hair is tied up in a red and yellow scarf. Their house surrounds her as she stands on the balcony under the tin roof. She’s glad her mother isn’t coming with them, since she gets to spend the whole day alone with her father.

They drive down the mountain very fast. Her father hits the bumps in the road at high speed and they fly across the sky. Her father tells her they are airplane pilots, and he tells her not to say anything to her mother. He says she will be cross.

Once they get to the border there are men with guns who look at some papers her father shows them, then they drive to a camp that has banana trees in the yard and lots of animals running around. Some of them are in cages. There is a lion and a small elephant, and there are some monkeys. There are also some very small black men. Her father tells her they are pygmies and are special helpers for the animals. He says they can whisper things to them they will understand.

Her father greets a tall white man in a hat. This man holds her hand, and he takes her around to look at all the animals. She likes the way he talks to them. She really likes the large python he has in a cage. He talks to that too. She is scared.

Then he takes her to the baby chimpanzees. They’re adorable, not too small. He tells her they are orphans. He says for her birthday her father has told him she can have one. She doesn’t know which one to choose, but it’s easy because one of them runs towards her and stands on her shoulders and pulls her pigtail. She calls her Julie.

They eat a big lunch of palm oil curry and lots of things to go with it. She really likes all the coconut and mangoes and pawpaw. Julie comes back home with them in a crate. When they get home her mother is waiting, and she hugs Julie and coos over her like she is the girl's baby sister, which the girl wishes she was.

The gardeners have built a cage in the yard. It is huge and has a swing set and slide in it. This is where Julie lives, and she is the girl’s best friend. She comes to her birthday parties and she is naughty. She eats the whole cake one time and hides in a thick hedge so no one can get to her.

One day the girl’s father tells her that Julie is too big for her to keep, and she has to go to a zoo in England. He says she will be happier there and meet lots of new friends. The girl cries a lot and her father is sad too. He hugs her.

Later her mother and father are going out to a fancy party. He is in his tuxedo and her mother is in a beautiful long dress. The girl starts crying as they are about to leave because she misses Julie.

Her father plays some music and tells her to put her feet on his shoes. Her green socks cover his black patent leather loafers. She feels very happy in his arms, and then he dances her around the room as her mother watches them. They twirl and twirl as he swings her high up into the air. She doesn’t want to come down, but when she does, even though she still misses Julie, he has made a warm, safe place inside her.

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About the Creator

Felicity Harley

Felicity Harley is a polished public speaker, published journalist, and writer. Along with her career as a nonprofit executive, she served for twenty years on the board of Curbstone Press, an internationally recognized publishing house.

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