Nounimals

Short, silly pieces playing on the collective names of animals.

Escargatoire

Monsieur Noir and his family were running late, which greatly annoyed his wife. Eglantine hated having to rush, even when it was just the two of them. With the children in tow, it was downright chaotic. Sebastian seemed determined to render himself as filthy as possible in the hour prior to dinner, requiring an unnecessarily long bath. And Genevieve refused to go anywhere without her eyestalk bows (one of which Sebastian had unraveled and commissioned as a makeshift splint for brave Private Loeffler, injured in Friday's bedtime battle). By the time they left the house, Mme. Noir was so flustered she forgot to check the mailbox for the gloating postcard she'd been expecting any day now from Santorini. Her in-laws were nothing if not reliably boastful about their travels.

"For heaven's sake, Henri, slow down. They won't give our table away at this hour." Henri ignored this, causing his wife to glance at him nervously. "You did make a reservation, n'est-ce pas?"

"Of course, darling. But you know I don't like running into the Lacombes," he replied, pronouncing with obvious distaste the name of the neighbors who tended to be found, most Sunday nights, stationed in their usual spot near the club's front door. (Mme. Lacombe, it was rumored, suffered from agoraphobia, and thus preferred to have a clear escape route.) "Jacques is always so..." M. Noir cast about for the right word to express his disdain. "...familiar."

Eglantine didn't respond. Her husband's attitude towards les parvenus was nothing new, but it never failed to chafe her. She was, after all, from the 18th arrondissement herself, the daughter of working-class slugs. Henri's blue blood, cut to fifty percent by the time it coursed the veins of his children, occasionally drained from his heart and pooled, in a most ugly fashion, around his ego. It wasn't why she'd married him, that was for certain.

The family crawled in silence, the children absorbed in a competition to see who could leave the bigger trail behind them on the sidewalk. The game took all of their concentration and, Eglantine supposed, would leave them so dehydrated that dinner would be a multiple soda affair. Oh well, she thought. At least they're being quiet.

When they found themselves, a little while later, standing before the grand double doors of Gastropodapub, Henri paused to check his reflection in the glass. Smoothing his mustache, he addressed his wife without looking at her. "Remember cherie, je ne veux pas parler avec les Lacombes ce soir." And then, as if the idea had come to him like a pleasant memory forgotten, he leaned over to kiss her cheek.

Eglantine smiled and nodded wordlessly at her husband, still undeniably handsome even if the shine had long since faded from his shell. She ushered her young children into the restaurant's foyer, nicking a speck of pollen off Sebastian's back as he moved past. This was her family, and she loved them dearly.

Henri exchanged a few words with the hostess, who beckoned to the group a moment later with raised menus and a welcoming smile. "Noir, escargatoire of four?" Single file, they followed her through a dining room filled with the delicious aroma of soups, sauces, and other enticing fare.

Sunday dinner really was the best.

 Charm

From the minute they set a date for the nestwarming party, Clarissa was worried. Never mind that there really wasn’t anything to worry about; that hadn’t stopped her before and it wouldn’t stop her now. Clarissa was happiest, Oro liked to say, when she had something to worry about.

“What if it rains?”

“Then we pivot and say it’s a hatchling shower."

"What if it's not finished?"

"Then we'll make everyone pitch in and help."

“What if no one shows up?”

“That would be lucky indeed.”

“Oro, stop teasing. You know I just want everything to be perfect.”

“Darling, it already is perfect. So perfect it’s almost cruel of us to show off.”

The nest, of course, had not yet been built--but Clarissa knew what he meant. Midsummer hung damp and sweet in the Amelanchier shrub where they perched. On every inch of every branch, paper white blossoms fluttered, a thousand stars against the deepening blue sky. Crickets harmonized with throaty, warty garden toads just out of sight. And above the yard, fireflies formed a lazy, meandering string of softy blinking bulbs.

The male goldfinch hopped closer to his mate, wordlessly letting his wing brush hers. It really was perfect, and no amount of her worrying would change that. Clarissa turned and tucked her head under Oro’s, admiring as ever the striking yellow plumage of his breast. One week, she assured herself. Before them lay the scatterings of what would become their nest: some bark chips, a length of twine, and a beakful of dandelion stems. Her third nest, but her first nestwarming. Oro’s entire flock of origin would be there. If it couldn’t be perfect, it had to come close.

—

The week flew by. Oro was responsible for fetching materials, but the actual nestbuilding was hen's work. Clarissa obsessed over every detail, chirping out requests of increasing specificity and difficulty that her mate cheerfully fulfilled. 

"More thistle." Off Oro winged to the meadow.

"Cattails. Three big ones." 

"Only three?" Several hours later, an exhausted, beak-sore Oro returned from his third trip to the pond, bits of cattail fluff stuck to his legs.

"I need some caterpillar silk." 

"Of course, darling. I'll just pop down to the caterpillar silk shop." 

Clarissa's efforts paid off; the nest was her best yet: cozy, sturdy, watertight. Still, she worried. Previous years had seen them living in sturdier, arguably safer environs: the dogwood at the lake, the sapling in the park. Never before had they chosen a backyard to start a family in. But the location couldn't be beat, and the human couple had no pets and no small children. What's more, Oro had glimpsed a large, unopened bag inside the shed.

"It's birdseed, Clarissa. I just know it is."

"Oro, you can't read. It could be garden soil. Or charcoal. Or poison!" Clarissa twittered and shivered, thinking of her future fledglings. "Are you sure this is a good idea? Maybe we should have stayed at the park with everyone else."

The male goldfinch smiled at his nestmate. "The only thing you should be worrying about," he said, "is coming up with the next batch of names."

---

The day of the party came calm and cloudless, extinguishing Clarissa's weather worries. She fussed about the Amelanchier, putting finishing touches on their branch and tugging bits of the nest into place. Oro meanwhile flitted around the yard, tidying up. Their shrub would only hold so much of the colony; the rest would have to alight on the surrounding trees, or even the grass. 

When he saw the first finches arriving, Oro flew to Clarissa's side. "I know the clutch isn't even here yet," he said, "but I was wondering if you'd like to do this again in another few months?"

"Oh, Oro." Clarissa watched their friends, relations, and friends-of-relations descending from the clouds. The sun flashed on their sleek bodies, and she saw how they were like tiny gold charms on an invisible, perfectly linked chain of life. 

It was a good day for a party.

 Bloom

Smucker was sweating, and for once it wasn't from anxiety. A half-mile swim wouldn't normally be so taxing, but today he was weighed down by cargo. Shouldn't be much further now, he thought, wondering if lunch would be provided afterward. Thinking of the baby brine shrimp he'd had for breakfast made his coelenteron growl. 

Just in time, the encouraging calls of the action leader rippled to him through the water. "Contract! Expel! Contract! Expel! You're doing great, jellies! We're almost to the reef!"

Smucker wiped his bell with his third tentacle and shifted the sea cucumber from his seventh to his eighth. It wriggled a little, but remained inside in. He'd been nervous about toting the delicate creature so far, especially since his nematocysts had been acting up. The last thing he needed was to accidentally sting the thing and have it eviscerate early in front of the entire bloom. Timing, they had been advised on this mission, was everything.

Project Rainbow was Smucker's first foray into environmental activism, though it was not motivated by starry-eyed idealism. He was as concerned as anyone else about the bleaching of the reef, but he also needed to make friends. His sister had seen the event promoted on Facebook, and it seemed as good an opportunity as any to work on his social phobia. With eight hundred other jellyfish participating, he'd be forced to interact with at least a few. 

"You have to come out of your shell," his sister had chided him. "And it's for a good cause."

"Cnidaria don't have shells," he said. "But okay, I'll do it."

So, keeping his doubts about the operation to himself, he signed up. And now here he was, one among many. Ready to do his part. Happy to help. Hoping to connect. 

A bump on his bell snapped him out of his reverie. "Sorry about that." Smucker looked up to see that the group had stopped. He'd collided with his nearest neighbor, a bloodybelly comb with thousands of exquisitely sparkling cilia. "I think we're here." The glowing red jelly nodded toward the sea floor. 

Smucker looked down. The reef stretched out as far as his eye clusters could see. Not entirely white yet, but its faded hues were a pitiful sight. It was in desperate need of algae, and lots of it, if it was going to stand a chance of recoloring. Smucker was suddenly gripped by gravity of the quest. He glanced at the gelatinous blob beside him. 

"I'm Smucker," he said, holding out his ninth tentacle.

"Bubble. Good to meet you." 

"So, do you think this is actually gonna work?"

"Theoretically, it should. But it seems like a long shot to me. Either way, we're gonna get lunch out of it." Bubble winked at Smucker, who laughed. 

Just then, a reverberating wave of shouted instructions reached them. "Jellies, prepare your cucumbers!" It was time. 

Smucker and Bubble raised the bloated pickles they had carefully carried across the lagoon. Behind and above them, several hundred others did the same. The bloom of jellyfish waited, listening, united in the moment. Below them, the coral seemed to flex and splay its billions of spindly arms and fans, as if in anticipation of the drop.

"On three, everyone! One! Two! Three! NOW!"

And with that, eight hundred jellyfish squeezed eight hundred sea cucumbers, who inverted themselves instantly. Trillions of algae gushed from their spent bodies and floated down to the washed-out coral reef. The jellies watched and cheered as the microscopic organisms drifted slowly, finally settling into the ripples and facets of the coral. It would be weeks before they'd know if their efforts had any impact, but right now they reveled in the triumph of a job perfectly executed.

Bubble bobbed beside him. "Well, I guess that's that." They released their inside out cucumbers, who inched limply to join the others. They would be sore for a few days, but otherwise fine.

"They are feeding us now, right?" Smucker realized this was the most he'd conversed with anyone in recent memory. His sister was going to be proud.

"Hope so. I could destroy some phytoplankton. Hell, I could eat zooplankton right now. Did you see how fat my cucumber was? That sucker was heavy." Bubble rambled on, and Smucker felt a growing warmth that had nothing to do with the current that buoyed them along. As the pair of jellyfish floated companionably together towards their well-earned lunch, the sun's rays flashed and danced in the ocean blue, illuminating the bloom of a brand new jellyfish friendship.