The One and Only Ivan (The One and Only Ivan, #1)

by Katherine Applegate

Humans waste words. They toss them like banana peels and leave them to rot.

I too find it hard to believe there is a connection across time and space, linking me to a race of ill-mannered clowns. Chimps. There’s no excuse for them.

Anger is precious. A silverback uses anger to maintain order and warn his troop of danger. When my father beat his chest, it was to say, Beware, listen, I am in charge. I am angry to protect you, because that is what I was born to do. Here in my domain, there is no one to protect.

It’s not so bad, I wanted to tell the little boy. With enough time, you can get used to almost anything.

Stella is a mountain. Next to her I am a rock, and Bob is a grain of sand.

“They think I’m too old to cause trouble,” Stella says. “Old age,” she says, “is a powerful disguise.”

Humans, I’d noticed, seem to be irrationally fond of dogs, and I could see why a puppy would be easier to cuddle with than, say, a gorilla.

“Poodles,” he said, “are parasites.”

The boy spits at my window. The girl throws a handful of pebbles. Sometimes I’m glad the glass is there.

“Slimy chimps,” I mutter. I throw a me-ball at them. Sometimes I wish the glass were not there.

I don’t know why people talk to me, but they often do. Perhaps it’s because they think I can’t understand them. Or perhaps it’s because I can’t talk back.

Gorillas are not complainers. We’re dreamers, poets, philosophers, nap takers.

“Memories are precious,” Stella adds. “They help tell us who we are.

Humans always smell odd when change is in the air. Like rotten meat, with a hint of papaya.

I like colorful tales with black beginnings and stormy middles and cloudless blue-sky endings. But any story will do.

“A good zoo,” Stella says, “is a large domain. A wild cage. A safe place to be. It has room to roam and humans who don’t hurt.” She pauses, considering her words. “A good zoo is how humans make amends.”

“Humans are clumsy,” I interrupt. “If only they would knuckle walk, they wouldn’t topple so often.”

“I always tell the truth,” Stella replies. “Although I sometimes confuse the facts.”

When they climb down from the ladders, I see that they’ve added a picture of a little elephant to the billboard. The elephant has a lopsided smile. She is wearing a red hat, and her tail curls like a pig’s. She doesn’t look like Ruby. She doesn’t even look like an elephant. I’ve only known Ruby one day, and I could have drawn her better.

A memory flashes past, surprising me. I think of my father, snoring peacefully under the sun while I try every trick I know to wake him. Perhaps, I realize, he wasn’t really such a sound sleeper after all.

I wonder if Mack could add a little red hat and a curly tail to the picture of me. Maybe then more visitors would stop by my domain. I could use a few oohs and ahhs myself.

Bob pricks his ears and joins me by the window. “I always enjoy a good digging story,” he says.

“Humans. Rats have bigger hearts. Roaches have kinder souls. Flies have—”

“Humans can surprise you sometimes. An unpredictable species, Homo sapiens.”

Ruby stands alone. The bright lights make her blink. She flaps her ears. She makes her tiny trumpet sound. The humans stop eating their popcorn. They coo. They clap. Ruby is a hit. I don’t know whether to be happy or sad.

Julia sits by Stella’s domain until it’s time to go home. She doesn’t do her homework. She doesn’t even draw.

“Your gorilla hearts are made of ice, Ivan,” she said, her eyes glittering. “Ours are made of fire.” Right now I would give all the yogurt raisins in all the world for a heart made of ice.

Growing up gorilla is just like any other kind of growing up. You make mistakes. You play. You learn. You do it all over again.

I soon learned that humans can screech even louder than monkeys.

Human babies are an ugly lot. But their eyes are like our babies’ eyes. Too big for their faces, and for the world.

Ruby jerks her head, flinging her trunk toward Mack. She makes a noise that sends the sawdust scattering. It makes my glass shiver. It is the most beautiful mad I have ever heard.

Ruby’s trunk slaps into Mack. I don’t see exactly where she strikes him—somewhere below his stomach, I think—and I know he must be uncomfortable, because Mack drops the claw-stick and falls down on the ground and curls into a ball and howls like a baby. “Direct hit,” Bob says.

“It’s hard to see,” Ruby says. “There’s not much moonlight. Why do I have two trunks?” I examine the picture. “Those are feet.” “Why do I have two feet?” “That’s called artistic license,” Bob says.

Ruby taps her trunk against the rusty iron bars of her door. “Do you think,” she asks, “that I’ll die in this domain someday, like Aunt Stella?” Once again I consider lying, but when I look at Ruby, the half-formed words die in my throat. “Not if I can help it,” I say instead. I feel something tighten in my chest, something dark and hot. “And it’s not a domain,” I add. I pause, and then I say it. “It’s a cage.”

There is a cluttered, musty store near my cage. They sell an ashtray there. It is made from the hand of a gorilla.

“Humans reek,” Bob replies. “They just don’t notice because they have incompetent noses.”

The chest beating of a mad gorilla is not something you ever want to hear. Not even if you’re wearing earplugs. Not even if you’re three miles away, wearing earplugs.

I’m angry, at last. I have someone to protect.

Humans. Sometimes they make chimps look smart.

A mad gorilla is loud. But a mad human can be loud too. Especially when he is throwing chairs and turning over tables and breaking the cotton-candy machine.

I have new names. People call me the Ape Artist. The Primate Picasso.

The signs have words and pictures on them. One has a drawing of a gorilla cradling a baby elephant. I wish I could read.

Bob is outside, hiding near the Dumpster. He does not want to be a check mark.

Sometimes the people carrying signs shout, “Free Ruby! Free Ruby!” “Ivan,” Ruby asks, “why are those people yelling my name? Are they mad at me?” “They’re mad,” I say, “but not at you.”

“I don’t want a zoo,” Ruby says. “I want you and Bob and Julia. This is my home.” “No, Ruby,” I say. “This is your prison.”

I look, as I always do in Julia’s pictures, like an elegant fellow, but something is different about this drawing. In this picture, I am smiling.

I tell Bob he can sneak into my box with me and live at the zoo. “Have you forgotten? I’m a wild beast, Ivan,” he says, sniffing the floor for crumbs. “I am untamed, undaunted.” Bob samples a piece of celery and spits it out. “Besides, they’d notice. Humans are dumb, but they’re not that dumb.”

I have no visitors here, no sticky-fingered children or weary parents. Only Maya and her humans come, with their soothing voices and soft hands. I wonder if I have stopped being famous.

Her hoots make my ears hurt. I admire her intact canines from afar. Her name is Kinyani. She is faster than I am, spry and probably smarter, although I am twice her size and that, too, is important. She is terrifying. And beautiful, like a painting that moves.

Romance is hard work. It looks so easy on TV. I’m not sure I will ever get the hang of it.