“What about Charlie?” she asked Toshio. Toshio sighed. “He’s still embarrassed.” They had found the chimp a day after the great earthquakes, clinging to a floating tree trunk, sopping wet. He had been unable to speak for ten hours, and kept climbing the walls in the skiff’s tiny hold until he finally calmed down. Charlie finally admitted—he had scrambled to the top of a tall tree just before the island blew. It saved his life, but the stereotype mortified him.
