Free Storm by Donna Jo Napoli Page B

“Go on. Feed them. They’re restless. I’m going down the other ladder.” He clumps along the deck toward the other end. I didn’t know there was another ladder over there. He stops and calls back. “Japheth, help your brothers. Then get your wife to attend to that hand. You don’t have to help me today. And Ham, cut your hair.” He disappears into the dark. I can hear his clack, clack down the far ladder.
    Ham kicks his bucket again. “The same way I know everything,” he says in a snide mimic of his father. He swaggers as he talks.
    “Don’t do that,” says Shem.
    “Why not? It’s his answer all the time. It puts an end to every discussion.”
    “The Mighty Creator talks to him. He doesn’t talk to us. So we have to trust him.”
    “And how do you know the Mighty Creator talks to him? Father might just be saying that. He might have made it all up. He might be a lunatic.”
    “The Mighty Creator said it would rain,” says Japheth.“How did Father know to build this ark otherwise? So stop it, Ham. We have to get these creatures fed. Somebody tell me which ones get what.”
    “Just throw something at every animal,” says Ham.
    All three go to a side hole between two cages. It’s the hole closest to my cage. Shem leans out and lifts in buckets full of water. Ham takes two and goes about filling water troughs. Shem pulls in a fishing net and fills buckets with fish. He throws the net back through the side hole into the sea. Then he and Japheth go from cage to cage, throwing in food. Their sacks carry leaves and fruits for the herbivores. The top deck must be a huge storage room, as well as their home.
    “Who’s going to feed the tigers and lions?” calls Japheth. “I won’t go near them with a bloody hand. The smell, you know. The smell could make them vicious.”
    “They’re already vicious, you cockroach,” calls Ham. “You heard them growl . . . tigers and lions, the most vicious of all.” His voice seems to emanate from the dark end of the ship. It sounds distant, as though this ship—this ark—is even more enormous than it appeared to Aban and me when we were on the raft.
    “They can’t help it,” says Shem. His voice comes from someplace alarmingly close. I pull back inside the straw, but I can still see, I can still watch. “It’s their nature. But these are the best behaved ones of their kind. We just have to be careful.”
    “You be careful,” calls Japheth. “My hand is killing me. I’m quitting.”
    “Go let your little wife attend to it,” calls Ham. “Be Noah’s good little boy. The two of you, cockroaches. But don’t count on me picking up the slack. It’s always Ham picking up the slack. Well, I won’t!”
    “Don’t you weary of being such a jerk, Ham?”
    “Enough,” says Shem. “I’ll feed the big cats. But I’m going to refill this sack first.” He throws a mess of fruit into our cage, then leaves his empty bucket at the foot of the ladder and climbs up behind Japheth.
    Queen and The Male hug each other before they pounce on the fruit. The little antelopes wait patiently at the side. I didn’t know we would all get fruit, too. They better leave some for me. Please let them leave some for me. Come on, Queen—remember me. Please remember me.
    Shem clumps down the ladder again, with his cloth sack bulging. He takes his bucket off to some side hole I can’t see from here and returns with fish brimming out of it. He picks up a blackened stick that lies on the floor in front of the second latticework cage. “Get back, tigers,” he shouts. Then he pulls a thick piece of wood out of a rope loop. He pulls on the lattice, and a little door opens high up at his face level. A window, really. He pokes inside with the blackened stick. He grabs a handful of fish in the other hand and flings it in and shuts the window, latching it with that piece of wood again. He moves on to the latticework cage where the lions live. He does the same.
    Then he comes over to