The Talking

By Gael DeRoane

Sixteen-year-old Tara Bennet awakens to the voice of her cat, Boris. But Boris isn’t meowing. He’s saying actual words! In English! And he’s being snarky.

Suddenly, magically, every animal on the planet has acquired the power of speech. Pets are chatty with their owners and birds gossip in the trees. In zoos, animals beg to be released, and those on factory farms destined for slaughter cry out for mercy. Civilization is thrown off-kilter, and factions rise up to confront the chaos.

Against this tumultuous backdrop, Tara Bennet and her friends try to live their lives as normally as possible. But in a remarkable twist of fate, Tara is pulled into the center of the cyclone. Her aunt, Chloe, a professor of herpetology at Dartmouth, has a pet chameleon named Pixel that claims to be in telepathic communication with a mysterious entity behind the phenomenon.

There is powerful opposition to the talking animals, and when it becomes clear that Pixel’s life is in danger, Tara and the others seek help from US President Atticus Hayden. But soon it appears there will be a war between humans and animals, with terrible destruction and loss of life.

The Talking presents challenging ideas in the mode of a page-turning thriller, with characters—some of them four-legged, feathered, or scaly—who are wise, witty, flawed, and truly memorable.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eXtasy Books Inc
• Release date: Apr 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9781487428204

Book preview

Chapter One

Wake up, Tara.

I’m lying on my side, hugging my body pillow. I don’t recognize the voice. I guess it’s someone talking to me in a dream.

Country road under a deep blue sky. Treetops rustling in the summer breeze. There is no one in sight. I turn around, but the road is empty. The dream ends abruptly, like they always do, without warning or closure.

My eyes aren’t ready to open just yet. It feels too early to rise and shine, and exhaustion pulls me back under.

You gonna sleep all day?

The voice is clear and sharp. This is no dream! But whose voice is it?

I live with my mom, but it’s Saturday morning and she’s gone for the weekend, doing God knows what in a mountaintop cabin with her rotten boyfriend, Darrell Tweed. So I’m alone in the house.

A surge of adrenaline jolts me fully awake.

It’s the voice of an intruder!

My heart pounds as I lift my head from the pillow. Gray half-light fills the room. The digital clock on the nightstand reads 5:37. I barely move a muscle, listening for a cough, a creaking floorboard.

Nothing.

Maybe the voice was in the dream.

I reach for the light.

No one else is in the room. The only other presence is Boris, my orange tabby cat, sitting, as he often does, at the foot of the bed. Why aren’t you a dog? I whisper. I’d sic you on the burglar.

Boris opens his small mouth, showing his sharp canines. There’s a burglar?

Chapter Two

I’m standing in front of the TV, holding a mug of coffee, too worked up to sit. Boris, apparently more at ease with the situation, is in the overstuffed chair I usually occupy.

I never understood why you spent so much time in front of this contraption, he says. But now that I have language, I get it.

I look down at my cat. The two of us have been watching TV for hours. All the channels are carrying the breaking news story. Every animal on the planet, it seems, has suddenly started talking. The astonished newscasters offer testimony that I have not lost my mind, which I thought a possibility during the first few minutes of my conversation with Boris. You don’t look real excited about this, I say. Just sitting there watching the tube like it’s no big deal.

Without taking the focus of his yellow-green eyes off the screen, Boris replies, "You’re quite mistaken. I’m very excited. But it’s not in my nature to show it. Have you learned nothing after five years of life with a cat?"

Before I can answer, my cell phone rings, startling me. I’d been calling Mom and most of my friends, but service was down, probably because the world was going haywire. I fish the phone from the pocket of my shorts and look at the screen. Joyce Bennet—it’s Mom.

Tara, can you believe this?

I know! It’s incredible!

Boris looks away from the TV. Who is it?

I’m dumbstruck. My cat is asking me who’s on the phone. Life is going to be one big surprise after another. Boris, don’t take this the wrong way, but why would you care who it is?

Gee, I don’t know, Boris says. Could it be that because I’m a cat, I’m a little... curious?

Sarcasm. Of course, that would be a feline personality trait. It’s my mom.

Ah, Joyce. Let me talk to her.

I can hear my mother’s tiny squawking voice. Oh my God, is that Boris? Are you talking with Boris?

He wants to talk to you. I hand the phone to my cat but realize he has nothing to hold it with. We exchange blank stares.

Duh, Boris says. Put her on speaker.

"Right. Hey, wait a minute. How do you even know about the speaker?"

Like all cats, Boris has an expressive face. It’s mostly the ears. Pulled slightly back, they indicate annoyance, and standing straight up indicates alertness, while flattened out means rage or terror. The eyes also reveal much about what a cat is thinking and feeling—round and staring if a mouse is about to be done in. Half-closed and dreamy while resting on a human’s pillowy lap after a good meal. But now Boris shows a new expression. I’m not sure how he’s managing it, but my cat seems to be looking inward as if searching his memory. That’s a good question, he says. I guess I just picked up on it from being around you so much.

I press the speaker button and put the phone on the arm of the chair.

Hello there, Joyce, Boris says. Are you having a pleasant weekend?

There’s a pause. Oh. My. God, Joyce says.

"Yes, well, I’m not sure that your God has anything to do with this, but I understand that humans tend to go there when things stop making sense. In any case, let’s get down to business. I’d like to discuss the food situation with you..."

Mom is saying something in response, but my attention is suddenly drawn to the TV. There’s a local news flash. A man went on a shooting spree when his neighbor’s dogs began taunting him. Thinking he must be going insane to hear language—some of it profane—coming from the mouths of dogs, he shot not only the dogs but their owner as well, since nothing mattered anymore. Apparently, he and his neighbor had previous issues concerning the dogs. My jaw drops as the dazed handcuffed perp is pushed into the back seat of a police car. I know the man!

Chapter Three

Where are you going?

Boris has followed me to the door. As I pull on my K-Swisses, I can hear Mom still squawking on the speakerphone. Boris is waiting for my answer. I’ve seen that impatient look many times, like when I selfishly make my own breakfast before opening a can of fish goop and dumping it on his plate. I’ll be back when I can, I say. I grab the phone and rush out onto the front porch, breathing fast. The perp on TV was Mr. Kravitz, the neighbor of my best friend, Crystal Eichenbaum.

I end the speaker function and press the phone to my ear. Mom, I gotta go. Something happened at Crystal’s house.

Wait! Don’t hang up!

I’m sorry, but I can’t talk and run at the same time. I’ll call you soon, I promise.

I break into a trot. It’s only ten o’clock and already pushing eighty degrees. Spring has been brutally hot, coming on the heels of the warmest winter I’ve ever known in my young life.

You go, girl!

It’s Benford, the basset hound who lives next door. He stands on his lawn, watching me run past, his tail wagging.

I take note of his deep speaking voice, similar to his booming bark. Sorry, Benford, I can’t talk right now.

I increase my speed, my long legs eating up the pavement. A smile spreads across my face as I consider Benford’s encouragement. How bizarre! Already I’m comfortable with a dog saying stuff to me. But the smile quickly fades. Crystal lives on a street two miles away. It’s a crime scene now. I pray that I’ll find Crystal standing in front of her house, rubbernecking with others in the neighborhood. Please, God, let Crystal be okay.

Not that I believe in God. I’m not sure what I believe, but I doubt that there’s this person up in the sky who listens to us, answering a few selected prayers and deep-sixing the others. Boris had mentioned God in a way that suggested he’s probably not a believer either. This is going to get more and more interesting. Now that animals can talk, we’ll find out what they think about all the mysteries of life. But will their opinions be useful? As animals, they’re closer to nature. Maybe they have insights that can help us.

My thoughts are interrupted by a clamor of high screechy voices all around me. It’s coming from crows on the grass, sparrows in the trees, a few starlings perched on a fence, a pair of cardinals looking down at me from the telephone lines. They’re all talking at once.

Look at that girl running.

Who is she?

Where is she going?

Those are pretty sneakers.

Do you think she likes birds?

I know her—she has a stupid cat.

Hey, look, Mrs. Powell just filled up the feeder...

What a noisy bunch! I keep running. A border collie I vaguely know comes off his porch and runs alongside me for a block. Nice day for a run, he says. By the way, I’m Alistair.

Nice to meet you, Alistair. Although I run cross-country on our high school track team, the season has been over for many weeks, and I’m out of shape. My lungs are aching now, and it’s hard to talk. Forgive me, but I have to keep going. I’m worried about my friend. There was a shooting on her block.

Yes, Alistair says, I heard the shots. He stops running. He calls after me as I put distance between us. I hope your friend is safe!

What a nice dog. And then I realize that I’ve turned onto Crystal’s street.

Chapter Four

I see Crystal immediately, recognizing the long brown hair cascading down her back and her somewhat chunky physique. Crystal is short, and when we hang together, people sometimes call us Mutt and Jeff. I know who Mutt and Jeff are, but I’m not sure how. TV osmosis, probably. I know a million things from watching TV.

Crystal!

My friend turns to face me. "I’m so glad you’re here, she says. I tried calling, but..."

Yeah, I know. I couldn’t get through to anyone, either. My hands are on my hips, and I’m panting a little.

I was gonna come over, Crystal says, but then this happened. The police want me to stick around and answer some questions.

You saw it?

I heard shots and came outside. Mr. Kravitz was running around on his lawn, waving a gun over his head. And Mr. Willerton was lying on the sidewalk.

I reach for Crystal, putting my arms around her. Oh, you poor thing! That must have been awful.

Crystal returns the hug. I’m okay. I didn’t really see him get shot. And to be honest, those two were always fighting anyway. Something like this was bound to happen.

I saw the whole thing, a voice behind us says.

I look down and see Dweebles, Crystal’s black and white kitty. His voice is similar to Boris’, on the high side, lacking resonance, childlike. I guess every small animal will sound like that. Walt Disney pretty much nailed it.

Dweebles continues. It was those idiot dogs. They were really giving old Kravitz a hard time, and he went bonkers. All those years of barking was bad enough, but you should have heard the names they called him.

Crystal and I share a look.

I know, Crystal says. This has gotta be the weirdest thing in the history of the world.

We are interrupted by a uniformed cop, a tall-broad-shouldered black man, a statie. He has short sleeves, and his biceps are large and well-defined. He’s wearing a cap, but the sides of his head are shaved close, and I have a hunch that the rest of his skull is shaved, too. His name tag reveals that he is Officer Clemons. He addresses Crystal. I’d like to ask you a few questions now, if you’re up to it.

Dweebles snakes between Crystal’s legs and looks at Officer Clemons. "Of course, she’s up to it. Why would she be traumatized? When the shots rang out, she was watching TV, like every other human on the planet. But not me. I was sitting in the window, and I saw everything. Ask me the questions."

Officer Clemons stares down at Dweebles for a full minute, trying to figure out what to do. He’s probably thinking about the police report. And then Mr. Dweebles the cat explained...

My phone rings. I glance at the screen. Crystal, I gotta go. I’m glad you’re okay!

I put the phone to my ear and hurry down the sidewalk, waiting to hear the voice of the boy I have been crazy in love with for the past three months.

Chapter Five

Trevor Darrington. Even his name is hot. It sounds like a character in one of those Lifetime Channel movies my mom watches. A handsome young doctor-without-borders, working side by side in the Congo with the pretty young nurse he falls in love with. Or a wavy-haired, widowed lawyer raising his young daughter alone, suddenly, charmingly in love with the divorced mother of her own young daughter—no, make that a son. The kids will clash at first but eventually have a puppy-love romance. At seventeen, Trevor is a long way off from a medical or legal career. But he’s handsome—the most handsome boy in school, the way I see it—and smart, and the number one player on the tennis team.

We had a couple of classes together, and I would catch him looking at me, and things got a little flirty. He was rumored to be interested in Lori Truax, this cheerleader who’s all full of herself and has gigantic bosoms that I think are gross. But even if he was interested, he never made a move that I heard about, and one night there was this party we both went to, and we talked for a while and then drifted out onto the back porch, and in the shadows, he kissed me. Since then, I haven’t stopped thinking about him. Trevor left town a week ago for a job as a tennis instructor at a camp in Vermont, a two-hour drive from our small town of Blue Hills, New Hampshire. Before he left, I asked him why he had to go, trying to keep the resentment out of my voice. But I knew that he’d signed up for it long before we ever kissed. I also know that the best way to lose a boyfriend is to be pouty and whiney. And now here he is, on my phone.

Hey.

Isn’t this insane? Trevor asks. Is your cat talking to you?

All morning. He wouldn’t shut up. Hearing Trevor’s voice gives me a fluttery feeling in my stomach. I’m wondering where he is at the camp—standing on the tennis court, lounging on his bunk? In my mind’s eye, I can see his long limbs, probably well on their way to being tanned, and his open, smiling face. What’s it like at camp? Do they have pets there?

The owners have a couple of dogs, and some cats are roaming around. They’re all talking up a storm with the kids and counselors. But the funniest thing is a bunch of raccoons that showed up, trying to con their way into the dining hall. And the birds are really amazing. They’re talking to us from the trees, and some of them have started to land on our shoulders. Talking seems to make them less afraid.

I come to a stop at the stone wall surrounding the property of Mr. Larson, who works at the bank. It’s a mansion I pass by every day, Tudor-style and set far back from the street. It’s about half-way from home to school, and I often sit on the wall and look at the trees and the sky for a few minutes, centering myself before another meat-grindery day of classes and social intensity. I situate my butt on a nice flat rock and shift the phone to my other ear. Really? I haven’t had any birds land on me yet. But I heard them talking about me when I was running to Crystal’s house. They had a murder next door. But she wasn’t part of it, and she’s okay.

Wow! What happened?

I don’t know. Some dogs were ragging on this cranky old dude, and he shot them. And then he shot their owner, too.

Trevor laughs at this.

I’m shocked. Seriously, Trev? You find this amusing? I instantly regret my words. Why am I criticizing him? He’s hot, let him laugh.

Yeah, you’re right, he says before I can take back what I said. Sorry about that. It’s just the idea of dogs ragging on a guy. You gotta admit that’s kind of funny.

I practically pour myself