The Adventures of Ollie Orangutan

By Larry Landgraf

In the beginning, all animals were born wild and free. Ollie, however, was born in a cage and has spent his entire life in a zoo. Everything he knew, he learned from his mother and through the bars of his confinement. His life was totally dependent upon humans. He always had plenty to eat and it was fun watching the humans who visited daily, especially the little ones. Life was comfortable and Ollie grew up soft.

But as fate would have it, that is all going to change. Ollie is thrown into a completely new environment of which he knows nothing. Ollie will have to learn new things in order to survive without the help of humans. He will make new friends, but the real world is wild. He will also find those who would hurt him. Can he toughen up and make a new life for himself?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fresh Ink Group
• Release date: May 19, 2020
• ISBN: 9781947893887

Book preview

Chapter 1

The train ride

Ollie leaned his head back against the metal bars of his cage. His skull vibrated as he stared at crates on the other side of the boxcar. The steady clackety-clack of the steel wheels hitting the joints in the rails was monotonous but soothing. Woohooo! The train’s whistle signaled a road-crossing as it passed another town. Each whistle brought another teardrop as Ollie gazed off into infinity. Each passing moment he got farther from home, his mother, and the life he once knew.

His mother had prepared him for this journey long ago. She told him that the zoo only had so much space for apes. They would not allow the apes to be overcrowded. This was good in many ways, but it was also inevitable that her son would be transported to another zoo when he matured. This time had come and Ollie was on his way to Brownsville.

Ollie thought of his mother. Would he ever see her again? He never knew his dad. Mother never spoke of him. Ollie felt the tears building up in his eyes. He had only left home a few hours ago and already the separation from his mom tore at his heart.

Ollie blinked and gave his face a wipe with his long arm. He got up and ambled over to the other side of his cage. After traveling for several hours, he needed to move around. He didn’t have a lot of room, but enough that he wasn’t cramped. He grabbed the steel bars with his hands and stared at the streaks of light that made their way through the wooden slats of the car. The moisture and dust in the air made the rays glow. The light was the only thing he could see that was of any interest.

Suddenly, there was a loud screeching noise—metal on metal. The wheels of the boxcar squealed on the iron tracks and Ollie was forced against the bars of his cage. He gripped the bars tighter. Then the cage tipped over as the car stopped abruptly. His fingers were pinched between the metal bars of his cage and the floor. He screamed with the sudden pain and jerked his hands free. His head slammed forward into the top bars of his cage. The weight of his body caused the cage to slide across the floor and crash into crates stacked at the other end of the boxcar.

Ollie felt the air being forced out of his lungs as he smashed against the bars of his cage and the crates. He screeched from the pain in the side of his head. His eyes grew heavy and the darkness hit him hard as he blacked out.

Ollie blinked his eyes. He reached to massage the side of his head. He didn’t know how long he’d been out, but his head hurt. When he moved, he hurt all over.

He paused a second and listened. He could not hear a sound except the wind whistling across the crevices between the boards of the boxcar. The door to his cage had popped open. Ollie winced as he crawled out of his prison. He was sore, but he didn’t think he had broken any bones.

Inside the car was lighter than before. Ollie looked around and discovered that two boards in the side of the boxcar had broken, leaving a hole. He scrambled over to take a look. He could see the ground, but the car was high above it. He pulled at the boards and two more broke. The hole was not large enough for his body, so he stuck his head through the opening.

Ollie looked down first. The train was on a trestle high over the ground below. He looked left and right. Some distance away, to the right along the curve of the train trestle, one of the boxcars was crossways on the tracks. He also saw two cars below on the ground. One was half submerged in water and the other was on a high spot on the uneven terrain.

Ollie pulled at the boards on the side of his boxcar. It took some effort, but he was able to break two more. The opening was now large enough for him to escape. He squinted—his eyes were not used to the bright light after being cooped up in the train. Also, he felt a little dizzy, probably because he hit his head during the accident.

He looked around for humans. There were none that he could see. If there were some, they were probably at the front of the train near the engine. It was on the other side of the boxcar that was crossways in the tracks.

Ollie looked down. There was dirt, a lot of weeds, and some water. The water didn’t look to be more than ankle deep. Light reflected off water in the distance and this caught his eyes. It appeared to be a river or lake.

His head continued to throb. He needed water and to rest a bit. In the distance, he could see shade—he would be out of sight there.

There was nothing to keep him here. Humans would certainly come sooner or later to inspect the damage to the train and they would surely lock him back up. That was not going to happen if he had anything to do with it, but he needed to get away from the train before they showed up. The thought crossed his mind that if he could escape from the train, maybe he could get back to his mother.

Ollie looked back at the ground. It was too far to jump. He had to climb down the pilings of the train trestle. They were black and smelled of a strong chemical. He touched the black goo and brought it up to his face. The stuff was revolting, but he had to go through it to get off the trestle.

When he got to the bottom, mud oozed up around his