On Tuesday morning, Tersake appeared at the Unlikely Animal Park carrying a form.
That in itself was nothing unusual.
Tersake often appeared with a form. Usually in places that had managed perfectly well without one until then.
The form said:
ANNUAL ANIMAL COUNT
Below it was a single question.
How many animals are present?
Tersake had brought a pen in advance.
“Twenty-one,” said the Arithmetic Donkey.
Tersake looked up.
“You have not been counted yet.”
“That does not change the result.”
“We shall see about that.”
The Arithmetic Donkey sighed. He was excellent at arithmetic, but disliked people who needed to experience numbers before they believed in them.
Kamil stood at the entrance. He drank water beside his little tea house and pointed his nose at the sign which still stated that he was in no way involved in the production of tea.
“One,” said Tersake.
He made a mark.
Next to Kamil, the Return Panda sat in a battered box.
“Are you new?”
The Return Panda shook his head.
“Sent back?”
The panda nodded.
“Were you counted before?”
The panda shrugged. There was so much tape on the box that the original answer was probably somewhere underneath it.
Tersake carefully added a second mark.
The Brandaris stood at the edge of the park. During the day he did very little. He mainly resembled a lighthouse that had acquired legs by accident.
“Animal?” asked Tersake.
The Brandaris flashed his light once.
“That is not a valid answer.”
The Brandaris sounded his foghorn.
Tersake added a third mark. Shipping had priority, after all.
Farther on, the Drawing Quail sat with a pencil between his feathers. A drawing of the park lay in front of him.
The drawing contained twenty-two animals.
“That is wrong,” said Tersake. “There are twenty-one.”
The Drawing Quail calmly continued drawing.
“You are number four.”
The quail put a small cross at the bottom of the drawing.
Tersake decided to come back to that later. Administratively, that was usually the safest way never to come back to anything.
At the next enclosure, the Poliphant stood behind a lectern.
“In principle,” he began, “we must first establish what is meant by an animal.”
“You,” said Tersake.
“That is a rather narrow definition.”
“Five.”
“I wish to raise a formal objection.”
Tersake walked on.
The Knoe sat among the ferns.
“Six,” said Tersake.
The Knoe studied him carefully, hung a tag bearing number 47 around his neck and sent him to the next counter.
There was no next counter.
There was, however, a Silence Sparrow.
Tersake opened his mouth.
The Silence Sparrow began to sing.
For twenty metres, nothing happened. No voices. No wind. No rustling. Even the Poliphant stopped halfway through a formal objection.
Tersake wrote seven. He was not sure why. But the silence felt convincing.
The Crested Heron refused to be counted until the direction of the wind had been established. His crest pointed left that morning and he did not want this recorded incorrectly.
Tersake stood on his right.
“Eight.”
The Crested Heron turned around. His crest pointed left again.
Things became more complicated at the Thunderpecker. Every time Tersake tried to make a mark, the bird tapped a tree.
After seven taps, thunder rumbled in the distance. After eight, rain began falling over enclosure nine.
“You are only allowed to make thunderstorms on Wednesdays.”
The Thunderpecker looked at the sky. The sky looked back. It was Tuesday.
Tersake wrote nine and underlined it.
Meanwhile, the Pebble Beetle had moved all the counting stones.
“There were ten,” said Tersake.
The beetle moved one pebble to the left.
“Or eleven.”
The beetle moved it back.
Tersake wrote ten. This meant the Pebble Beetle had won, for the first time, a game whose rules no one yet understood.
Only two ears of the Whirlpool Pony were visible.
“Eleven,” Tersake said to the water.
An apple floated dry to the opposite bank. That counted as confirmation.
The Lily Badger emerged from the reeds with a fresh water lily around his neck.
“Are you a lily or a badger?”
“Yes,” said the Lily Badger.
“Twelve.”
The Shiver Donkey had already started trembling.
Tersake put his pen to the form. The donkey was startled by the scratching sound. Then he was startled by his own fright. After that, he began shivering in anticipation of the next count.
“Thirteen,” Tersake whispered.
The Scan Snake lay coiled around a charging station.
Tersake held the scanner near its tail.
BEEP.
Stock: 1.
He scanned again.
BEEP.
Stock: 2.
“That cannot be right.”
BEEP.
Stock: -1.
The Scan Snake looked at him kindly. Its own barcode was on the underside.
Tersake wrote fourteen, crossed it out and then wrote snake.
The Grumble Tiger sat beneath a shelter in the next enclosure.
“Fifteen,” said Tersake.
“It is raining.”
“You are dry.”
“That does not make it any less wet outside.”
“You have fish and meat.”
“Yesterday there was chicken.”
“Would you like chicken?”
“No. It is the principle of the thing.”
Tersake moved on. Behind him, the Grumble Tiger muttered that nobody ever made the effort to truly listen.
The Grumble Ant passed carrying a bread crumb twenty times his own size.
“Sixteen.”
“Do I have to report my own presence now as well?”
“You have been counted.”
“Fine. So the rest can do nothing again.”
Hundreds of ants followed behind him carrying crumbs. According to every individual ant, he alone did all the work.
The Root Pig was nowhere to be seen.
Tersake looked into the enclosure. Empty.
Then the pig emerged from the ground three gardens farther on.
“I am looking for the cause,” he said.
“Of what?”
“I will know once I find it.”
Tersake wondered whether an animal outside its enclosure could be regarded as present.
The Root Pig disappeared underground again and resurfaced inside the fence.
“Seventeen.”
Meanwhile, the Square Horse was doing a lap.
Straight ahead. Stop. Right angle. Straight ahead. Stop. Right angle.
After four corners, it stood exactly where it had started.
“Eighteen,” said Tersake.
The horse took one more step and was therefore officially standing beside itself.
Tersake refused to add another mark.
Then a roar came from the bushes that made the Brandaris dim for a moment.
Tersake dropped his pen.
The Shiver Donkey began trembling in advance for tomorrow. The Crested Heron dived behind his own crest. Even the Grumble Tiger stopped complaining for three seconds.
A small deer emerged from the bushes.
The Roar Deer.
He looked around in alarm. Then he heard the final echo of his own roar. That startled him again. He roared even louder and vanished.
“Nineteen,” said Tersake when he had recovered his pen.
“Twenty,” said the Arithmetic Donkey.
“No. You are twenty.”
“That is what I said.”
“You said twenty-one.”
“Because there are twenty-one.”
Tersake looked at his form.
He counted the marks. Then he counted them again. After that he covered the word snake with his thumb and started over.
Twenty.
“Then where is number twenty-one?”
Bram stood by the exit.
Beside him sat the Knot Duck.
She had tied the two halves of the entrance gate together with an intricate knot.
Not closed. Not open. Simply tied to one another.
“Twenty-one,” said the Arithmetic Donkey.
Tersake added the final mark. Then he tried to leave the park.
He could not.
“The knot must be undone,” he said.
The Knot Duck looked at him.
Quack.
Bram looked at the Knot Duck.
Quack.
No one knew which of them had started.
Tersake tried to untangle the knot. The longer he pulled, the more gate became involved.
Eventually the entrance, the information sign and part of the fence were tied together.
By then the Return Panda was standing outside again.
Or inside.
Because of the knot, that could no longer be established with certainty.
“Do I have to count him again?” Tersake asked.
The Arithmetic Donkey shook his head.
“Twenty-one.”
“Certain?”
“No.”
On the other side of the park, the Drawing Quail put down his pencil.
The drawing was finished.
It showed twenty-one animals.
And just behind the crooked gate sat something small.
No one could see what it was. Not even the Knoe.
Tersake studied the drawing for a long time.
Then he crossed out the number 21 beside How many animals are present?
He wrote:
Probably.
Below that he added:
Recount impossible. Exit is stuck.
The Knot Duck nodded contentedly.
The Silence Sparrow began to sing.
And at last the entire park was quiet for a moment.
Except for the Grumble Tiger.
He thought the silence was too loud.