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The vinyl sheets of the photo album in Chris’s lap crackled as he turned the pages. He sat in a corner of the garage, his back pressed strategically against a stack of supply crates to make sure nobody could see him from the door. He didn’t want anyone finding him. This was the only real place on the Tortuga where he could be alone, besides the bathroom, but hiding out there would make four people very annoyed very quickly.
In a few hours, they’d land in Madagascar. It was a beautiful island, the only place an array of amazing creatures and a particular brand of Kratt-specific melancholy could be found in the whole world.
Chris’s heart tripled in weight as he looked through the pictures. Younger Kratts smiled back at him from the album pages, along with a pair of bright, curious yellow eyes. Those eyes were everywhere in the photos; watching keenly as Martin held out a sweet potato spear, gazing down at Chris from their perch on his shoulder, blurry and out of focus as the camera caught them mid-bounce across the forest floor.
Chris let his fingertips brush across the photos, crinkling the plastic.
A muffled call shocked him out of his thoughts. “Chris?” The garage door whooshed open. “Chris?” came Martin’s voice. “Are you in here?”
Chris exhaled. “Yeah,” he said. His brother was the only one who knew about his garage hideout; he knew his secret was safe with Martin.
Martin’s boots thudded against the studded steel floor until his face peeked out from around the stack of crates. When he spotted Chris, he rested an elbow on top of the boxes and put on a smile. “Thought I might find you here,” he said. He tilted his head as he studied his brother’s face. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” Chris wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “Just… remembering stuff.”
Martin’s eyes dipped down to the album in his brother’s hands. “Oh,” he said, immediately understanding. He tucked his hands into the pockets of his cargo shorts. “Mind if I join you?”
Blinking, Chris nodded and Martin shuffled down to squeeze beside his brother. For a while, they sat there silently. Neither one of them had to speak to know exactly what was on the other’s mind.
Eventually, possessed by some strange force, Chris broke the silence. “It always hits me when we come to Madagascar,” he said. “I always feel sad, and then I’ll forget why I’m sad, and when I remember, I feel awful for forgetting.”
“Me too,” breathed Martin.
Chris wet his lips. “It’s stupid,” he mumbled. “Animals die all the time, it’s just nature, why should it—” His voice broke and his eyes pricked with tears. “It shouldn’t be different.”
Martin rested a hand on his brother’s knee. “It’s okay that it’s different,” he said. He glanced at the photo album in Chris’s hands and at the wide, curious eyes of the lemur looking back at him in the pictures. “Y’know,” he said. “I remember when that picture was taken.” He tapped a finger against the plastic covering the photograph. “You gave him a banana just before we brought out the camera. He tried to grab it with his banana hands, that’s why there’s that smudge there.”
Chris swallowed, but he couldn’t fight the smile.
Martin turned the page and chuckled at the image of the lemur sitting on his head. “Oh, this was the day we had that meeting with the National Science Foundation.” He snorted, lightly nudging his brother. “You could have told me he had pooped in my hair.”
Chris breathed a faint laugh through his nose. “I almost died trying to explain that to the funding committee.”
“It was easier for you,” said Martin. “You didn’t have lemur poop dripping down your back.” He put on a higher pitched voice. “Well, sir, you see, this ridiculously named lemur was sitting on my head…” He laughed. “They must have thought I was insane.”
“You are insane,” smirked Chris.
Martin grinned at his brother. “Runs in the family,” he said.
The next photo was one of the three of them; Chris and Martin beaming at the camera with their wriggly lemur friend trying to climb out of Martin’s arms onto Chris’s shoulder.
Martin breathed a sigh. “Man, I miss that little guy,” he whispered.
A breath caught in Chris’s throat. “Me too.”
The brothers sat and stared at the photos until they reached the final picture; a portrait taken in one of the rare moments that the lemur was still. His head was turned away from the camera, completely unaware that anyone was taking his picture. Even in this snapshot, frozen in time, his energy was apparent. His legs were poised, seconds away from bounding off into the trees at any moment.
Chris swallowed. “Why do I miss him so much?” he asked.
“Because you loved him,” was his brother’s reply. “We both did.”
“No, I mean—” Chris shook his head. “We loved him, but he was just a lemur, you know? There are hundreds just like him. He wasn’t special, really. He wasn’t valuable.”
Martin was quiet for a while, considering this. “He wasn’t,” he eventually agreed. “But he was to us.” He shifted his position so he could make better eye contact with his brother. “All we’ll ever know is the effect he had on us.” He met Chris’s eyes with a faint, sad smile. “And maybe that’s what matters?”
Digging his thumbnail into the tip of his index finger, Chris sniffed, and the tears that had threatened to fall for the past hour or so finally came free in a wave of sobs.
Martin wrapped his arms around his little brother in a tight hug.
“I just miss him,” Chris heaved into his brother’s shoulder.
“Yeah,” Martin said. “Me too.”