Chapter Text
“I just feel so bad for him,” Beth said.
The little raccoon looked so sad all by himself. He’d never quite grown to full size, and his eyes were just a bit too big in his fluffy round face.
“Why does he do that?” Harlan asked.
They both watched through the camera as Adam craned his neck into the sky. His nose twitched, and he hopped onto an upturned box, setting his paws to the window of his enclosure. At first they’d thought he was trying to escape, but they soon realized he just enjoyed looking at the stars.
“It makes him happy, I think,” Beth sighed, “I just wish he had – wait, what’s that?”
She peered closer at the screen. Something was poking its paw through the bars of Adam’s window. Adam’s tail fluffed out, startled, but he didn’t run away. He sniffed experimentally at the paw, which flexed once, and then the tip of a narrow snout pushed between the bars.
“Is that – is that a raccoon?” Harlan stared in amazement. “How in the hell did it get here?”
They watched as Adam poked lightly at the snout with one timid claw. Then suddenly he scampered from his box to another corner of his enclosure. Beth squinted, unable to make out what he was doing in the low light. But soon enough he bounded back to the window, his own paws clutched to his chest. Beth watched with her heart in her throat as Adam held out a handful of food to the raccoon. The raccoon grabbed it, and its snout snuffled in thanks. Then it held its hand out again.
Adam looked around and down at his little paws. He had no food left to give. He looked up at the snout, then back at the foreign paw, and back down at his own. Then he placed his paw in the larger raccoon’s. The raccoon pushed its snout further through a little, and Adam touched it with his own wet nose.
“Oh my God,” Beth whispered, her eyes tearing up.
The two raccoons held hands through the night, chittering every now and then through the bars. The next morning, Beth went to the Zoo Director and demanded they added a new raccoon to Adam’s enclosure.
They named him Nigel.