Derrick checked out his room - it had no sign of modern technology at all. No electric lights, not even a flush toilet. Instead, there was a marble seat that had a hole into the floor. He could hear water sloshing far down below, and realized the toilet simply dumped waste into the ocean. There was running water, cold and warm, and a shower. He guessed the warm water was heated by sunlight somehow. Speaking of warm water, the pool looked very inviting. He stripped off his clothes and pulled on his swim trunks, and headed out for a swim. As he walked out on the terrace, he saw the baboon tending some shrubs. Curious, he approached the animal cautiously and watched it work for a while.
The apron it wore was really just to hold tools, so he quickly saw it was male. The baboon turned to look at him and grunted, then went back to work. "Um, do you understand English?" Derrick felt silly asking, but Circe had to communicate with the animal somehow. Probably in Greek, though. The baboon looked at him again and grunted a couple of times. Derrick grinned. "Sorry, wish I understood baboon."
The baboon reached out toward Derrick's face. The movement did not seem threatening, so the boy held still as coarse fingers traced his chin, his nose, his mouth. Then the rough palm pressed against his forehead and the fingers tightened slightly. Derrick gasped and jerked away as he felt a sharp sensation flash through his mind - not exactly pain, not quite pleasure. He felt momentarily disoriented and confused, sitting down on the lush grass.
"The weird feeling will pass soon." The baboon patted his head and seemed to smile. It took Derrick a moment to realize the animal had spoken.
"You talk!" His voice felt raspy - not sore or anything, but words seemed to catch in his throat. The strangeness was dismissed as he stared at the baboon. "You can speak English!"
The baboon seemed to chuckle, and then said "No. You understand me now. And you are much easier to understand." Derrick stared, still feeling confused. Watching the baboon talk was like seeing a badly-dubbed foreign movie. The mouth movements did not match what he was hearing. The baboon pulled some pruning shears from his apron and offered them to Derrick. "Might as well help me tend the grounds."
Normally, Derrick would have refused and headed back to his room - why should he work on his vacation? But this was such a crazy opportunity - to talk to an animal! He took the shears, scrambling back to his feet. The baboon nodded. "You can get the high parts for now." Although the baboon was very large and its arms were longer than Derrick's the boy realized it would need a ladder to see and trim the upper parts of the shrubs that Derrick could easily reach. He was concerned that he might mess up, but then realized the bushes were so carefully maintained that the parts to trim were obvious. It was just removing spotty new growth. He snipped a few sections, and then following the baboon's example, plucked the cut leaves and dropped them into a coarse burlap bag sitting open behind them.
"You do all the gardening here?" Derrick tried clearing his throat when the words felt rough again, but gave up when it didn't change anything. It felt and sounded odd, but his throat didn't hurt. Maybe it was allergies. "It looks amazing!"
"No. Others help. Sheep, goats and horses crop grass, others trim trees." The baboon continued to work as it spoke. Derrick moved along with him down the hedge, and realized he was starting to focus on the trimming instead of talking. he tried to get the conversation going again. "How long you been here?"
The baboon shrugged. "Not know time." Did that mean he didn't know how long he had been there?
Derrick struggled a moment with concepts of years, months, and weeks. Guess it would be really hard for a baboon. "You like work?" Even as he asked the question, Derrick felt annoyance at himself. He was starting to talk to the baboon like it was stupid and didn't know words. Hadn't it been talking normally at first?
"Work good." The baboon sure wasn't speaking normally now. Maybe Derrick had imagined the more complex sentences. He stretched out to trim a section of the next shrug. Was this one taller? He looked back at the perfectly even tops and felt a twinge of pride. He was doing a good job of this after all. "Yeah, work good."