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cheesesteak.”
    â€œThank you, everyone,” I said, my voice hiccupping.
    I’m sure the food was great, but I couldn’t taste it. I was too moved. I’d been condescending to them; I thought it was in secret,but they’d been aware of it the whole time — and instead of holding it against me, they’d indulged it.
    To top it all off, Otto even ate a tilapia-in-a-blanket.
    Â 
    Later that afternoon, Otto and I were video chatting with Dad when I heard bicycle tires grind the gravel out front. A man’s voice I didn’t immediately recognize called out. Through the barred glass I could see my mother’s bright dress, and Patrice next to her, shaking his open hand at someone. I hastily said good-bye to Dad and brought Otto outside.
    The minute I saw the man, I froze.
    It was him — the trafficker who’d sold me Otto. He was wearing the same torn and oily smock, had the same rusty bike leaning against a tree. On the back was a crate, covered with a cloth.
    No one was speaking when I came outside, but I recognized a look of outrage on my mom’s face, and the familiar stance of Patrice trying to calm her down.
    When Otto saw the man, his body went rigid. Then he was pushing against me and was down from my arms and on the ground. He started making his high-pitched cries. His lips parted and he gave that same awful terrified smile I’d last seen the day I’d found him on the side of the road. Otto made a few steps toward the man and then stopped, looking at him, then looking back at me. Crying piteously the whole time, he held his arms out for me to lift him, even as he was walking away from me and toward the man.
    â€œSophie!” my mother said. “Take Otto inside, right now.”
    I quickly stepped to Otto and lifted him from the ground. He wrapped his arms around me without complaint, even as he kept his eyes trained on the man, crying in a strangled tone I hadn’t heard from him before.
    The trafficker seemed genuinely glad to see Otto. His face brightened. “You are looking so healthy, my little friend! Do you like your new home?”
    â€œSophie,” Mom repeated sternly. “Inside, now.”
    â€œ Te , don’t go!” the man said. “I want to say hello!”
    I hesitated, not because I wanted to hear anything the trafficker said, but because, as much as it made my stomach drop to see him, I would have felt even worse if I gave up a chance to give him a piece of my mind. “You,” I said, “have to promise you won’t sell any more bonobos.”
    Sensing the tension in my voice, Otto went rigid and cried louder.
    â€œIt is not that way, mademoiselle,” the trafficker said. “He is my friend! We like each other, don’t we, mon p’tit ?”
    â€œHis name,” I said icily, “is Otto.”
    Patrice beckoned me to go inside.
    â€œ Malamu. His name is Otto. Please do not go away yet, mademoiselle!” the trafficker said to me. “I have more friends for you.”
    For a moment I didn’t realize what he meant; then the world narrowed and wobbled. “What do you mean?” I asked.
    The man yanked the cloth from the back of the bike. There, clutching each other and shivering in a cage, were two baby bonobos. They’d been caught much more recently than Otto: They looked healthy and still had their hair and voices. Their limbs stuck out at awkward angles through the wooden bars of the cage, and at the sudden sunlight they cried loudly, scrambling over each other to try to get out. One of them made an arms-swaying motion I recognized from Otto when he wanted to be picked up.
    My mom had her arms around my shoulders, trying to force me away.
    â€œDo you like them?” the trafficker asked. “They are adorable, no? There are two, so it is more expensive, but maybe onehundred twenty-five dollars for them both? They need a home, they need someone to take care of them like