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surface of the thing upon which he comes to rest: green on grass, red-orange on terra cotta, yellow with big brown spots in the scattered shadows of African leaves, hidden from predators despite his outsized neck.) Palafox in gray runs alongside the pavement splattered with gas - is there no solution for the incontinence of motorcycles? - an iridescent reflection on his neck completes the camouflage. He goes unnoticed by passersby, their curiosity dulled in the end by all they’ve had to look at. What’s more, even the pigeons think he’s one of them. Now and then he stops, sings two notes and bows, then disappears like a hat in a crowd. He feels he’s really earned the muesli this time, or the oatmeal that the sweet old ladies, skipping a meal, saved for him. Palafox settles onto the shoulder of one of these ladies, not in gratitude, but to carry his benefactress away and eat her elsewhere, in his eyrie. She thinks they are love bites when he pecks her ear or wrists, her eyes filling with tears. To drink, something hitherto unknown to us, Palafox tips back his head. Another thing to correct. His benefactress kneels and bleeds from her eyes. Another thing we were unaware of, but what we now know is that Palafox loves the taste of blood.

    All the preceding information was provided to us by Professor Zeiger. He had risen before dawn, had crossed the sleeping town and garden of the Buffoons and made his way over to the pen - this long journey just to watch Palafox sleep - when he became aware of who was slipping out through a hole in the chickenwire - but how had you imagined to keep such a little creature captive behind so flimsy a barrier when he is barely visible to the naked eye? So rather than sounding the alarm, Zeiger preferred to follow the insect so as to study its behavior in an urban setting. The greatest discoveries are always made by observing the animal in action. In its maze, the white mouse meets a psychiatrist, a neurologist, and a metaphysician in distress, all of whom are fascinated by its strategic moves. Only by watching how animals live have we learned how to equip ourselves, knives, scissors, drills, pastry-cutters, and others are still busy diversifying our toolboxes, all, relentlessly, even if the lobster after having invented blow by blow the pincer and the nutcrackers now seems to have run out of new ideas. That being said, false modesty aside, our ingenuity ends up proving of use to animals as well. Call it an exchange of courtesies. Would the sea lion be able to spin a plate on its nose without our friendly guidance? Could four elephants carry a fifth?
    Zeiger now knows all that he wishes to. He closes his notebook, slips it into the left interior pocket of his jacket then, changing his mind, into the right interior pocket, after which he rushes to help the old dear. With a well-timed intervention, one would be able to save her, no, but there are always a thousand things to glean from a cadaver, jewels, scarf, perhaps even a horrible anecdote for a local news reporter. And then it is time to gather Palafox into his cage. The ornithologist grabs him by one paw, the other claw crushes his hand. He lets go. Free, Palafox hops into the gutter. In the water, he gets his sea legs immediately - helped along by the current, he soon reaches a manhole, he lets himself be sucked down, head first, at the risk of blemishing his magisterial antlers.
    Many other crocodiles before him had sought and found refuge in the sewers, for the most part tossed in by their owners - an alligator eight inches long proves to be a central part of family fun, you can dress him up, throw him from room to room while laughing all the way; when it becomes as long as your arm, it ceases to be fun for the kids, and you get rid of it as quickly as you can. Palafox is one of the rarer ones, the only one perhaps, to have arrived there of its own volition. Regardless, once there, his quality of life is no different from that of other