Whether the rest knew or not, that told Roger what to expect, if not the whole situation. A kangaroo. A boxing kangaroo. The one he had photographed when he had questioned its attendant who had said no pet or trained animal had left the stable.
In the next room something stopped, and there came, not loudly, a low command.
There was an interval of suspense. What, Roger wondered, was the condition in that partitioned place adjoining their waiting room?
After a momentary wait, and more seemingly guttural commands, the thumping was resumed; and the animal, in short hops, came to the entrance door.
There it paused as if dazzled or surprised at the light or by the crowd.
Behind it, in the other, darker room, shown by their own light, Roger saw a hairy, man-like creature, either chimpanzee or some other large mammal it seemed to be. The kangaroo’s keeper, he assumed.
Just as in the under-exposed film, where the ghostly ape and its Australian companion had seemed to dance, the kangaroo hopped in, while the ape, grimacing and beating its chest, danced in behind it.
Straight at Grover leaped the kangaroo. It wore boxing gloves!
Roger, crouched, tense and frightened, saw his cousin, with a typical boxer’s stance, prepare to carry the coming battle to his astonishingly expert antagonist.
In that room, while the company shrank back, against walls, pushing their chairs out in front of them, leaving a clear space, the animal and the man closed in as fast and as bizarre a contest as Roger had ever viewed. Not clumsily, but with lightning-quick jabs of its short forearms the beast lunged, taking blows without a sound.