Mayhem and the Mongoose Moon

by Donna

What is the plural of mongoose, anyway?  Mongeese?  Mongooses?  Both seem slightly odd.  Of course, so does the mongoose, singly or in group, so I'll try to avoid talking about more than one mongoose at a time.

Of course, that's going to be difficult, because there were an awful lot of them at Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo.  And perhaps I shouldn't mention them at all, because they were the only living creatures I've seen so far in Omaha who weren't astonishingly upbeat and welcoming.

My friends Lori Hayes and Evelyn Whitehill, members of the Mayhem in the Midlands committee, were hospitable enough to take me on what has become an annual pilgrimage to the zoo on Thursday.  We were in our last hour at the zoo, beginning the slow uphill trek to the gate, when we passed the Dwarf Mongoose exhibit.  They're small--maybe squirrel sized--and cute, and we all stopped and said "Awwwww."

That's when one of them mooned us.

The mongoose, who had been peering myopically at us, his nose almost touching the glass, suddenly whirled, smacked his derriere against the glass as high as he could manage, dragged it down the glass, and then raced to the back of the cage to join a knot of his relatives.

Our jaws dropped for a second, and then we all burst out laughing. 

"I wish I'd gotten a picture of that," I said.

As if hearing my request, another mongoose scuttled forward, peered through the glass, and mooned us.

We must have spent ten or fifteen minutes there, cameras in hand, but never quite managing to have them pointing in the right direction when a mongoose made his amusingly rude gesture. 

Was this some kind of territorial defense tactic--warning us that we were getting too close to the glass that marked the boundaries of their turf?  Was it something they do to amuse themselves at the expense of the tourists, the way the gorillas occasionally hurl themselves at what the signs assure us is unbreakable glass, just so they can watch the humans flinch?

We never figured it out.  The mongoose tribe wasn't giving out any information.

We eventually gave up, and moved on to visit the sharks.  There's a part of the aquarium where the human path travels under the tank, and you can look up at the white underbellies of the sharks as they cruise slowly overhead.  Not a view of a shark I'd like to see in any other situation.  But the sharks never pay any attention to the tasty tidbits strolling beneath them.  They ignore us, which is exactly the sort of treatment you want from a shark.

We didn't ride the Sky Rail, a sort of ski lift from one end of the zoo to the other, but had fun imagining what the animals must think as it sails over their heads.  Particularly since part of its route lies over the cheetah enclosure.  Do the big cats ever glance up hopefully as a car sails over--filled, perhaps, with rowdy teenagers shoving each other, or perhaps a quarreling couple?  Do they plot out what they'll do if human prey ever does fall from the sky?

"Now that would be an interesting plot for a story," I said to Lori.  "What if you just took your victim in the Sky Rail and shoved him out over the cheetahs?"

Lori's a writer, too.  She got that look we all learn to recognize in each other--the look that says we're checking out the fictional possibilities of an interesting what if.

That's one of the beauties of spending a weekend at a mystery convention.  We may never know what the mongoose and his siblings were thinking.  But back at Mayhem, we can get a little closer to understanding the minds of our fellow homo sapiens--at least the subspecies of us who love mysteries.  We're all looking for the next must-read book.  We're all hoping to gain a few insights into the minds of the writers who created our favorite books and series.  And for those of us who write, there's always the possibility that some phrase uttered in a panel, some small fact tossed off by the forensic expert, or perhaps a chance word overheard in the bar will be just the tidbit we need for our next story.

Just remember: I've got dibs on the Mystery of the Mongoose Moon.

Comments

[DP]

I don't think you could work that into the title of one of your books. Unless they can fly as well as moon?

[Jane O'Riva]

I don't know. I saw a lovely Japanese themed quilt with storks flying across a full moon. Something on the order of Storking a Mongoose Moon?

[Hank Phillippi Ryan]

I think the title works perfectly as is. And I am eager to read it.

Did you all see that photo of the newborn baby anteater? I'll have to find it...he--or she, they said they don't know yet--is beyond adorable. And hasn't grown up enough to think of teasing zoo visitors.

Maybe that's mongoose show biz. I mean, how do WE know?

[Dana Cameron]

I hope you had a great time at Mayhem; it's such a terrific convention! And the trips to the zoo are always terrific. Always some, er, intriguing animal behavior to observe.