Fifteen minutes later I’d given Kiki a good look over. Confirming that the little terrier was in great health, I sent her back out to be with Sarah, who thanked me and left, Kiki straining on her leash as much as possible to get to whatever new adventures she was going on next.
Making my way to the back, I went to go finish filling out Kiki’s chart, while Sophie worked on getting some vaccines organized for a little of puppies that were scheduled to come in that afternoon.
“That little dog has so much energy,” Sophie laughed. “I swear, Sarah should just buy a treadmill and let Kiki run on it all day.”
“I hope I have that much energy as I approach my senior years,” I agreed. “That dog is in insanely good shape for nine years old.”
Just then, the phone that linked the exam room to reception began to ring. I picked it up.
“Hey Karen, what’s up?”
“Ummm, you have a walk-in,” Karen said tentatively.
“Ok,” I replied. “Do we have space to slot them in?”
“Well, that’s the thing. Your schedule has space, but I think maybe you should come out here first.”
A little bit confused, I made my way out to the main lobby area, where my jaw dropped to the floor. The entire space was taken up by an almost ten-foot-tall ungulate with gorgeous, deep orange spots, staring at me with a kind face and two horn-like ossicones.
There was a giraffe in my vet clinic.
“Hello,” I said to the giraffe softly. “How are you doing today?”
“Do you know where my home is? I don’t know where home is, I don’t recognize anything here,” the giraffe said in a soft voice. My heart broke for–I did a quick check–her. She was obviously still a juvenile; fully grown giraffes were often around fifteen feet tall. If she were fully grown there was no chance she would be able to fit in the vet clinic. Even as she stood, the top of her head grazed the ceiling.
“It’s going to be ok,” I whispered to the giraffe, stroking her side softly. She seemed to accept me doing that, and visibly relaxed at my words. “All right, this isn’t the usual kind of walk-in client I get,” I joked, looking around the giraffe to see who had brought it in. In front of me was a scared-looking girl of about twenty years that I didn’t recognize, with shoulder-length brown hair and big brown eyes.
“I brought her here,” she told me. “You can’t tell my dad.”
“Ok, that’s fine,” I told her. “How did you get the giraffe?” I mean, this was coastal Oregon. They weren’t exactly native to the area.
“I took it from my dad,” she mumbled.
“Your dad had the giraffe? Where did he get it?”
The girl shrugged. “I don’t know. I never know where he gets his animals from. Usually they’re not that bad. They can live in this climate at least. But when I saw Lucy, I just knew she didn’t belong here. The winter will kill her. Plus, she’s way too young. So when he was at work I went in, took the horse trailer, and kidnapped Lucy. I brought her here because I need you to help her. I don’t know what else to do.”
“Thank you,” I said to the girl. “Can you tell me your name?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m not from around here, either. I came here because I knew no one would recognize me. I can’t have my dad know that I did this.”
“It’s ok,” I said, trying to comfort her. “I don’t want to get you in trouble. I just want to get to the bottom of how your father got a giraffe.”
“I don’t know,” the girl said quietly. “I have to go. Please take care of Lucy. She’s a nice giraffe.”
And with that, the girl was gone, and I was left standing in the middle of the waiting room with a juvenile giraffe, not much older than a calf.
“Wait, where are you going? Why are you leaving me here?” Lucy almost wailed as the girl practically ran out of the clinic and back into the truck that was parked out front, a horse trailer attached to the back.
“It’s ok, Lucy,” I whispered to her. “It’s going to be ok. We’re going to take really good care of you here, ok?”
Just then, Sophie came out of the back room. To her credit, her eyebrows barely rose when she saw the large desert mammal standing in the middle of our lobby. “I’m not sure we have the right vaccines for a giraffe, if that’s what you need,” was all she said, smiling as she made her way past the giraffe and handed some papers to Karen.
“What do you want to do with her?” Karen asked, and I bit my lip. Looking outside, I was thankful the weather was still very warm for late September. The temperature was still in the mid-70s today, which I knew was on the cooler side for a giraffe, but not unheard of.
“Well, first things first, if she’ll let me, I’d like to do an exam. I think I’ll take her home, though. How long until the next appointment?”
“Forty minutes,” Karen replied, and I nodded. “Good. That’ll give me time to get this girl home and settled. I’ll give her a quick look over, but I think a full exam will have to wait until the end of the day.”
Sophie grinned. “I’m definitely coming with you.”
“What? Why?” I asked, confused.
“Because you’re going to have to walk that giraffe home, and seeing you walk a giraffe through downtown Willow Bay is going to be amazing,” Sophie replied. I groaned as I realized she was right. This was the sort of thing that made front page news here in town; last week the main news story in town was that it rained for three days. In September.
“Man, Jason’s going to have to make big decisions,” I said. “Is the torching of a business more gossip-worthy than the owner of that business walking a giraffe through town?”
“I’m definitely on team giraffe. I’m going to take a picture of this beauty and start a hashtag on Instagram.”
I laughed as I took the biggest dog leash I had and looped it around Lucy’s neck, then gently led her back toward the door. “We’re going to go home to my place now, ok? I have a small stable out the back where we can keep you for a bit.”
“You’re not going to hurt me, are you?” Lucy asked as she ducked under the doorframe, and my heart broke for the poor giraffe.
“No, of course not,” I told her quietly as soon as we were outside, so Karen couldn’t hear. “I’m going to take care of you.”
Sure enough, even though foot traffic in town was pretty light with tourist season being over, I noticed a few people staring through shop windows, and one guy driving along paid so little attention to the road that he almost drove into a parked car.
“Great,” I muttered. “Let’s get this over with before we start causing accidents.”
“IS THAT APRIL?” a lady yelled excitedly. Great, that was all I needed, for the entirety of Willow Bay to think I had the internet-famous giraffe that gave birth via webcam a few months ago. I told her that no, it was definitely a different giraffe.
Luckily for me, Lucy was extremely docile, and happily allowed herself to be led along the streets of Willow Bay. I decided to try and get some information out of her.
“So Lucy, do you remember where you were born?” I asked her.
“It was orange. There were not as many trees as here, and a lot less water.” Ok, so Lucy had been born in Africa.
“Do you remember when you left the orange place?”
“Yes. I was not an old giraffe. There were six men and one woman. They came and took me. My mother screamed and tried to hit them, but they were too fast. They put me on one of those moving things the humans use, and I saw my mother chasing after me. I did not know where they were taking me. Eventually they put me in a big box, and I was there for a long time. I thought I was going to be there forever. When they let me out of the box, everything looked like here.”
My heart broke for the poor giraffe. “I’m so sorry, Lucy. I promise, I’m going to do everything I can to help you. My name is Angela, by the way.”