What sucks more than a Hoover?

It seems that even here (a fictional story), when a power vaccum is created, someone or something will try to fill that void. Here, the albatross tries to instruct the group who is at the top of the chain of command. It is most likely the bird was quicker at thinking to act as the leader, because it would have been much lower on the chain. It most likely would have been looked down upon by the bear and even the badger. I think that had the kid known a little more about the world and not treated like a slave, things would have went differently. The animals would have been subserviant and would have changed the outcome. Had the animals not been able to communicate and think with the same cognitive power as a human, I think things would have been sorted out differently (also, how did they talk to each other? Did they speak English? How did they learn it? I know I shouldn't think about it too much, but it seems weird that these animals would just start talking in one of the worlds hardest languages.) Finally, when the woman returns to, some sense of normalcy comes back. She is the leader (even though she says she is not) and the two leave. Because the woman has a level of knowledge greater than the kid, I can only assume that she would be in charge for some time. It appears that there are those that lead and those that follow. We are no different than animals I guesss...