Big Game (5 page)

Dash nodded. “Even TimJim could manage it. There's a ton of places along the back of FunJungle where someone could shoot into the park.”

“How do you know that?” Summer asked suspiciously.

“Because I'm evil,” Dash replied sarcastically, then said, “You can see the back fence from inside the park when you're on the SafariLand monorail. It's only chain link the whole way around. There's barbed wire at the top, but that doesn't mean you can't shoot through it.”

“He's right,” I agreed. “I once even found a place where I could get over the fence by climbing a tree.”

“Really?” Xavier polished off the last of his sandwich. “It's that unprotected?”

“I think they cut the tree down,” I replied. “But yeah, it's pretty unprotected.”

Xavier said, “Given how much people like to hunt around here, I'm surprised no scuzzball's taken a shot at an animal before this.”

“Yeah,” Violet agreed, looking at Summer somewhat accusingly.

Summer glared back at her. “My father does everything he can to keep those animals safe.”

“Where's the rhino house?” Dash asked. “Near the fence?”

“No,” I told him. “In fact, it's pretty far away. Maybe a couple hundred yards.”

“Plenty of rifles could shoot that far,” Ethan said. “But you'd have to be a pretty good shot to make it pay off.”

“The hunter didn't,” Xavier pointed out. “He missed.”

“Anyone find the bullet yet?” Dash asked.

“Maybe by now,” I replied.

“Well, if they have, then they should know what type of gun was used,” Dash said. “That'd be good to know.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. Even though Dash and Ethan mistakenly believed that the shooter had fired from outside the zoo, they still had some good points. If I had figured out how to jump the fence into SafariLand, someone else could, too, which meant that whoever had fired the shot from inside FunJungle wasn't necessarily an employee. And if they'd had a good enough gun, they wouldn't have had to shoot from anywhere near the rhino house.

“Maybe whoever did it wasn't even shooting at the rhino,” Violet suggested.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“My little brother has a BB gun, but he's never used it to shoot animals. He shoots things like bottles and cans. And once he thought it'd be funny to shoot the windows out of this house they were building down the street from us. My parents were royally angry and they took the gun away for three months, but that's what kids do sometimes, right? You said whoever did this shot through the window. Maybe they just wanted to shoot a window.”

Everyone nodded thoughtfully.

“Good point,” Dash said, then turned to me. “Would whoever did this have been able to tell there was a rhino in that building?”

I considered the rhino house. “Maybe not. The windows are pretty high up. It would've been hard to see Rhonda in there.”

Ethan slapped his knee happily. “Well, there you go. There's a good chance this wasn't some psycho rhino killer after all. It was only a stupid vandal.”

Everyone eagerly agreed with this, not necessarily saying it
was
vandalism, but that it was possible. They all seemed a bit relieved to have found a solution that didn't involve a rogue rhino hunter, and I couldn't blame them. I felt a bit of relief too, hoping that what Violet had proposed was the truth.

Only Summer seemed unconvinced. Plus, she appeared to have lost her appetite for her steak during our conversation.

“If it was vandalism, I'll bet there's a good chance TimJim was behind it,” Xavier said. “Remember last year, when the cops busted them for throwing rocks at the windows of the old gas station?”

“And they tagged the school gym with graffiti,” Violet added.

The others at the table chimed in, recalling more incidents of TimJim's misbehavior or suggesting other possible vandals. They quickly compiled quite a list; a surprising number of kids had done things like shoot holes in road signs, drape trees in toilet paper, or leave flaming bags of dog poo on people's front porches.

Meanwhile, Summer shoved her unfinished steak away, pulled her phone out of her pocket, and checked her messages. You weren't supposed to have phones at school, but Summer often acted as though rules were for other people. Then she tucked her phone away, grabbed her lunch bag, and carried it toward the garbage, pausing for a second to give me a glance that said I ought to join her.

Even though I wasn't quite done with my lunch, I got up and followed her.

“They're fooling themselves,” Summer said, tossing her uneaten food into the trash. “This wasn't vandalism. Someone wants Rhonda dead.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

Instead of answering, Summer said, “Hondo's taking me to FunJungle today after school. I'll give you a ride so you don't have to take the bus.”

“I can't,” I said. “I've got soccer practice after school today.”

“Not anymore,” Summer told me. “Daddy wants to see you.”

J.J. McCracken wasn't the kind of
person you could say no to. He was rich and powerful, and half the town worked for him. All I had to do to get out of soccer practice was tell Coach Redmond that J.J. had asked to see me. Coach released me immediately, then told me to ask J.J. if he'd buy the school a new soccer field.

Even though Summer was rich, she didn't use a limo. J.J. McCracken didn't like limos; he considered them snooty and impractical. There was a lot of stuff that J.J. dismissed as too fancy for his tastes. The McCrackens could have had a mansion in Beverly Hills or a penthouse in Manhattan, but they had a ranch in the Texas Hill Country instead. The road to their front door was dirt; a limo never would have made it. Instead, Summer's chauffeur drove her around in a rover SUV. It was just like any other rover on the inside—except it was a bit longer and there was a glass partition between the front and back seats that could be closed to give the people in the back privacy.

The chauffeur didn't dress very fancy, either. He was a recent college grad named Tran, and instead of a suit, he usually wore jeans, a button-down shirt, and cowboy boots. Which was basically how J.J. dressed too.

The one thing that J.J. didn't skimp on was security. He was terrified that Summer might be a kidnapping target. The rover's windows were tinted and bulletproof. The doors looked normal, but they were armored. And as we rode back to FunJungle, Hondo was stationed in the front seat, right next to Tran.

Summer chafed at having a bodyguard at all times—it put a crimp in her ability to act like a normal teenager—so Hondo did his best to be unobtrusive. It wasn't that easy, though, since he was the size of a refrigerator. Plus, he was covered with tattoos, which made him look like a walking comic book. Like many of Summer's bodyguards, Hondo had a rough background; he'd been in a gang as a teenager and had done some jail time. But he'd straightened himself out and was surprisingly friendly. While some of Summer's previous guards had been gruff and cold with me, as if I were a potential threat to her safety, Hondo was always kind and trusting. He even let us put up the glass between us and the front seat so we could talk in private.

“Any idea why your dad wants to see me?” I asked Summer.

“No,” she replied. “But I'm sure it has something to do with Rhonda.”

“Like what?”

Summer only shrugged in response. I got the idea she knew more than she was letting on, but I couldn't pry anything else out of her. Instead, she spent the rest of the ride trying to come up with possible rhino killers, but since we didn't have any more information about the case, we simply ended up with a long list of people Summer didn't like. She even insisted we consider Mrs. Crowley, her history teacher, a suspect because Mrs. Crowley had recently sent Summer to the principal's office and Summer figured this meant Mrs. Crowley had a grudge against the McCrackens.

“Maybe you got sent to the principal's office because you weren't behaving in class,” I said.

Summer rolled her eyes. “I don't need to pay attention in class. I know twice as much history as Mrs. Crowley.”

I didn't bother arguing that, as there was a chance it was true. Summer was one of the smartest kids in school, although a lot of people assumed she was dumb because she was beautiful. This never made sense to me; she was J.J. McCracken's daughter, after all, and no one ever thought J.J. had gotten so successful by being stupid.

We finally arrived at FunJungle. Tran pulled up to the front employee entrance closest to the administration building, where J.J.'s office was. As we climbed out of the car, we could see the main entrance of the park. Despite the cold weather, there was a good-sized line of tourists waiting to get in.

Summer watched them, intrigued. “That's a big crowd for a school day in February,” she said. “Is something special going on here today?”

“Not that I know of,” I replied.

“Let's go see what's up.” Summer started toward the front gates.

Hondo immediately stepped into her path. “Sorry, ma'am. My orders are to deliver you directly to your father's office.” He had a voice so low and deep, I imagined it was how a hippopotamus would sound if it could talk.

“We're only making a slight detour. It'll take two minutes.” Summer tried to sideslip Hondo, but he caught her arm and held it tight.

“I'm afraid I can't allow that,” he said. “Crowds are a significant risk of danger to you.” He then steered Summer toward the guard booth at the employee entrance.

Summer tried to dig her heels in and resist, but she was like a flea fighting an elephant. “C'mon,” she pleaded. “They're tourists, not terrorists.”

Hondo didn't reply. He swung open the guard booth door and swept Summer and me through it.

The booth was a very small room, only ten feet square. Inside it there was an X-ray scanner for bags, like at an airport security checkpoint, a walk-through metal detector, and a small desk for a security guard to sit at. The guard on duty didn't look a whole lot older than we did. According to his badge, his name was Kevin. When he saw Summer, he gasped, starstruck. But then he reacted with even more surprise when he saw me, which was odd. He did such a double take, he almost fell out of his chair. “Uh, hi there, Miss, uh . . . Summer,” he stammered. “I'm afraid I have to, um, ask you folks to wait here for a, er, a moment.”

“Why?” Summer asked.

“It's a, uh, security issue.” Kevin picked up a phone and dialed a number scrawled on a Post-it note. “Hi,” he said to whoever answered. “This is Kevin at the front guard booth. The, uh, person you're looking for is here. . . . Okay, yes. I'll, uh, hold him.”

Hondo tensed, growing concerned. “What's this all about?” he asked.

Kevin shrank from him fearfully. “I, um, I . . . I'm not supposed to say. But you won't be waiting long.” His eyes flicked toward the metal detector. There was a piece of paper taped to the side of it, where Kevin could see it but we couldn't.

Summer snatched it and immediately started laughing at what she saw. “Oh my gosh, Teddy. Check this out. You're a fugitive!” She held it up.

It was a photo of me.

Above it was the word “Wanted.” Below, it had my name, height, date of birth, and other distinguishing characteristics, followed by the words, “If you see this boy, detain him for questioning and call Officer Marge O'Malley immediately.”

“Oh no.” I groaned.

Summer laughed even harder.

“It's not funny,” I said.

“Yes, it is,” Summer told me. “Look at you! You're FunJungle enemy number one!”

Outside, there was a screech of tires, followed by Large Marge's all-too-familiar bellow. “Get out of the way, you moron! Security coming through!”

I looked through the window of the security booth. Marge was speeding toward us in a golf cart emblazoned with a FunJungle Security symbol. Instead of watching where she was going, she was shouting at a poor maintenance worker whom she'd nearly run down.

Marge had been a thorn in my side ever since the moment I'd met her. A tourist had been trying to feed a monkey a hot dog, even though there was a sign right nearby saying not to feed the animals, so I'd shot him with a squirt gun. No one got hurt, but Marge had decided I was trouble and had spent much of her time at FunJungle trying to prove that to everyone else. Admittedly, I had played practical jokes on her now and then, but those were all to get her off my back. I would never have tied tin cans to her car's bumper or replaced her hair spray with green spray paint if she had simply left me alone.

Marge's hatred of me had been her own undoing. She'd been so convinced that I had stolen Kazoo the Koala that she'd never bothered to look for the real thief. Which was why J.J. McCracken had demoted her from her job as chief of security. Of course, Marge didn't see things that way. She blamed
me
for her demotion and was even more determined to get me now.