Poached (13 page)

Tracey was tall, with long thin legs like a giraffe and a mane of dark hair. When she was excited about something, she could be extremely effusive. (Unlike Martin del Gato, the previous director of operations at FunJungle, Tracey really liked animals and often could be found interacting with them with great joy.) But when she was angry—as she was now—she could be terrifying. Even a giant like Bubba Stackhouse seemed afraid of her.

“It was a fiasco,” Tracey went on. “A calamity. A complete and utter cataclysm. In the future, students learning about how to run a zoo will study this day as a shining example of incompetence, foolishness, and idiocy.”

Everyone looked at their shoes, ashamed.

Tracey shifted her attention to Pete Thwacker. “I assume it was your numskull idea to put a toy koala on display?”

Pete did his best to meet her eyes. “You told me to keep the theft a secret,” he said.

“No, I told you to keep a lid on the story,” Tracey
snapped. “I thought you were going to say the exhibit was closed for maintenance—”

“The guests get upset when they come all the way to the zoo and find their favorite animals aren't on display . . . ,” Pete explained.

“Ah, right,” Tracey said. “Thank goodness we didn't upset any of the guests, then. Instead we completely horrified them. First they witnessed what they thought was the brutal death of Kazoo by blunt trauma—and then you went and revealed that Kazoo had been stolen anyhow.”

Pete winced. “I thought it was better than everyone thinking the koala was dead.”

“They
knew
the koala wasn't dead!” Tracey roared. “They figured that out when they noticed it had stuffing coming out of its neck! What they were upset at—and rightfully so—was the idea that they'd been conned! Duped! Bamboozled! Hoodwinked!” When Tracey got angry, she had a weakness for synonyms. Behind her back, many park employees called her Thesaurus Rex.

“I'm sorry,” Pete said weakly. “It was a mistake.”

“You're darn right it was!” Tracey cried. “It was a blunder. A beanball. A total boner. And because of it, every media outlet in this state is calling for our heads on a stick—and the rest of the country isn't far behind. So you need to get out there, face the music, and own up to this. Admit this was
your lamebrain idea, not the park's—and that your actions in no way represented park policy.”

Pete nodded obediently. “And what do you want me to say about the kidnapping?”

“First of all, don't call it a kidnapping. It's not a kidnapping until we get a ransom note, and we don't have one of those yet. This is a theft. But as for what to say about it . . . heck if I know. That's
your
job. Whatever it is, just make sure the park sounds good.”

“Should I offer a reward for anyone who helps find the perpetrator?” Pete asked.

Tracey thought for a moment, then sighed. “I suppose we'd better. Let's say twenty thousand dollars. Maybe that will remind people that we're a business that cares about our animals, rather than a business that scams its customers. And while we're at it, we'd better offer free park passes to everyone who came to see Kazoo today.”

“Consider it done.” Pete sprang to his feet, happy to have permission to leave, even if it meant eating crow in front of the press.

“There's one more thing,” Tracey said, freezing Pete in his tracks. “The only reason you still have a job right now is because I don't have anyone else to undo your mistakes. So you'd better take good care of this mess—or I'll can you, understand?”

“Yes, ma'am,” Pete said meekly, then scurried out with his tail between his legs.

Large Marge instantly raised her hand and waved it in the air like an eager student with a question for the teacher.

Tracey turned to her. “What is it, Marge?”

“I don't understand the point of offering a reward to help catch the perpetrator,” Marge said. “We've already caught the perpetrator. Right there.” She pointed at me.

I started to defend myself, but before I could, Dad jumped in himself. “There is no proof that Teddy stole Kazoo.”

“Yes there is!” Marge argued. “We've got him leaving the exhibit on tape!”

“Without a koala,” Dad said.

“He has a backpack that was big enough to hide a koala in,” Marge countered.

“That doesn't prove anything,” Dad told her.

“It does when no one else entered the exhibit!” Marge shot back. “Teddy goes in, there's a koala. He comes out, there's no koala anymore. He took it. Case closed.”

“Then where is it?” Dad demanded. “You searched our house this morning and didn't find so much as a hair.”

“Then Teddy hid it somewhere else,” Marge growled. “The woods, maybe. Wherever it is, I'll find it.”

Before Dad could counter this, Tracey steeped into the fray. “Enough!” she shouted. “Silence! Clam it!”

Dad and Marge both fell silent.

“Face the facts,” Tracey told Dad. “The evidence against Teddy here is awfully conclusive.” Marge grinned at this, but then Tracey swung back to face her. “However, given the disastrous events of today—which you played no small part in—and the beating we're about to take in the media as a result of them, there is no way I'm going to let you arrest a young boy for this crime without ironclad proof that he did it. The last thing we need right now is to claim a kid took Kazoo and then find out he didn't.”

Marge sagged like a popped balloon. “But he's our number one suspect,” she whined. “If we let him go, he might skip town.”

“No I won't,” I said. “'Cause I didn't do it.”

“You won't,” Tracey told me, “because we're going to ensure you can't.” She looked to Bubba. “What would it take to outfit Teddy here with an ankle bracelet?”

Bubba shrugged. “Not too much.”

“What's an ankle bracelet?” I asked.

“A radio transmitter that we lock on your leg,” Marge informed me. “So that we can tell where you are at all times.”

“I've got some in the car right now,” Bubba said. He started to get up.

“Hold on now,” Dad said. “No one's fitting Teddy with one of those. They're for criminals.”

“He
is
a criminal,” Marge replied, glaring at me. “We just haven't proved it yet.”

“And until you do, Teddy will be able to go about his normal life,” Tracey ordered. She looked to Dad. “He can return to school, stay at home, or move about the park at will. The only difference will be that he has a tracking device on him. So if it turns out that he is indeed the thief, then we'll know where to find him.”

Dad held her gaze for a moment. “I don't like it,” he said. “Not at all.”

“Well, tough,” Tracey said. “Because that's what we're doing. And in the meantime, your family is going to fully cooperate with Marge's investigation.”

Dad looked to me.

“I'm okay with it,” I told him. “I don't have anything to hide.”

“All right,” Dad said with a sigh. “But I'd like to point out that every minute spent investigating Teddy is a minute no one's looking for the
real
thief.”

“We're not focusing on Teddy to inconvenience you,” Tracey told him. “We're doing it because, at the moment, he's our number one suspect. Either he's a criminal, or he's a foolish little boy who's only in this mess because he did a lot of things he shouldn't have in the first place.”

Now everyone was staring at me, though the only one I
was ashamed to look back at was my father. Tracey Boyd was right. I'd gotten myself into this heap of trouble on my own.

Large Marge smirked at me, but Tracey then turned on her. “And as for you, let's have a few less catastrophes and a lot more careful investigating here. Teddy's father is right. If Teddy's innocent, then you've given the thief a big head start. So you had better either bring me proof Teddy did this—or find the real criminal, fast. The Australians are going ballistic about this. If we don't get that koala back, we're going to have an international incident on our hands. Every day that goes by, Kazoo's situation gets more and more desperate. So if he isn't recovered soon—or if we have any more disasters like today—heads will roll, do you understand?”

The smirk disappeared from Marge's face. “Yes, ma'am,” she said.

“Good,” Tracey said. “Then everyone here is dismissed—except Teddy.” She met my father's surprised stare. “I'd like to talk to him solo for a bit.”

“I'm not too comfortable with that . . . ,” Dad began.

“You can wait right outside the door if it will make you feel better,” Tracey told him. “I'll leave it unlocked. We'll only be ten minutes, if that. Any longer and you can feel free to come right back in here.”

Dad glanced at me. I nodded that I was all right.

“Ten minutes,” he told us. “And I'll be right outside.”

He filed out behind all the security guards. Marge let him exit before her, then took one last long, hard look at me, wondering why I merited a one-on-one with Tracey and she didn't. Then she stormed out and slammed the door behind her.

Tracey let the silence hang there for a few seconds, allowing me to grow uneasy. Finally she asked, “Did you take that koala, Teddy?”

“No,” I said. “But I have some ideas about who might have.”

Tracey wasn't expecting that. She stiffened in surprise. “Really?”

“Well, they're not
my
ideas,” I admitted. “They're Kristi Sullivan's. She says Freddie Malloy had a grudge against Kazoo.”

“Freddie.” Tracey rolled her eyes. “Let me guess. That idiot thinks the koala cost him his show somehow. Not the fact that he routinely traumatized the audience.”

“Yes. Kristi said he'd threatened to throw Kazoo into the gator pit.”

Tracey grimaced. “Who else?”

“Charlie Connor. He's been looking for a way to get some money out of FunJungle.”

Tracey sighed, then dutifully wrote both names down on a legal pad. “Anyone else?”

“A rich animal collector named Flora Hancock. She might have hired Charlie to swipe Kazoo for her. Or maybe she had someone else do it.”

Tracey wrote that down too. “Any more?”

I shook my head.

“Why didn't Kristi tell
me
any of this?” Tracey asked.

“She told
Marge
,” I said. “But Marge didn't do anything.”

Tracey sighed again, then tapped her fingers on her desk. “And how, exactly, did you come to learn this from Kristi?”

“She told me.”

“Really? Of all the people Kristi could go to, she tracked down the twelve-year-old boy accused of the crime?”

“Well, she didn't track me down, exactly. I happened to be in KoalaVille.”

“Why?”

“I was . . . well . . .” I squirmed in my seat, aware Tracey wouldn't like the answer. “I was sort of investigating.”

Tracey stared at me for a long time. Then she said, “Teddy, there are a lot of people at this park who say you were a great help in finding out who killed Henry the Hippo—but there are also a lot who claim you were just a nuisance who stuck his nose where it didn't belong.”

“They're wrong!” I protested. “No one would have even known Henry was murdered if it wasn't for me!”

“I highly doubt that,” Tracey told me. “However, I do
know that Henry's funeral wouldn't have been such a disaster if it weren't for you.”

“That wasn't entirely my fault,” I argued. “The bad guys were after me. I was only trying to escape.”

“In addition, you were also linked to the escape of a tiger from Carnivore Canyon—and the disappearance of a black mamba from World of Reptiles. A mamba that
still
hasn't been recovered. You have been accused of arming the chimpanzees with water balloons, spreading rumors that the meat in our hamburgers is kangaroo, and teaching the parrots to say bad words in Spanish. And now, in the past two days, you've planted a fake arm in the shark tank
and
been involved in the destruction of the koala exhibit.” Tracey came out from behind her desk and approached me. “Now, I don't know if you took Kazoo or not, but I do know that wherever you go at this park, chaos and mayhem follow. I don't like chaos and mayhem. Not at all. So from this point forward, you are going to stop these shenanigans. I want you to lay off the cheap pranks—and I want you to stay far away from this investigation. If you can't—if there's one more PR disaster and I find you're even remotely connected—I'll ban you from this park forever.”

“I can't stay out of the park,” I said. “I
live
here. Both my parents work here.”

“That can change,” Tracey told me.

It took me a second to realize what she meant. And once I did, I couldn't believe what I was hearing. “You mean . . . you'd fire them?”

“Yes.”

“Because of me?”

“I wouldn't
want
to,” Tracey said. “Both your parents are extremely valuable assets to this park. However, at a certain point, the trouble you've caused outweighs their worth to us. FunJungle is already in a tenuous financial situation. We can't handle another event like
this
.” Tracey pointed at the wall of TV monitors. The screens were all now filled with coverage of the chaos in KoalaVille. Tourists had already uploaded video to YouTube of Marge crashing through the koala exhibit, and every news station was running it. I caught a glimpse of myself ducking out of the way just before Marge sailed through the glass.

“My parents love it here,” I pleaded. “Please don't fire them. I don't mean to cause all this trouble—”

“Whether you mean to or not, you cause it,” Tracey said. “And that needs to stop. Cease. Desist. Come to an end. Right now. If it doesn't . . . I'll have no choice but to let your parents go.”