Poached (15 page)

However, I still had plenty of concerns. “How am I even supposed to do this?” I asked. “I can't just wander over to KoalaVille and start poking around for clues.”

Summer broke into a big, brilliant smile. “Does this mean you're in?” she asked. “You'll help find Kazoo?”

“I'm thinking about it,” I said. “It won't be easy. I don't even know where to start.”

“
I
do,” Summer said.

“Where?”

“How did the thief get in and out of the koala exhibit without being seen?”

I shrugged. “I have no idea.”

“Exactly,” Summer told me. “And neither does anyone else—except the thief. No one's even tried to figure it out yet.
But it's important, right? I mean, it couldn't have been easy to get into the exhibit.”

“Right,” I agreed. “There was only one door, with a keypad entry, and there were four security cameras outside.”

“So there's no way anyone could get through all that without leaving some evidence behind.”

“I'm not so sure. After all, the thief didn't show up on any of the cameras.”

“That's just not possible,” Summer told me. “A ghost didn't steal Kazoo.”

“I don't know how they avoided being filmed,” I said. “But they did.”

“Are you sure there's
nothing
on any of the cameras?”

I thought back to the conversation I'd had with my father at Carnivore Canyon that afternoon. “No,” I admitted. “My dad said he was going to watch all the footage tonight, though.”

“So when's that happening?”

I realized I hadn't heard my parents in a while. I crept to my door and peered out. Sure enough, Dad had his computer on the kitchen table. He and Mom were both watching the security tapes.

“It's happening right now,” I reported to Summer. “But it's gonna take a while. There's almost twelve hours of footage.”

“Well, let's hope they find something,” Summer said. “In
the meantime, there's still the security door to consider.”

“How so?”

“It has a keypad entry, Teddy. Only the keepers know the entry code for it.”

I thought about that a moment. “No one else does? Not maintenance or security?”

“Not that I know of. It's designed to protect the animals. If maintenance or security needs to get in anywhere, a keeper has to let them in.”

“Does anyone else have an entry code for all the doors like you do?”

“No. And I don't even have one anymore, thanks to you. Daddy wasn't happy to find out I knew his and had passed it on to you. So he changed it.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Don't sweat it,” Summer told me. “You've got enough to worry about. Now, do you know all the koala keepers at FunJungle?”

I shook my head. “The only one I know well is Kristi Sullivan. She's the head keeper, so she's there most days. But there are some others who fill in for her on weekends and such. I'm not even sure of their names.”

“Hold on. I'll get them.” Summer propped up her phone and got on her computer.

“What are you looking at?” I asked.

“The administrative database for FunJungle.”

“Are you supposed to have access to that?”

“Of course not.” Summer gave a triumphant cry. “Here we go: assistant koala keepers are Elizabeth Ames, Jennifer Weeks, and Ashley Thomas.”

“That sounds right.”

“Think any of them could have pinched Kazoo?”

“Definitely not Kristi,” I said quickly.

“Why not?” Summer shot back.

“She just wouldn't have,” I said. “She cared about Kazoo too much.”

“Maybe she cared so much that she wanted him as a pet.”

“No. She's not like that. In fact, she was helping me come up with other suspects today.”

“Maybe she was only doing that to divert attention from herself.”

“She didn't do it, all right?” I was surprised by how defensive I was where Kristi was concerned. “She wouldn't have.”

Summer raised her hands. “Okay. Take it easy. I'm only trying to make sure we don't rule anyone out too quickly. But if you say we can trust her, we can trust her.”

“Good,” I said, although as I did, a thought niggled at the back of my mind. Could we
really
trust Kristi? Did I know her as well as I thought?

“What about the others?” Summer asked.

“I don't really know any of them at all,” I said. “I suppose they could have done it.”

“I guess you'll have to investigate them a bit closer then,” Summer told me. “And while you're at it, you should have a look around the exhibit. Make sure there's no way to get in besides the security door. If there's not, that narrows down our suspects quite a bit.”

“And if there is?”

“Then maybe it offers another clue as to who the thief is.”

I nodded agreement. “There's one big problem, though. How am I supposed to do any of this? Tracey gave me a direct order—thanks to your dad—to lay off the investigation.”

“You'll just have to do it without being seen, then.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“It's easy.” Summer flashed a wide, knowing grin. “As usual, I have a plan.”

Once Summer had told me
her plan for how I could investigate unnoticed, I had to admit it was pretty clever. However, I had to wait before I could put it into action.

I had to go back to school.

I returned the next day, the monitoring bracelet strapped to my ankle. Worried that it looked dorky and branded me as a potential criminal, I did my best to hide it under the cuff of my jeans, but it was still noticeable if anyone looked at my feet. No one said anything—except Xavier, of course—but I got the sense that everyone was staring at me. When I tried to catch them at it, they'd all pretend to be doing something else, but the moment I turned away again, I could feel all their eyes return to me.

I made it halfway through the day before Vance Jessup caught up with me.

I was on my way to lunch with Xavier. We were a little late, as Xavier's locker had jammed, and the halls had cleared out. We were about to enter the cafeteria when Vance and TimJim blocked our path.

“Hey, Teddy,” Vance said, completely ignoring Xavier. “We missed you yesterday. Where were you?”

“Sick,” I said, trying to duck past him.

He stuck out an arm, blocking my path. “Sick, my butt. You've been up to no good, haven't you?”

“No.”

“That's a nice piece of jewelry you've got there.” Vance pointed at the ankle bracelet, and TimJim snickered. “Where'd you get it?”

“It's a long story,” I said. “I'm late for lunch . . .”

I tried to squirm past Vance again, but this time he seized my shoulder. “It's not because of our little prank the other day, is it?” he asked.

“No,” I told him.

Vance clapped his other hand under my jaw, then forced my chin up so I was looking him in the eye. “You're sure? 'Cause if the police are involved, you'd better not rat me out. That'd be a very bad idea.” To drive the point home, he gave my shoulder a menacing squeeze. He barely flexed his fingers,
and yet it felt as though he were leaving divots in my shoulder blade.

“Teddy's not lying to you!” Xavier said quickly, trying to help me. “The bracelet's not for the shark prank. It's because the cops think Teddy stole the koala from FunJungle.”

Vance swiveled his giant head toward Xavier, surprised. Then he looked to TimJim. Then back to me.

“Is that true?” he asked.

“Yes,” I admitted.

Vance let go of me in surprise. And then he broke into his weird, strangled laugh. TimJim laughed even harder.

“You?” Vance asked me, incredulous. “
You're
a suspect in that?”

“I didn't do it,” I said sullenly. “I was framed.”

“Sure you were.” Vance turned to TimJim. “Wow, we get this kid to pull one prank and the next thing you know, he's off stealing koalas.”

“He's telling the truth,” Xavier said.

Vance stopped laughing and glared at Xavier. “Bug off,” he snarled.

“Okay.” Xavier scurried into the cafeteria.

Vance returned his attention to me. “Well, Teddy, now that you've got a taste for this, my posse and I were just talking about how we ought to pull another prank at FunJungle.”

I winced. There was no way I could do anything like that again. Not when my parents' jobs were on the line. But saying no to Vance was always a dangerous proposition. I decided to try using logic instead. “We can't,” I told him. “We almost got busted last time.”

“That's what made it so classic!” Vance crowed. “When that cow from security slipped in the puke, I laughed so hard I almost busted a gut. Now, we've been thinking about what to do next, and we've come up with a good one. What if we do the same sort of thing like we did with the shark tank, only with the lions? But this time, instead of just an arm, we could put a whole mannequin in the cage and cover it with ketchup so it looks like there's a dead, bloody person in there? Maybe we could even get some calf's brains to really sell it. . . .”

I shook my head, desperately trying to get out of this. “It wouldn't work. The lion exhibit is completely fenced off. There's no way for us to get the body inside.”

“Oh,” Vance said, disappointed. “Well, what about doing that with the tigers?”

“All the carnivore exhibits are the same,” I said. It was a lie, but I figured Vance didn't know FunJungle as well as I did. “The shark tank's the only one you can get things into, and after our prank the other day, they've really stepped up security there. There's two guards posted full-time now.”

Vance frowned, buying my story. “Okay,” he said. “Then how about this: You know about cow tipping, right?”

I nodded, worried where this was going. Cow tipping was the act of sneaking onto a ranch, finding a sleeping cow—cows sleep standing up—and shoving it over. It was the sort of thing incredibly bored teenagers in the sticks were rumored to do.

“Well, we're pretty good at it,” Vance said. “In fact, we're so good, it's not very exciting anymore. The cows all just lie there after you shove them over.”

I wondered what Vance ever
thought
a sleeping cow would do after being shoved over that would qualify as exciting. Explode, perhaps?

“But,” Vance went on, “we know there's all kinds of crazy animals at FunJungle that would be a lot more interesting than cows. Rhinos and hippos and all those weird, freaky antelope. I mean, how cool would it be to shove over a sleeping rhino, right?” He laughed at the thought of this, and TimJim echoed it.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. “It wouldn't be cool,” I said. “It'd be idiotic. Rhinos are incredibly dangerous. They'd trample you to death the moment you came near them.”

Vance stopped laughing. His eyes narrowed angrily. “Did you just call me an idiot?”

I gulped. I'd been so astonished by the insanity of Vance's idea, I'd forgotten to be properly submissive to him. “Uh, no. I wasn't talking about
you
. I was talking about your plan.”

“Yeah,” Vance snarled. “You said it was idiotic. Which means you think
I'm
an idiot.”

“No,” I said. “I just think you don't understand how dangerous rhinos are. A lot of people make that mistake.” I tried to back away.

Vance didn't let me go. Instead he clamped one hand on my shoulder again, then shook a fist in front of my nose. “Nobody calls me an idiot,” he growled.

Vance had been in a fight recently. His knuckles were wrapped in bloodied bandages. I stared at them, terrified that in the next few seconds some of my blood was going to be adorning them as well. “I didn't mean to insult you,” I said. “I was only trying to explain—”

“I ought to punch your lights out,” Vance told me. “But we need you. So I'll give you a choice: Either help us prank FunJungle again . . . or feel the pain.”

I should have just agreed to the prank. It would have been a lie, of course, but it might have convinced Vance to not hurt me for a little while. But instead I made the mistake of trying to reason with a bully. “We'll never get away with another prank,” I protested. “We were lucky to get away with the last one. Forget about it.”

“That sounds like you're saying no to me,” Vance growled. “So I'm gonna give you one last chance to change your mind . . .”

“I'm trying to protect you!” I told him. “You guys try anything else at FunJungle and they'll be ready for you. We'll all get busted.”

“Don't give me that,” Vance said. “You're just chicken.” He turned to TimJim. “Looks like Teddy here has chosen to feel the pain. Give him a swirlie.”