Tiger in Trouble (8 page)

“Then there’s no way you’re going into that pen,” I said to my brother, and surprisingly he didn’t argue.

“Big girl Sarah is right. Most animals are good. Kushna is good, but dangerous sometimes. We will keep Kushna on the other side of the bars today.”

Kushna continued to rub against Vladimir’s hand, and Vladimir started to talk to him in Russian — or at least what I thought was Russian. Then Vladimir put his face right by the cage, and the tiger began to lick him.

“He really likes you,” I said.

“Kushna likes Vladimir. I could go in the cage and sleep and Kushna would just cuddle me.”

“But you said he was dangerous,” Nick said.

“He is. Very ferocious.”

“He certainly doesn’t look ferocious.”

“Sometimes animals act gentle, but are very dangerous. You must never turn your back or —”

“Vladimir!” a high-pitched voice called out.

We all turned in the direction of the voice. It was a woman — a young woman — and she was waving an arm over her head as she came toward us.

“Vladimir!” she called out again.

He meekly waved back, then turned to me. “Some animals much more dangerous than others.”

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere!” the strange woman called out as she tottered unsteadily toward us on high heels. She was clad in a tight leopard-skin outfit. Even her shoes matched, as did the bow in her hair, which was blond, teased and piled high on her head. Even from this distance I could tell she was wearing a lot of makeup.

The woman stumbled, then regained her balance. I guess high heels and gravel weren’t the best combination in the world. Vladimir muttered something under his breath, and Samantha, Danny and I all turned around. Whatever he’d said, he didn’t repeat it.

“Who is she?” I asked Vladimir quietly.

“Owner.”

“But I thought the new owner was the son of the old owner?”

“He is. This is wife of the son.”

We watched as she teetered across the grounds and came to a stop in front of us. “I have some things I need you to carry,” she said.

I couldn’t help but notice her hands. Each finger had a large gold ring, and the fingernails were impossibly long. How could she do anything with nails that long?

I was taken aback when I glanced up and realized she was staring directly at me. I looked away.

“And are these your little campers?” she asked.

“We’re here for the camp,” Samantha said.

“Yeah, this is so cool,” Danny added.

The woman chuckled — a kind of self-satisfied, superior little chuckle — as if she found the whole thing amusing, or as if she were laughing at all of us.

“So you’ve come to learn about animals.” She turned to Vladimir. “Is this all of them?”

Vladimir nodded.

“Four campers. Not exactly the rousing success you expected when you set this whole thing up, is it?”

So this camp was Vladimir’s idea. That would explain the brochure. He must have written it himself.

“Sometimes things are a lot more complicated than they appear,” she said, pointing one of her perfect nails at him.

There was something about this woman. From my first glimpse of her, I didn’t like her. The closer she got, the stronger the feeling became. Now that she was opening her mouth, it got stronger with each word and raised eyebrow.

“I’m sure there’ll be more campers later on in the summer,” Nick said.

“Or next year for sure,” I added. I wanted to support Vladimir and deflate her. “Once we tell all our friends how good it was, they’ll want to come next year.”

“Next year,” she repeated softly. “We’ll just have to see what next year brings now, won’t we?” There was something about the way she said that, or maybe the look on her face, that bothered me. Then again, everything about her seemed to bother me.

“Regardless, I need some help carrying in my groceries and a few other items I bought. Vladimir, come and bring them into the house.” She paused. “Actually, all of you can come and help,” she added as she turned and we watched her walk away.

“She wants us to help carry groceries?” Samantha asked, sounding as if it were beneath her.

“You do not have to come,” Vladimir said. “You go back and unpack and —”

“I’ll help,” Nick said.

“You?” I questioned. “You want to help carry groceries?” He never wanted to help with anything at home.

“No big deal. The sooner the job is done, the sooner Vladimir can get us to the elephant. Let’s all go and help. How long can it take, anyway?”

I shrugged. “Whatever. We might as well help.”

We started after her. It was kind of funny walking behind her, watching her move. It wasn’t just that she kept wobbling and tottering on her heels, but she was weaving a strange route, trying to avoid the mud and the puddles that occupied the parts of the path not filled with gravel. Soon we were right beside her.

“So you four are interested in animals?” she said.

“Isn’t everybody?” Danny answered.

“Not everybody … at least judging from the number of campers we have,” she said, casting another look at Vladimir.

We came up to the big house. An expensive sports-utility vehicle was sitting in front of it.

“The bags are in the back seat and the trunk,” she said, passing her keys over to Vladimir and heading into the house. If she was heading that way, why didn’t she at least bring something in with her?

Nick opened the side door while Vladimir popped the trunk. The whole trunk was filled with bags. Some of them were plastic grocery bags while others — most of the others — didn’t involve food. They held shoe boxes or had tissue paper sticking out and looked as if they had clothes in them.

“Boss’s wife likes to shop,” Vladimir said as he hoisted some of the bags.

“Does she ever,” I agreed. There were two dozen bags from a variety of stores, and the name
Granville’s
was written in fancy lettering on the side of almost half of them. “It looks like she went on a shopping spree.”

“Spree? What is spree?”

“It means she spent a lot of money on a whole lot of things,” I said.

“Yes, she is always doing spree. Clothes, lots of clothes, and shoes. Many, many shoes.”

“Are any of them good for walking on gravel paths?” I asked.

Vladimir smiled and shook his head.

We all grabbed bags and shuffled up the walk, following Vladimir to the side of the house and an open door. We entered and found ourselves in a new, modern kitchen. She was standing by the counter, pouring herself a mineral water.

“This is beautiful,” I said.

“Yes, it is,” she said smugly. “It lacks only one thing.”

I looked around. I couldn’t see anything missing.

“It lacks somebody to cook for us. I hate cooking.”

“Sarah’s a good cook,” Nick said.

“Is she?” the woman asked. “Which one of you is Sarah?”

“Me. I’m Sarah. And this is my brother, Nick, and this is Samantha and her brother, Danny.”

She nodded in their direction, a little smile on her face, as they mumbled greetings.

“Is the whole house this fancy?” Samantha asked.

Her smile became bigger, but no less phony. “The best of everything. My husband insists upon it.” She paused. “Would you like a tour?”

“Sure, that would be nice!” Samantha said enthusiastically. She actually reminded me of a smaller version of this woman.

“You can put the grocery bags right here on the counter. The other bags can come along with us, and you can leave them in my room.”

We sorted out the bags, leaving some where she’d directed and carrying the others.

“Before we start, I want everybody to take off their shoes and leave them in the kitchen. There’s no way I want muddy footprints all over my beautiful new white carpet.” She paused again. “By the way, my name is Krystal, with a K, but I suppose it would be best if you all called me Mrs. Armstrong, since I am the owner.”

We trailed behind her from room to room. With each passing room, a number of things became more apparent. First, it was a really fancy home; second, everything in it was new and expensive; third, the only thing she liked better than her fancy things was herself; and fourth, I really, really, really didn’t like her.

“And, finally, we’ll end our tour with the entertainment room,” she said, opening the door with a flourish.

I walked in a few steps and stopped. The entire far wall was taken up by the biggest TV screen I’d ever seen in my life. A baseball game — the players so big they were almost life-size — was on.

“That is … that is … amazing,” Nick gasped.

A black leather chair spun around to face us. There was a man sitting in it. In one hand he held a drink, and in the other was a remote control. He pushed a button and muted the TV, while the action continued behind him. He was sitting at a desk, a computer on beside him.

“Hello, Pooky!” Mrs. Armstrong sang out as she rushed across the room and threw her arms around his neck. “Just wait until you see the things I bought today! You’re going to love them!”

“I’m sure I will,” he said. When he pushed another button, the gigantic screen clicked, darkened and faded away to black.

“These must be our campers,” he said, as he rose from the chair and came toward us. He circled us, staring, his head cocked to one side, a hand on his chin, as if he was inspecting us. “Is this all of them?”

“That’s all for the first week,” Mrs. Armstrong said.

“I guess some ideas work out better than others,” he said. “Hopefully you’ll all have a good week. Apparently Vladimir knows all sorts of things about animals.”

“But not as much as your father,” Danny said.

“And how would you know that?” Mr. Armstrong asked.

“Vladimir told us about him.”

“Yes, I’ve been told many stories myself. They say he always had time for an injured animal. Shame the same couldn’t be said about people. By the way, Vladimir, how are those lion cubs doing?”

“Doing good.”

“Excellent. That’s great news!”

It was nice that he was interested in the animals —

“I’ve already received bids for all of them,” he continued.

“Bids? You mean like in selling them?” I asked.

“Of course. I had three more e-mail offers today.”

“But why are you selling them?” Nick asked.

“It takes a great deal of money to raise, feed and maintain animals, especially large animals,” he said.

There was enough money spent on those packages we had just carried in to feed the whole park for a month.

“And you simply can’t keep every animal that’s born or your space would be overrun in no time,” he continued.

I thought about all the empty pens in the park. There was lots of space still to be filled before there was any danger of them being “overrun.”

“Will the cubs be ready to go in a few weeks?” Mr. Armstrong asked.

Vladimir shrugged in response.

“Because their value goes down pretty fast as they get older. Do you kids have any idea what a baby lion is going for on the market these days?” He paused. “Come to think of it, that’s none of your business.” He turned back to the TV, clicking the game on again. The sound blasted out at us.

Mrs. Armstrong motioned us to the door and we exited. She closed the door behind us.

•

“Did you hear that?” Nick asked, his voice cutting through the darkness of the cabin where we all lay in our beds.

“It would be hard to miss,” I answered back.

“What was it?” Danny asked.

“Maybe a lion,” Samantha replied.

“Nope, not a lion. More like a jaguar or a leopard,” Nick disagreed.

Both the jaguars and the leopards weren’t too far from our cabin. What a strange thought. We were going to go to sleep almost within sight, and definitely within sound, of more than two dozen types of different animals. It was weird, but kind of wonderful.

The call came once again. It was somehow high-pitched and growly at the same time. I had no idea what it was. It could have been aliens for all I knew. What I did know was that lying here in the dark with the different animal noises coming in through the open window was keeping me awake. Not that I would have necessarily been able to sleep even if it was completely quiet. There was just too much to think about — or as my mother said, to “process.”

Aside from the new sights, the animals and sleeping in this new place all squished up with three other kids, I was trying to figure out Vladimir and Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong.

Vladimir reminded me of some of the animals we’d seen: big, playful and sort of friendly, rubbing against the bars and licking our hands. Still, they had long claws and sharp teeth, and a lick could become a bite pretty quick — a bite that could take off a finger, a hand or even an arm. I liked Vladimir, or at least I thought I liked him, but there were things going on with him, things under the surface, that troubled me. Maybe even scared me a little.

Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong were different. I had no mixed feelings about them. I just didn’t like them. I couldn’t imagine two people owning an exotic animal park who were less interested in the animals. It was like somebody who was allergic to sugar and chocolate who owned a candy store. Why were they here if they didn’t like animals? They couldn’t be making a fortune doing this, or could they? It certainly looked as if they were spending a fortune. I figured we’d find out more tomorrow when the park officially opened for business and we saw how many people came through to look at the animals. Maybe at a few bucks a person it all added up to enough money to pay for that new house and all the things that were in it. Tonight, though, all I wanted to do was go to sleep and —

“Anybody know any scary stories?” Danny asked.

“I know a really scary one,” I said.

“You do?” Nick asked.

“Sure,” I said. “It’s about this girl. Her name was Sarah, and nobody would let her sleep. So she got up in the middle of the night and strangled her little brother and some other little kid. I think his name was Danny. Want to hear it?” I asked.

“Not me,” Danny said quietly. “I have to get to sleep.”

“Good choice, and good night.”