Tiger Town (13 page)

Mr. McCurdy rubbed his face with one of his hands. It seemed as if he was really mulling this over. “What do you think, Sarah?” he finally asked. “Can we trust this fella?”

Trust wasn’t something that came too easily to me, but I nodded. “I think you can.”

“Fine,” Mr. McCurdy said. “Sarah says it’s okay. I trust her, and it looks like she trusts you. Let’s go and have a look.”

•

“It was a good idea to have Mr. McCurdy stay in the house,” Martin said as we strolled down to the barn. Behind us were the two inspectors.

“I thought so,” I said. Mr. McCurdy didn’t have much time or patience for anybody who wanted to tell him what to do, especially if it had to do with his animals.

“Besides, we really don’t need his help,” I continued. “Nick’s down at the barn, and that’s where Vladimir went.”

“I’d just like to lay eyes on Vladimir, so I know he actually exists.”

“He exists, believe me! You can’t miss him. Except for the elephant, he’s the biggest thing on this farm.”

“He’s big? Funny, I had a picture in my mind of him being small.”

“Vladimir’s as big as a bear and covered in almost as much fur — long hair, a big beard. He’s actually pretty scary looking.”

“Were you afraid when you met him?” he asked.

“Terrified,” I admitted. “But you should have seen my mother’s reaction.”

“She was afraid?”

“More shocked than afraid. When Vladimir picked her up, gave her a hug and —”

“He hugged her?”

I shouldn’t have said that. This was crazy, being in the middle of this whole thing. I had to get out of it. “He hugs everybody. It’s sort of the Russian way.”

“How long has he been here?”

“I’m not sure. A lot of years, though.”

“Well, the more I hear about him, the more interested I am in having a long conversation with him.”

We came up to the barn. “Do you want to start with the cats, the bear or the elephant?”

“The cats caused the problem, so that’s where we should begin,” he said. “And don’t worry. Things are going to be okay.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” I said, although my words didn’t reflect the feeling deep in the pit of my stomach.

I led them around the side of the barn and in through the stable door. The stable was dark. I flicked on the switch, and the fluorescents hummed, glowed and burst into full light. “Try to stay in the middle,” I said, tiptoeing down the centre of the aisle. On both sides the cats sat in their cages — golden, glaring eyes staring at us as we passed, tails twitching nervously. One of the jaguars got up and slowly moved toward the front of its cage. I figured it was the cat that had reached out and ripped Malcolm’s shirt. There was no way I was letting him sneak up on me. I backed away slightly. The last thing I wanted these inspectors to see was a repeat performance.

“Look out!” I jumped as the other jaguar — caged on the opposite side — leaped forward and tried to grab me from behind.

“Are you all right, Sarah?” Martin asked, reaching out and stopping me from tumbling forward. He let go. My legs felt a bit shaky.

“He didn’t touch me at all,” I said. “You just have to stay in the middle and it’s okay … safe.”

I looked from face to face. Nobody seemed very convinced.

“Sarah, why don’t you bring me up to meet Vladimir and we’ll leave these two gentlemen to do their jobs?”

“Maybe we should stay,” I said.

“It’s probably better if we have fewer people in this little space. Less chance of an accident happening. Be careful, gentlemen,” he said to the two inspectors. They nodded in agreement. “Okay, lead me upstairs, Sarah.”

I retreated to the rickety steps. Carefully I went up the stairs, with Martin right behind me.

“Hello!” I called out.

“Hey, Sarah!” Nick replied. He was sitting on one of the few remaining bales of hay beside Peanuts. “How did Mr. McCurdy react when you showed him the newspaper?”

“He was okay. There are other things he has to deal with.”

Martin joined me at the top of the stairs, and Nick’s expression changed to surprise.

“Hey, Martin! What are you doing here?” Nick asked.

“He brought along a couple of inspectors,” I said.

“Inspectors! What sort of —”

“There’s nothing to worry about,” I said, repeating the words I’d been told but didn’t really believe. “They’re just here to look at the animals.”

“Nobody’s taking Peanuts away!” Nick said defiantly, standing up as if he could somehow hide the elephant behind him.

“Nobody’s taking any of the animals away,” Martin said. “This is just a formality. They’ll look at the animals, say everything is fine, and then we’ll leave.”

“Are you sure?” Nick asked.

“You have my word on it.”

•

“I’m sorry we don’t have any chairs out here,” I said as I sat on one of the bales of hay by the buffalo pen.

“This will suit an old farm boy just fine,” Martin said as he and Nick plopped onto two other bales.

“That’s right. You said your family ran a dairy farm,” I replied.

“Not ran — run a dairy farm. My father and his uncle still take care of the herd. They have thirty-five cows that they milk.”

“I like milk,” Nick said. “It’s my favourite drink, although I try not to remember that it’s really juice somebody squeezed out of a cow.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that. Lots of work being a farmer. Long hours, never a day off. Do you think a cow cares if it’s Christmas, or your wedding anniversary, or your kids are in a play, or there’s a big game where your son is the starting pitcher?”

“I guess your parents missed a lot of things,” I said.

Martin smiled sadly. “I guess they did, but that’s the life of a farmer. Probably a zookeeper, too. There’s not a time when Mr. McCurdy isn’t caring for these animals.”

“He has Vladimir to help him.” I wished Nick hadn’t said that.

“Ah, the mysterious Vladimir. I’m starting to doubt he exists.”

“Of course he does!” Nick exclaimed. “Tell you what, how about you and I go find him right now?”

“No,” I said firmly. “I think it’s best that Martin stays right here and watches what’s going on.” I didn’t want him going to look for Vladimir.

“You can watch them, and we’ll be right back —”

“No!” I snapped, louder than I had planned. “What I mean is, since we’re here, anyway, we might as well toss these bales of hay over the fence for the animals to eat. I need your help.”

“Sarah, can’t we do that later?”

“Now.”

“I’ll help,” Martin offered. “I’ve tossed a few million bales of hay in my time. I don’t think a dozen or so more will hurt.”

He stood and grabbed the bale he was sitting on. Lifting it over his head, he got ready to toss it over the fence.

“Hold on,” I said. “We have to take off the cords that hold it together.”

“We’ll toss them in first, then remove them when we go in and spread the hay around — hold on. We can’t go in, can we?”

I shook my head. “It’s best to stay on this side of the fence.”

“I guess there are a few differences between caring for cows and caring for buffalo and deer.”

“A few,” I agreed.

He put down the bale, pulled off the cords, picked it back up and threw it over the fence. The deer scrambled for it, while the buffalo didn’t seem to notice.

“How many of these do you put in each day?” Martin asked.

“We’ve been putting in a dozen,” I answered.

“At least that’s what we’re going to be doing for the next few days,” Nick added.

“What happens then?” Martin asked.

“Then we don’t have any more hay.”

“None?” Martin asked.

“Maybe a couple of bales stashed away in the barn. I was thinking maybe we could use that big pile of straw to feed them,” Nick said.

“Straw won’t work. It hasn’t got any nutrients in it,” Martin said.

“Nutrients?” Nick asked.

“Food. Straw is just dried-up old hay that’s only good for bedding. They hardly get anything to eat out of it. What if you just let them graze?”

“They’ve pretty much eaten everything there is to eat in their pen,” I said, gesturing to the muddy enclosure.

“You’d have to move them to another pasture.”

“You want us to move the pen? That would take a lot of work, driving in new poles and —”

“No, it wouldn’t,” Martin said, shaking his head. “You put in a few lines of wire — cattle fences, they’re called — and the lines can be easily moved and changed to allow them to graze in new pastures.”

“But how would a few lines of wire stop a buffalo from walking through it, or a deer from jumping over it?”

“Electricity.”

“What?”

“A current of electricity runs through the wires, and the animals —”

“That would kill them!” I exclaimed, cutting him off. I thought of my poor little girls wandering into the wire as they rushed up to see me.

“It’s a very mild charge, just enough to keep the animals away. I’ve touched them myself on more occasions than I care to remember. Believe me, it would work.”

“But we don’t have anything like that. Even if we did, nobody here would know how to set it up or use it.”

“You have an expert standing right here. My family has kilometres of line. I could set it up and explain how it works. It’s so simple a five-year-old could do it.” He paused. “Well?”

“That would be great,” I said.

“Now, if you only had an idea for feeding the cats,” Nick said.

“They’re almost out of food, too?” Martin asked.

Maybe we shouldn’t be telling him any of this, but what choice did we have?

“They have enough for a week or so,” I admitted.

“Do you have any ideas?” Nick asked.

“Not off the top of my head, but let me think about it. Maybe if we all sit down and put our heads together we can come up with an answer.”

I knew I didn’t have any answers left, but somehow I had faith that he might.

“All this talk about the animals eating has made me hungry,” Nick said.

“You’re always hungry,” I said.

“No, I’m not,” Nick protested. “Sometimes I’m asleep.”

Martin burst into laughter. Great, somebody else who thought Nick was funny. “The inspectors must be almost done,” the acting chief said, walking over to the fence. “Hey, guys!” he shouted. “How much longer you going to be?”

“Not too much longer, Marty!” the animal-control man yelled back.

“He seems like a nice guy,” Nick said.

“He is. He’s an old friend,” Martin said. “There’s hardly a day goes by that I don’t bump into him. I’ve known him since we were in first grade.”

“My best friend and I met in grade one, too,” I said. “Although it’s been a long time since I saw her. Not since we moved here.”

“I guess it’s hard to maintain a friendship from that distance,” Martin said.

“We talk on the phone sometimes. And there’s e-mail and stuff,” I said.

“It was difficult for my daughter when she and her mother moved away. It must have been hard to leave everybody you grew up with.”

“No big deal,” Nick said. “I just made new friends.”

That may have been true for Nick, but I always found it hard to get to know new people. I missed my friends.

“When you live someplace your whole life, like I have, you get to know pretty well everybody,” Martin said.

“But you don’t know that other inspector, do you?” I asked.

“Not at all,” Martin admitted. “He only moved down east a while ago himself. How did you know I didn’t know him?”

“Just the way he was talking to you … or I guess the way he hasn’t been talking to anybody. He doesn’t seem very friendly.”

“I think he’s just concentrating on his job.” Martin paused. “You’re pretty good at figuring things out, aren’t you, Sarah?”

“She’s such a brain,” Nick said, then suddenly seemed to realize he’d actually complimented me. “But a nerdy brain.”

“I don’t know about the nerdy part, but she certainly seems to know things,” Martin said.

“I read a lot and I remember what I read.”

“I don’t mean just facts. You seem to figure people out pretty quickly, sort out situations.” I wasn’t sure what to say to that. “Speaking of situations, did you two have a good time the other night?”

“It was fun,” Nick said.

“Yeah, I enjoyed myself, too,” I added.

“That means we know at least three of the four people enjoyed themselves. What about your mother?” Martin asked. “I’d be very interested in hearing, Sarah, if you think your mother had a good time, too?”

“I’m sure she had fun, too,” I said.

“Enough fun to want to go out on another date?” he asked.

Nick and I exchanged looks. “Maybe you better ask her yourself,” I said. “You are going to ask her, aren’t you?”

He nodded. “That is, if you two are okay with that.”

“Why wouldn’t we be okay?” Nick asked.

“I know that after my wife and I separated our daughter really didn’t want either of us to date other people. I think she had some fantasy that somehow we were going to get back together again,” Martin said. “Did either of you ever feel that way?”

“I guess a little,” I admitted. I knew that was exactly how Nick felt. Maybe that was how all kids in separated families felt.

“I think a big part of it is about trust,” Martin said. “You have to trust your mother to make the right decisions and trust the person she’s dating not to hurt her. Of course, trust doesn’t always come easy, does it?” He was right about that.

The two inspectors were headed our way. Maybe they were finally through.

“All done?” Martin asked.

“All done.”

“And?”

“I’ve got no issues with how the animals are being cared for,” Martin’s friend, the animal-control inspector, said.

“That’s good to hear,” Martin said. “But I never had any doubts.”

“They’re all in good health, well fed. No issues.”

I held my breath. Was Martin going to tell them we didn’t have much food, or was he going to keep that to himself?

“Mr. McCurdy will be happy to hear that,” Martin said, and I exhaled. He really was a good guy.

“But I have serious concerns,” the other inspector said, and the hairs on the back of my neck suddenly stood on end. “The pens are completely inadequate,” he continued. “The spaces between the bars are too large, the materials themselves don’t meet standards and in some cases they’re just a collection of junk!”