Terror at the Zoo

by Peg Kehret

  A crackling sound came from a walkie-talkie that was attached to the belt of one of the officers. The trainer put his finger to his mouth, signaling to be quiet. Ellen saw the officer push a button, to turn the walkie-talkie off.

  “Back, Hugo,” the trainer said. He held his hand up, with the palm toward Hugo, and pushed it slowly through the air. “Back,” he said again.

  Hugo lifted one front leg.

  “Back, Hugo.” The trainer repeated the gesture.

  Corey nudged Ellen in the ribs and pointed. She looked where he was pointing and saw two police officers with their guns drawn. She bit her lip to keep from crying out to them not to shoot Hugo.

  15

  THE TRAINER continued to give clear, short commands. Hugo folded his ears back against the sides of his head, instead of sticking them out sideways. Ellen thought that was a good sign.

  The other elephants lowered their trunks. None of them moved or trumpeted.

  No one spoke. All Ellen could hear was the faint, low voice of the trainer.

  “Back, Hugo.” Each time he gave the command, the trainer gestured again.

  The big elephant turned his head slowly from side to side. His trunk sniffed the air.

  When he looked in her direction, Ellen waved at him. Maybe he would recognize her and know she was safe.

  Corey waved, too.

  “Back, Hugo. Back.”

  Hugo stepped backward, away from the fence.

  “Good boy,” said the trainer. “Back. Back.”

  Hugo moved backward again.

  The trainer stepped away from the fence, toward Hugo. He motioned to Tony to go behind him.

  Tony staggered away from the fence, into the waiting arms of a police officer.

  Ellen began to tremble. It was as if all of the fear that had consumed her for the past two hours needed to shake itself out of her body. Her legs quivered so badly that she wasn’t sure she could stand up. She felt her mother’s arms go around her and guide her to a bench. Gratefully, Ellen sat down.

  “It’s Tony Haymes,” said one of the officers whose gun had been ready. “The con who escaped from the state penitentiary yesterday.”

  Mrs. Streater plopped down on the bench beside Ellen. “Oh, my,” she whispered.

  “We thought you were going to shoot Hugo,” Corey said.

  “I’m glad we didn’t have to,” said the officer.

  “So am I,” said Ellen. “I think the man was more dangerous than the elephant.”

  The police officer who had originally stayed with them came over to the bench.

  “I’d like to ask you some questions now,” he said.

  “Corey,” Mr. Streater warned, “you must tell the exact truth and nothing more.”

  Corey got a hurt look on his face. “I wouldn’t lie,” he said indignantly.

  While they were explaining everything that had happened, the other police officers walked out of the elephant area and started down the path. Tony Haymes, with his hands behind him in handcuffs, walked with them.

  Ellen watched him go.

  The police officer said, “He was in for armed robbery before. When another sentence is added to the first one, he’ll probably be locked up for the rest of his life.”

  What a waste, Ellen thought. The man didn’t look more than twenty-two or twenty-three years old. If he had worn clothes that fit properly, he might even have been good looking. Now he would spend his entire adult life in prison.

  He thought he was so smart, not getting a job like other people. Well, he didn’t look smart now. He looked scared.

  He glanced once at Ellen. The anger and hatred that had flashed from his eyes earlier were intensified now, as if he thought it was her fault that he was going back to prison.

  Ellen knew better. No matter how much Tony blamed the rest of the world for his problems, he was responsible for what he did. No one else was.

  As Ellen watched him pass, the edges of her fear melted a little, replaced by pity. Tony Haymes would not marry or have children. He would never go to a football game or walk on a beach or go fishing. He would never take a vacation and he would never again visit a zoo. She wondered how the chance for some fast money could possibly be worth all those years behind bars.

  Corey watched the man walk past, too. “He tried to steal the baby monkey,” Corey said.

  “The golden lion tamarin?” asked the zoo director.

  “Is that a rare one?” asked the police officer.

  “Yes,” said the director.

  “But it got away,” Corey said. “Shadow is loose somewhere in the zoo.”

  “Unless he climbed over the fence,” said Ellen.

  The director asked them exactly what had happened with the monkey and where it was last seen. Then he hurried off, giving orders to the security guard.

  The police officer talked to them for a long time. Finally he said, “We may want to question you again later, but for now you can go home.”

  “We aren’t going home,” Corey said. “We’re camping overnight at the zoo.”

  “You can’t be serious!” Mrs. Streater said. “Do you really want to stay here after all that’s happened?”

  “Under the circumstances,” said Mr. Streater, “I think we’ll cut the camp-out short and go home now.”

  “But we can’t!” Corey cried.

  Ellen knew he was worried about his ten-dollar bet but she didn’t say anything.

  “There isn’t any danger now that the police have caught the bad man,” Corey said. “And you’re here, to stay with us.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Streater looked at each other. “It’s three o’clock in the morning,” Mrs. Streater said.

  “So the night is shot anyway,” Corey said. “We might just as well stay.”

  Mr. Streater laughed.

  The zoo director returned. “We found the guard who was on duty until one A.M.,” he said. “He was in the Animal Health Care office, tied up and gagged. He tangled with Tony Haymes early in the evening.”

  “Is he all right?” asked Mrs. Streater.

  “Only his pride is injured. He said that one of the llamas got kicked by another llama and had a badly shattered leg. The night keeper and the vet took her to Pullman, to the Washington State University veterinary hospital. The guard was placing a call for replacement help for tonight when Tony Haymes jumped him.”

  “Even after all that has happened,” Mr. Streater told the director, “my son wants to spend the rest of the night here at the zoo.”

  “It’s all right with me, providing you stay in the North Meadow,” the director said. “All the animals are restless because they heard the elephants trumpeting. And we’ll be searching this area for the baby tamarin. I don’t want the animals made even more nervous over unnecessary flashlights or noise.”

  “I’m too tired to do anything but sleep,” Ellen said.

  “Please, Dad?” Corey said. “It means a lot to me.”

  Yes, thought Ellen. Ten dollars.

  “Ellen?” Mrs. Streater said. “What about your sore shoulder? Do you want to go home?”

  Ellen looked at Corey’s anxious face. “Oh, my shoulder’s OK,” she said.

  “If we don’t sleep here tonight,” Corey said, “we’ll never get to do it.”

  “I suppose since we’re here, we might as well stay,” Mr. Streater said.

  “This family,” said Mrs. Streater, “will be the death of me.”

  Corey smiled. Whenever his mother said that her family would be the death of her, he knew it meant she was going to go along with whatever it was that the rest of them wanted to do.

  “I do want to call the hospital, though,” Mrs. Streater added, “and find out exactly what’s happened about Mother’s leg.”

  “There’s a telephone just ahead,” said the director. “It’s outside the rest rooms, near the great apes and the Family Farm.”

  Ellen groaned. How had she missed it? She must have passed within a few yards of the telephone, but i
n the dark she had not seen it.

  Mrs. Streater was on the phone for several minutes. When she hung up, she said, “Grandma’s leg was reset and she’s sleeping now. She’ll be home in a few days.”

  They started toward the North Meadow. Even though the searchlights had been turned off, the zoo didn’t seem as dark as before. The trees were less menacing and the night sounds were friendly. Ellen’s head even stopped aching.

  Several times, Corey scampered ahead and returned, like a puppy whose owner doesn’t go fast enough on a walk. Once he said, “Be quiet when you go around the curve. This is where the zebras do the hula.”

  “What next?” said Mr. Streater, but Corey had already left again.

  “We’ll have to sleep in our clothes,” Mrs. Streater said, when they reached the tent. “We didn’t bring pajamas.”

  “Have a sandwich,” said Corey.

  Ellen thought that was the best suggestion Corey had made all night.

  While they ate the rest of the picnic food, each one told in detail exactly what had happened that night—all except the fact that Corey had deliberately misled Mrs. Caruthers. When Mr. and Mrs. Streater assumed that Corey thought he saw them, Ellen didn’t tattle on him. She had a feeling Corey already regretted what he had done.

  Mr. and Mrs. Streater explained how they waited five hours in Portland. “We called several times and always got the machine. We thought Grandpa and Grandma had come to the zoo with you.”

  When she heard how her parents had gone to bed but Prince whined until they got up again, Ellen said, “Prince is a hero. If he hadn’t scratched and whined, you wouldn’t have found our note until morning.” Secretly, she wondered if Prince might have received her thoughts long distance, when she asked the elephants to help. Had he known she and Corey were in danger? Was he trying to help them, too?

  Ellen put disinfectant on the scratch on her ankle and then, at last, everyone settled into their sleeping bags.

  Ellen lay for a long while, unable to fall asleep despite her weariness. She was finally drifting off when she heard, “Chit-chit-chit.”

  Ellen’s eyelids sprang open. Had she dreamed it or had she heard a soft animal sound just outside the tent?

  She listened. She heard her mother’s even breathing; her dad gave a soft snore. Then it came again. “Chit-chit-chit.”

  “Ellen? Mom? Dad?” Corey’s whisper came from the darkness.

  “Mom and Dad are asleep,” Ellen said. “Did you hear that noise?”

  “It’s Shadow,” Corey said. “I’m going to catch him.”

  Ellen unzipped her sleeping bag and sat up. She saw Corey lift the flap of the tent and step out. Quickly, she followed him.

  “Chit-chit-chit.” The sound was louder now. It came from a small clump of bushes directly behind the tent.

  Corey sat on the ground near the bushes. Ellen sat behind him. Neither of them spoke. A tiny face peeked out from behind the bushes. Then the little monkey ran to Corey and, without hesitating, climbed into Corey’s lap.

  Corey put his arms around the baby monkey. “This time,” he said, “I really will take you back to your mother.”

  “This time,” said Ellen, “you are not wandering about the zoo alone. I’m waking up Mom and Dad.”

  Mr. Streater found the zoo security man. He said the director and some other zoo employees were still searching the area near the hippo pool, where the baby monkey had escaped from Corey. Soon the baby was reunited with its mother.

  By the time Ellen crawled back into her sleeping bag, she could see the first faint tinge of pink light in the morning sky. She fell asleep instantly and slept soundly until voices outside the tent woke her. She saw that her parents were already up.

  Mr. Streater poked his head in the tent and said, “Wake up, kids.”

  Corey moaned and rubbed his eyes. “I want to sleep some more,” he mumbled.

  “There’s someone here from the newspaper,” Mr. Streater said. “He wants to take your picture with Hugo and with the baby monkey.”

  Corey bounded up, all trace of sleepiness gone.

  Ellen followed him out of the tent.

  A man with a camera bag stood with Mr. and Mrs. Streater. He held a notebook and pencil. The zoo director was there, too, and the reporter was writing down what the director said.

  “Hugo is normally a gentle animal,” the director said, “but when he sensed danger, he responded. He could easily have crushed Tony Haymes against the fence. He didn’t do it, even though the other elephants were trumpeting and running.”

  “What made them start?”

  “They trumpeted,” the zoo director said, “because they heard the children call for help. Then, when three people ran through the Elephant Forest, the elephants got more excited and followed them.”

  Ellen wondered why the reporter didn’t ask her and Corey the questions. After all, they were the ones who were there when everything happened.

  “I asked the elephants to help us,” Ellen said. “Hugo held Tony against the fence because I told Hugo we were in danger.”

  The reporter looked startled.

  “Ellen,” said Mrs. Streater, “I don’t think . . .”

  “She learned how to talk to animals, for a science project,” Corey explained.

  The reporter smiled at Ellen and Corey but didn’t write anything in his notebook.

  The zoo director said, “There were strangers in the elephant enclosure, yelling and disturbing them. Naturally, the elephants reacted by trumpeting and attempting to defend themselves.”

  Ellen could tell that, except for Corey, no one believed that Hugo and the other elephants had received and understood her messages.

  Had the elephants heard her silent cries for help? Did Hugo know what she said?

  The zoo director’s explanation was logical, she had to admit that. Still, she couldn’t help feeling that, last night, the elephants had known what she was trying to tell them.

  There was no way to prove it, of course. She wouldn’t even include Hugo in her science fair project, since there was no way to document more experiments. But she believed, and would always believe, that he had understood.

  “Are we going to have our picture in the paper?” Corey asked.

  “Indeed, you are,” said the reporter. “First, I want to shoot one of you in front of the tamarin monkey cage and then we’ll take one with Hugo.”

  “Maybe we could be IN the monkey cage,” Corey suggested, “looking out through the wire. And what if we sat on Hugo’s back?”

  “Corey . . .” Mr. Streater said.

  Ellen combed her hair with her fingers and tried to make it stay back out of her eyes. She wished she hadn’t thrown away her barrettes last night. Nobody had followed her trail anyway and now she looked like a kitchen mop, just when she was getting her picture taken for the newspaper.

  The trainer was at the Elephant Forest, to help Hugo pose.

  Ellen’s heart filled with love and gratitude when she saw the great gray beast. As she entered the elephant area, she looked up at Hugo and saw that he was gazing down at her.

  She stared into his eyes. Thank you, Hugo, she thought. Thank you, dear elephant friend, for helping us.

  Corey nudged Ellen with his elbow. “Listen,” he whispered. “Do you hear that?”

  Ellen nodded. She smiled up at Hugo. Thank you, she repeated. You saved our lives. We love you.

  “He’s purring!” Corey said breathlessly. “I can hear him.”

  That night, the picture was on the front page. It showed Ellen and Corey standing in front of Hugo. Hugo’s trunk rested lightly on Ellen’s shoulder.

  The headline said, TERROR AT THE ZOO.

  Ellen read the article and started to laugh. “Listen to this,” she told Corey, and then read one paragraph out loud: “The representative of the Woodland Park Zoological Society who arranged the camp-out was not present. She was at Swedish Hospital, where, at four A.M., her daughter gave birth to twins.”

 
“See?” Corey said. “Nobody ever believes me.”

  Peg Kehret’s books for young readers are regularly recommended by the American Library Association, the International Reading Association, and the Children’s Book Council. She has won numerous state awards, as well as the Golden Kite Award from the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and the PEN Center Award for Children’s Literature.

  Ms. Kehret and her husband live in a log house near Mount Rainier National Park in Washington State. From her home office she watches deer, elk, hummingbirds, and hawks. The couple have two grown children, four grandchildren, a dog, and two cats. When she is not writing, Ms. Kehret likes to read, watch baseball, and pump her old player piano.