Poacher Peril

by J. Burchett

  “Wicked!” exclaimed Zoe. “We’ve never been to that part of Asia.”

  “Your mission is to save a tiger,” said Uncle Stephen. “We’ve named her Tora.”

  “Sumatran tigers are critically endangered,” Ben piped up. “There’s only a few hundred left living freely – mainly because of poaching. Body parts are used in traditional medicine and that’s illegal.”

  “We know,” hissed Zoe. “Stop showing off.”

  “Ben’s right,” said Uncle Stephen. He waved a hand towards a young man who was bent over a keyboard. “James over there is part of our team who intercept internet information about poaching.”

  James smiled and gave them a quick nod.

  “He found out that poachers are active around Aman Tempat, a village in the south-west,” Uncle Stephen continued. “Last month they killed a male tiger, probably Tora’s mate. Now Tora is being targeted by a rich collector, a woman who’ll pay these poachers handsomely for her capture – and for her two newborn cubs. But we’ve got a bit of time. According to the information we’ve gathered, they’re waiting for the cubs to be old enough to come out of their den.”

  “When will that be?” asked Ben.

  “Good question,” said Uncle Stephen. “At a rough guess – with the information we’ve gathered about Tora – we think she had the cubs about six weeks ago…”

  “Bet they’re gorgeous!” Zoe sighed.

  Her godfather nodded. “Indeedy, Zoe. Tiger cubs don’t emerge from their den until they’re two months old. And we don’t want to interfere with this natural course of events if we can help it. Your mission is to monitor the den and alert us as soon as they do. Then we can rescue them before the poachers get hold of them.”

  “When the cubs are out, you’ll make contact and we’ll tell the nearby Kinaree Sanctuary,” Erika added. “Anonymously, of course.”

  “And in the meantime, we’ll try to find out more about this woman,” said Uncle Stephen, looking stern for once. “She must be stopped.”

  “There’s something I don’t understand,” said Ben. “Why are the poachers waiting for the cubs to come out of their den? Why don’t they just get them now?”

  “The poachers have a very special commission,” said Dr Fisher solemnly. “The private collector wants the cubs to be a certain size. She’s going to have Tora and her cubs killed – and stuffed.”

  “NOOO!” yelled Ben and Zoe.

  “So you see how urgent this is. But keep well clear of those poachers. They’re dangerous! Men like that will stop at nothing if they’re paid well enough. Now, Erika, have I forgotten anything?”

  “BUGs, Dr Fisher?”

  The children exchanged puzzled looks.

  “Of course!” said Uncle Stephen. “Silly me, you’ll need your Brilliant Undercover Gizmos.”

  He flung open a drawer and began to hunt through it, pulling out pencil sharpeners, bits of old headphones and a half-eaten sandwich. “Got them!” he said, his face lighting up with excitement as he pulled out what looked like a couple of handheld game consoles. “My latest invention. Wonderful things. Solar rechargeable. Never let you down. They’ve got nearly everything you’ll need in one neat gadget – communicators, translator, tracking devices. And they flick back to an innocent game if anyone comes along.” He handed them to Ben and Zoe.

  “Cool.” Ben grinned, turning his BUG over in his hand. It was made of hard shiny black plastic with a small screen and lots of buttons.

  “We must also visit the storeroom,” said Erika with a smile. “We have specially designed lightweight backpacks that we can fill with everything you need. Your gran said you’re up to date with your travel jabs.”

  Ben nodded, but Zoe looked thoughtful.

  “Let me get this right, Uncle Stephen,” she said. “You want me and Ben to go to the other side of the world to save a tiger and her cubs from highly dangerous poachers.”

  “Got it in one!” declared their godfather. “You’re perfect for the job. Who would suspect a couple of kids who appear to be on holiday? I knew you two were the ones I wanted because you’re brave and clever and you know more about animals than anyone else I can think of. But most importantly, I can trust you.” Then he frowned and looked at them earnestly.

  “Er…I suppose I should ask – will you do it?”

  “YES!” shouted Ben and Zoe together.

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  Zoe woke with a start. For a moment she couldn’t think where she was. Then she remembered. Was it only two days ago they’d agreed to undertake the biggest adventure of their lives? And now here they were on the other side of the world – in a little wooden hut in the hot, steamy Sumatran rainforest. The excitement made her stomach flutter.

  She flung her sheet off and swung her legs over the edge of the camp bed, tangling herself in the mosquito net that hung around it. At last she emerged, touslehaired, and stared at the bed next to hers. Ben was fast asleep.

  “Wake up!” she said, shaking him through his netting.

  Ben muttered and turned over.

  Zoe sighed. Ben always suffered worse jet lag than her whenever they travelled great distances. It had been dark when they’d arrived at the hut last night with Erika after a long plane ride and then a bumpy journey in a jeep. The hurricane lamp hadn’t given off much light, but now bright sunshine was streaming in through the blinds. Zoe padded round the room, feeling the rough matting under her bare feet. The place was simple – a single room with a cupboard, a one-ring stove and a stone bowl in the corner.

  Erika had left bottles of water and some fruit on a little table. She’d told them to tell anyone who asked that they’d come with their Aunt Erika, who liked to go off sightseeing on her own. Erika had certainly “gone off ”, but not sightseeing. By now she’d be in Jakarta, following a lead on the rich collector.

  Zoe took a drink, pulled her crumpled clothes out of her backpack and got dressed. Grabbing a banana, she took her BUG outside. The hut was in a clearing a little way from the village of Aman Tempat. It was surrounded by lush green trees, and the air was full of birdsong and the scent of flowers. A blue-winged butterfly landed on the log next to her. Zoe noted that the sun was directly overhead. It was midday. They must have slept for hours.

  “What did Erika say about using the BUGs?” She scrolled down the menu. “Translator. How does that work?” There was a small button on the side. It was made of a soft, squishy plastic and came away in her hand. “Earpiece!” she exclaimed, sticking it in her ear. It was so comfortable she couldn’t even feel it.

  Inside the hut, Ben opened his eyes. He could hear Zoe muttering outside. “Communicator…satellite tracker…”

  Good, he thought, scrambling out of bed. Zoe’s finding out about the BUGs. Ben loved gadgets, but he was too impatient to learn how to use them. Zoe was doing all the investigating and that suited him.

  “Morning!” He popped his head round the curtain.

  “Afternoon, you mean!” Zoe grinned. “This BUG’s fantastic. I’m trying to remember everything Erika told us about it. It’s no use asking you – I could see you weren’t listening to anything she said.”

  “I was listening,” said Ben. “Well, a bit, anyway. I remember her saying we have to pretend to be on holiday, and the local people are used to tourists…and… and…”

  “And that was it,” said Zoe. “You were either fiddling with the TV on the plane or eating.”

  “One of those TV programmes told me a lot about Sumatra,” Ben argued.

  Zoe didn’t have an answer for this so she stuck out her tongue at him. “Get dressed,” she said. “We’ve got to go into the village and find out as much as we can about Tora. And we might get a mobile signal there. I can’t get one here. We must be out of range. But remember to be careful. No-one must know what our mission is.”

  “My mission is to buy food,” insisted Ben.

  “You would think of your stomach first!” Zoe laughed.

  Ben dress
ed quickly and they followed a narrow path, soon emerging into a little marketplace surrounded by houses. All the houses had steeply curved roofs with carved points at each end. Several of them had shopfronts. The place was bustling. Villagers called to them to come and see what they were selling.

  “Erika was right,” Zoe whispered to Ben. “They’re used to tourists.”

  “They must be speaking Bahasa Indonesia,” Ben whispered back. “That’s the local language.”

  “No, it’s English,” said Zoe, with a smile.

  “It’s not!” snorted Ben. “I can’t understand a word.”

  “Perhaps you should wash your ears out!” said Zoe solemnly. “The lady at that stall with the bamboo baskets is saying she has rice, fish and fruit – best in the village. Why aren’t you there buying some? You said you were hungry.”

  Ben just looked confused. Zoe burst out laughing. Making sure no-one was watching, she grabbed his BUG and pulled off the earpiece that was hidden there. “Sorry, couldn’t resist. You were right. The language you’re hearing is Bahasa Indonesia. And this is a translator. I’ve got mine in already. It makes the voices a bit electronic, but I can understand everything they say. Stick it in your ear. Never know what we might find out. But remember, don’t let on.”

  “Lead me to the food!” declared Ben, shoving in the earpiece. “What’s that awesome smell? It’s coming from that shop over there.” He pointed to a large hut with wooden walls and a tin roof. The front was crammed with a hotchpotch of goods – tins and belts next to T-shirts and jars of coffee and sweets.

  A man was crouched over a small stove at the front. He was frying something in a pan. Ben grabbed Zoe’s arm and dragged her towards it.

  The shopkeeper looked up. “Banana fritters,” he said in English, giving Ben and Zoe a broad grin. “We call them godok pisang.”

  “Don’t need your clever translator here,” Ben muttered in Zoe’s ear. He pulled out the wallet of rupiah that Erika had given them. “Five, please.”

  “Just one for me,” added Zoe.

  “You are Australian?” asked the stallholder, ladling the sizzling fritters into a small bamboo bowl. He spoke with a strong accent.

  “No, we’re from England,” explained Zoe. “On holiday,” she added quickly. “With our aunt.”

  The man nodded. “We have many visitors from Australia,” he told them. “Not so many from England. I am pleased to meet you. My name is Catur.”

  “I’m Ben,” said Ben with his mouth full. “This is my sister Zoe, and this is a fantastic fritter!”

  “It’s nice here,” Zoe told the shopkeeper. “We can’t wait to explore.”

  “There are good bus rides,” Catur told them. “My brother-in-law is the driver. You can go as far as Gonglung. It’s a big town.”

  “And what about this jungle?” said Ben, pointing at the dense wall of trees around the village. “We want to see some wildlife.”

  “Too dangerous to go on your own,” said Catur. “Tell your aunt to keep you away from there. There are fierce animals in the jungle, clouded leopards, many wild cats, even a tiger.”

  Zoe nudged Ben’s ankle with her foot.

  “A tiger?” she gasped. “We’ll definitely keep away!”

  “Does it come near the village?” asked Ben.

  “If it did you would not be in danger,” said Catur. “We would set a trap.”

  Zoe started at this. “And kill it?” she blustered.

  “No.” Catur smiled. “It would be taken to the Kinaree Sanctuary. It is a good place for tourists to see. Your aunt could take you. It is only a day’s drive from here. Now, is there anything else you need? I have necklaces, scarves, many nice things for you to take home.”

  Zoe shook her head. “We’ll come back later. Thanks for the godok pisang.”

  As they carried on through the village, they saw a man sitting outside on a veranda, drinking from a bottle. He wore a battered baseball cap and ragged trousers. He watched them coldly, rocking his chair on its back legs.

  “He looks scary,” muttered Zoe.

  At that moment, three other men came up the steps of the veranda. The raggedlooking man jumped up, glanced round suspiciously and opened his door to usher them inside. The men all removed their shoes. Zoe turned up her BUG and listened to the translated conversation.

  “Got to keep it quiet, Wicaksono!” one of the newcomers was saying as he made for the door. “No-one must find out – especially my wife. She’ll be really angry if she finds out what we’re doing, even though there’s a lot of money in it.”

  “Money for me,” laughed the ragged man. “I’m the one who’s going to make a killing!”

  The wooden door of the hut slammed behind them.

  Zoe and Ben walked away to a safe distance. Zoe turned to her brother. “He talked about making a killing and getting lots of money for it. Do you think that Wicaksono man could be our poacher?”

  “I reckon you could be right,” said Ben. “And what is he most likely to be hunting?”

  “Tora!” exclaimed Zoe, horrified.

  CHAPTER

  FIVE

  “So we’ve found our poacher,” said Zoe, squatting under the shade of a palm tree in the marketplace. “I know Uncle Stephen said we had to stay away from poachers, but there’s nothing to stop us just keeping an eye on Wicaksono’s activities. We need to know what danger Tora’s in, don’t we?”

  “Is there something on the BUG that tracks animals?” said Ben.

  “Of course,” said Zoe, with an air of mock patience. “If you’d been listening to Erika, you’d know we can dart Tora with a tiny microchip. She’ll hardly feel it. She’ll probably think it’s an insect bite. But that doesn’t help us now.”

  Ben grinned mischievously.

  “Wait a minute,” said Zoe. “What are you planning? I can always tell you’ve got some crazy idea when you get that gleam in your eye.”

  “We fire a tracking dart into Wicaksono,” said Ben, smiling broadly. “Then we can follow him and find out what’s going on!”

  “Someone’s coming out,” hissed Zoe. She dragged Ben off between two of the houses.

  They could just see the men talking on the veranda.

  Ben got out his BUG and tapped in “tracking”.

  “I see you’ve got the hang of it at last!” whispered Zoe.

  Ben didn’t answer. A target ring was showing on the screen.

  Holding it up, he focused on Wicaksono’s bare arm. Click! Ben fired a dart. Immediately the man flinched and clutched his arm. Then he looked round angrily.

  “Keep out of sight,” muttered Ben. “If he sees us he might be suspicious!”

  Wicaksono cursed and slapped his arm.

  “He thinks it’s a mosquito,” said Zoe in relief.

  The man waved his friends off and went back inside the house.

  Ben checked the screen. A satellite map of Aman Tempat came up and a green light pulsed just where Wicaksono’s house was.

  “It’ll flash to warn us if he leaves the village,” he said.

  “What are you doing?” came a translated voice in their earpieces. They looked up guiltily, then quickly pretended they had not understood. Zoe clicked the screen of her BUG to game mode.

  It was the woman who had been calling from her stall. She stared at them and the BUG, puzzled. Then she grinned.

  “You same as my young brother.”

  She chuckled. She spoke in halting English now. “Play on computer all the time. Where your parents? I have food to sell.”

  “We’re with our aunt. She’s away for the day,” said Zoe, “but we’ll buy some food.”

  The woman beckoned to them and they followed her to her stall.

  “We’re on holiday,” Zoe told the woman, while Ben eagerly inspected the baskets of brightly coloured fruit. She patted her chest. “I’m Zoe.” Then she pointed at Ben. “This is Ben, my brother. We’re twins.”

  “I’m Angkasa,” said the woman. She pointed upw
ards. “It means the sky.”

  “We’re desperate to explore,” said Zoe. “But people say the jungle is not safe.”

  She was hoping the woman might know more about Tora than Catur seemed to.

  Angkasa nodded. “Many stories about the jungle. There is creature called orang pendek.” Angkasa took on a fearful look. “People say he is small man – hairy and strong like five elephants. My father saw one but not me.”

  “Wicked,” said Ben, forgetting about the food for a moment.

  “My father saw it at Silent Water,” Angkasa went on. “It is watering hole in the jungle.” She shivered. “We not go there. Evil place.”

  “Do animals use it?” Zoe asked, glancing at Ben.

  “Yes,” said Angkasa. “But not people. Even poachers keep away, I think.”

  “Poachers!” exclaimed Zoe.

  Angkasa nodded. “Not welcome in village. There was tiger eating our goats. We told Kinaree Sanctuary and got trap ready. We always do this. Sanctuary comes and takes tiger to safe place. But poachers got there first. Someone in village helped them.”

  “Someone in the village?” gasped Zoe, pretending to be shocked by the revelation.

  Angkasa lowered her voice. “Bad man.” Her eyes flickered down the row of houses. Zoe was sure that she was looking at Wicaksono’s house. “He sells bones, skin, whiskers. Against the law.”

  She looked around suddenly as if she thought she might be overheard.

  “I have work,” she said hurriedly, finding bags for the food Ben had chosen.

  Ben and Zoe paid and set off for their hut. They said nothing until they were well away from the village.

  “We’re as good as spies!” Ben laughed, punching Zoe’s arm. “We’ve pinpointed the poacher, and we know where to start our search for Tora. Where she must go to drink and hunt – Silent Water.”

  “And we’ve done it all in one afternoon,” said Zoe, rubbing her arm. “Uncle Stephen will be proud of us.”

  “Yes,” said Ben, as he scrolled through the menu on his BUG and brought up a map of the area. “Silent Water’s here,” he murmured. “Looks like it’s the only water around so it would be the place where all the animals drink. Tigers like to drink at night so that’s when we’ll go there.”