Belly Up

by Stuart Gibbs

  “How’s that?” the news anchor asked.

  “Our internal investigation has uncovered evidence that the ALF was also behind the death of our beloved Henry the Hippo.”

  Mom, Dad, and I all turned to the television, stunned by Pete’s announcement.

  His interviewer was visibly startled. “Are you saying Henry was murdered?”

  “No. But he definitely died—whether premeditated or not—because of actions perpetrated by the ALF.”

  “What is your evidence?”

  “I’m not at liberty to reveal that at this time for fear of jeopardizing the ongoing investigation. But I can say that full details will be released as soon as possible, most likely after the funeral services for Henry this afternoon.”

  Even I had to admit, while Pete was a moron when it came to animals, he was awfully smart when it came to PR. In just a few sentences, he had turned the scandal over the escaped tiger around to focus the blame on the ALF—and even got in a plug for Henry’s funeral as well. After his interview, the news program’s staff had forgotten entirely about Kashmir; all they could talk about was Henry.

  Pete—or his minions in the PR department—worked the same magic on the other morning shows as well.

  “I thought FunJungle didn’t want anyone to know Henry was murdered,” I said.

  “I suppose they’d rather have people talking about that than the escaped tiger,” Mom replied.

  Pete’s words were bittersweet for me, though. While I felt redeemed to have finally got the word out that Henry had been murdered, it was annoying to get no thanks for all my hard work—and to be so shut out of the investigation that I had to hear the recent developments on the news like every other person in America. Plus, something about the quick reveal that the Animal Liberation Front was responsible rubbed me the wrong way. Despite all the claims that evidence had been uncovered showing their link to Henry’s death, I hadn’t found anything along those lines, and I’d been the first one to investigate.

  I told Mom and Dad this. To my surprise, they were as uncomfortable with Pete’s accusations as I was.

  “I know plenty of people who’ve been involved with the ALF over the years,” Dad said. “They’re radical and even destructive, but I have a hard time imagining them doing something like this.”

  “Then why is FunJungle saying they did?”

  “To deflect attention from whoever did do it,” Mom said.

  “Then . . . do they know who did it?”

  “Not necessarily,” Dad replied. “But finding the real criminal isn’t the point of PR. It’s making everyone think no one at FunJungle is to blame.”

  “So then, FunJungle might not really be trying to find the bad guy at all? They might only be trying to find someone to take the fall?”

  “Possibly.”

  “But then the real bad guy gets away.”

  “Not if we can help it,” Dad said.

  So we set off to learn answers to the questions Dad had posed: How many animals had died at FunJungle, and what was the metal groove in Hippo River?

  I was thrilled to have Dad home and helping the investigation. Even though Summer had lent a hand, things were different with my father. Despite the attempts on my life, with him at my side, the investigation felt less dangerous and more like one of our adventures.

  Plus, Dad’s presence made investigating easier. First, he was highly respected around FunJungle. And simply put, he was an adult.

  When you’re a kid, everyone’s naturally suspicious of you. I know I didn’t have the best reputation around FunJungle, but still, if an adult acts like they belong somewhere, more often than not, no one gives them a second glance. As a kid, you stick out. There are plenty of places you’re not supposed to go. There are plenty of questions you can’t get away with asking. It’s very hard to be taken seriously when everyone’s wondering where your mother is.

  Dad didn’t even have to make up a story to be allowed into the veterinary hospital. He simply pushed the buzzer, waved at the security camera and said, “Hey, Roz, it’s me.”

  Roz quickly buzzed both of us in, then greeted us with a warm smile. “Welcome back!” she cooed to Dad. “How was China?”

  “Wonderful,” Dad said, and then regaled her with a few amazing tales of giant pandas to get her in a good mood. Dad had a way with women—particularly older women like Roz. They’d just stare at him dreamily as he told his stories. (Mom always said they were imaging themselves thirty years younger.) If Roz had any idea we’d nearly been munched at the party the night before, she didn’t show it; she just hung on every word.

  Once Dad had her really hooked, he smoothly segued to the task at hand. “I could talk to you all day about this, but we both have work to do. I was told you had a list of all the animals that have died at FunJungle.”

  Roz reacted, more curious than suspicious. “What do you need that for?”

  “McCracken wants photographic documentation of every animal that’s come to FunJungle. His office gave me a list of every animal that’s been shipped here, but they said it’s not completely accurate because it doesn’t take into account the animals that have died. I don’t want to go running around all day looking for an animal that no longer exists, so they sent me here for the list.”

  “I see. Only, I don’t have any list like that.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No. No one ever told me to keep one.”

  “Could you remember all the animals that died?” I asked.

  Roz grimaced, finding the thought of doing this distasteful. “I suppose . . .”

  “It’d be a great help,” Dad said, flashing his best smile.

  That put Roz over the edge. “Well, let’s see. Sadly, there have been quite a few. First, there was Carl the Capybara. Such a shame. He was a real sweetheart. So adorable. I think he had some sort of gastric disorder.”

  Roz’s true love for animals was definitely showing through. A capybara is the world’s biggest rodent. It looks more like a compacted Airedale than a giant rat, but I’d still never heard anyone refer to one as a “sweetheart” before.

  “And then there was Sidney the Sloth. I never got to know her. She got some sort of infection in transit and died en route. I’m sure she was lovely, though. All sloths are.”

  “She died before she got here, but they still named her?” Dad asked.

  “Oh no, darling. I named her. I name all the animals, no matter what. Sidney’s so much nicer than calling her Sloth Number 6, don’t you think?”

  “I suppose,” Dad said, though I could tell he didn’t mean it.

  “Then there was Alistair . . .”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “An alligator?”

  “No. An anaconda. I’m not partial to snakes myself, but he was darling. Unfortunately, some foolish cargo employee let his tail get crushed during delivery. It got infected, and by the time he got here, it was too late to save him.”

  Dad was growing concerned now. Not because of the deaths, but something about them. “I don’t need to know the details behind how they all died,” he said. “I only need to know their, uh . . . names.”

  “Let’s see. There was Harriet the Howler Monkey, Oswald the Ocelot, Agnes the Agouti, Wally the Wildebeest, Andrea the Anteater, and Jerry the Jaguar. Plus, there were quite a lot of little creatures that died en route, frogs and fish and such, but I’m afraid I don’t have names for them all. Doc didn’t autopsy the small ones. He just had them buried, I think.”

  I doubted this last part was true; it was probably something Doc had told her to protect her delicate sensibilities. As much as Doc liked animals, he couldn’t take the time to bury every one that died. He got rid of the small ones the way most people did—by flushing them down the toilet.

  “That’s quite all right,” Dad told Roz. “You’ve been extremely helpful. Thanks for your time.”

  “Feel free to come by anytime,” Roz cooed.

  The moment we were out the door, Dad asked me, �
�Did you notice what all those animals had in common?”

  I nodded. “Except for the wildebeest, they’re all from the Amazon rain forest.”

  Dad smiled, proud of me. “Exactly.”

  “That’s suspicious, right?”

  “Extremely. First, that’s a very long list of large animals to die in such a short time. But even if the deaths were natural, the probability is that you’d have dead animals from random places all over the world. Instead, we have a pattern. Almost every large animal that died is from the exact same region. And that suggests something’s wrong here.”

  “What about the wildebeest?”

  “He’s probably not significant. I’m betting he truly died from natural causes.”

  “But all the others were murdered?”

  “I didn’t say that. But I’d bet good money they didn’t die for the reasons Roz says they did.”

  “You think Roz is in on this . . . ?”

  “No. I think she’s been lied to.”

  “But the only person who does the autopsies is Doc. . . .”

  “I know.”

  I frowned. “I can’t imagine Doc killing all those animals. Sometimes, I can imagine him killing people . . . . But never animals.”

  “Same with me. And I’m not saying he did. But I’ll guarantee he knows something about all this.”

  “He’s probably in the hospital right now. Why don’t we go back and talk to him?”

  “All in good time,” Dad said. “There’ll be plenty of opportunities to talk to Doc. Right now, we have to find out about that metal groove in Hippo River, and we only have a limited time to do it.”

  What Dad meant was, to learn about the groove, he wanted to look at the blueprints for Hippo River. Unfortunately, the blueprints were in the administration building, which had the tightest security of any building at FunJungle. They didn’t use security guards like Large Marge there; they used tough ex-military guys who wore crew cuts and constant frowns. The men were armed only with Tasers—guns were deemed inappropriate at a theme park, even one in Texas—but every one of them looked like he was itching for the chance to use his. I’d always assumed the extra security was because J.J. McCracken had his office in that building, but now I began to wonder if there was something inside that J.J. wanted protected.

  Given their reputations, Mom and Dad could talk their way into pretty much any zoo building, but the administration building was different. It was staffed with people who really didn’t care about animals or the people who studied them; they cared about things like daily operations and profit margins. They were people like Martin del Gato, Pete Thwacker and his PR department, designers, architects, and a staggering number of lawyers. Most of the zookeepers had never been inside it. Neither had I—or Mom or Dad. The people who worked in administration might have been suspicious of our presence in the building, particularly in the rooms we had to enter, so Mom and Dad had decided we should only visit when there would be almost no one inside: during Henry’s funeral.

  It wasn’t as though all the employees wanted to go to Henry’s funeral; there were probably plenty of folks in administration who’d never even bothered to go see Henry when he was alive. But J.J. McCracken wanted the funeral to be an event. He and Pete envisioned a huge crowd of grieving employees and guests that would make for great television—and thus reinforce the image of FunJungle as a place that truly cared about its animals. “It ought to look like Princess Diana’s funeral,” J.J. had reportedly said. “But bigger, if possible.”

  Lots of employees had grumbled that this was ridiculous, but most agreed to go anyhow for two reasons: It was paid time that they wouldn’t have to work—and there was going to be an open bar at the reception.

  Even though the administration building would be virtually empty, though, we still had to get in. And to do that, we needed the help of the one person the security staff would easily turn a blind eye to: Summer McCracken.

  With Mom and Dad’s permission, I’d sent a huge e-mail to Summer the night before, detailing where we were with the case and what we needed her help for. She’d sent back only two words in response: I’m in.

  The funeral was to take place just outside of FunJungle. J.J. had decided he didn’t want the actual grave within the park itself; he felt it would be morbid—and give the impression he wasn’t taking good care of his animals. Finding the perfect spot had been a challenge; a team of PR men, geologists, engineers, landscape architects, and funeral planners had spent much of the last few days prowling the entire property for it. Finally, they had settled upon a small grove of trees to the side of the Albert Aardvark parking lot. It wasn’t that beautiful a spot, but J.J. had promised to spruce it up postfuneral with a small shrine to Henry where his fans could visit even after park hours. More importantly, the proximity to the parking lot allowed easy access for funeral guests, any news channel that wanted to film the proceedings—and the industrial crane that was needed to lower Henry and his coffin into the grave.

  J.J. had been disappointed about the crane, believing pallbearers would have been far more dignified. When Martin had pointed out that the coffin alone weighed a ton, J.J. had suggested using elephants. Martin had finally convinced him that even elephants couldn’t hoist the huge coffin—only a crane could—so J.J., determined to bring some nobility back to the proceedings, had cajoled the Archbishop of Houston to preside over them. (I’d heard that the Archbishop had balked at first, considering it undignified—until J.J. had hinted that he might recruit a prominent rabbi instead. Apparently, lack of dignity was less important to the Archbishop than letting the world think Henry was Jewish.)

  The funeral was planned for noon, so we’d arranged to meet Summer outside the administration building at eleven thirty. It was going to have to be a quick encounter. J.J. and the PR department had insisted on Summer’s presence by her father’s side for the ceremony. Otherwise, every magazine in the country would be running articles asking where she was.

  The eleven thirty target quickly fell by the wayside, however. The funeral wasn’t going to start anywhere near on time. The park staff had prepared for every eventuality except one: that the funeral might be too popular. Thousands more people had showed up than expected. It hadn’t been necessary for J.J. to badger his employees into attending the funeral after all; evidently, there were legions of Henry fans who needed closure. The crowd filled the Albert Aardvark, Betty Baboon, and Carla Camel parking lots—and still, there was a half-mile line of cars backed up down the entrance road. A few devoted mourners had actually camped out the night before, staking out prime locations close to the gravesite. Now everyone jostled for space in the steaming parking lot while the special events team scrambled about, trying to get more speakers so the entire crowd could hear the ceremony—and more Port-a-Potties so everyone could pee; as it was, hundreds of guests were already slipping off into the woods around the parking lot to relieve themselves. Meanwhile, even J.J. McCracken’s family got stuck in the traffic jam.

  Mom, Dad, and I could do little but lurk around the administration building while doing our best to look like we weren’t lurking. Mom told me to stop checking my phone because it looked suspicious, but I couldn’t help it. I kept expecting Summer to text us an ETA, but she never did.

  Although I was pleased Summer had agreed to help us, I was beginning to find her lack of communication annoying. Despite her promise to tell me the “long story” of what had happened after she and her father had f led the tiger the night before, she hadn’t. And short of one brief text—R U OK —she hadn’t made much of an effort to check up on me. If she’d been the one who’d nearly been eaten by a tiger, I’d have beaten down her door to make sure she was all right. Mom suggested that perhaps Summer hadn’t been able to get away from her bodyguards long enough to text or call, but I didn’t believe that: Summer had been able to elude her bodyguards for an entire day when she wanted to. That she hadn’t been able to find a few minutes to reach out to me made me think she di
dn’t value our friendship as highly as I did.

  So by the time Summer finally arrived, I was feeling pretty angry. It was nearly noon, and she was flushed from the heat. Her usual pink had been deemed inappropriate for such a solemn day; instead, she wore a stylish black dress—although it was accented with a pink scarf. “Sorry,” she gasped. “I had to ditch a horde of fans. We gotta make this quick. Dad thinks I just went to get a Coke.”

  With that, she led us past the main entrance of the administration building and around the side to a loading dock where supplies went in and trash came out. There was a security keypad there. Summer quickly typed in her special code and the door clicked open.

  As we slipped into the building, I couldn’t keep my thoughts to myself any longer. “So, are you ever gonna tell us what happened last night?”

  If Summer realized I was upset, she didn’t show it. “Oh, man, I’m sorry about that.” She led us into a staircase and practically sprinted up it. “Daddy didn’t mean to leave you guys. He thought you were with us, and by the time he realized you weren’t . . . Well, it looked like your father had things under control.”

  I found her glibness aggravating. This wasn’t exactly the long story she’d promised—and there was something strange about the way she said it, as though she didn’t believe what she was saying herself. I glanced at my parents and saw they weren’t buying it either.

  “And you just left the party after that?” I asked.

  “Well, there really wasn’t any party after that, was there?” Summer burst through a door onto the third floor and quickly led us down the hall. “We didn’t leave the park, though. We snuck back out through the keeper’s route, notified security, and then came back here. Daddy spent the whole night on the phone trying to take care of the mess.”

  Our plan to come to the administration building during the funeral had worked perfectly. There didn’t appear to be another person inside. It was so deserted, I half expected to see tumbleweeds blowing through the halls.