Peril at Palm Shores (Kristi Cameron Book 7)

by Cynthia Griffith

  A river of water raced past the door. Even from where they stood they could see several trees down, and bushes lying broken and bedraggled on the ground. The maintenance shed next door was still standing, but one of its corrugated steel sides had a huge dent in it where something had slammed into it—probably the sign that had been ripped from the refreshment stand and was lying nearby.

  “Don’t come out!” Randy warned them. “The water’s running too fast!” He and Jimmy were struggling to stay on their feet.

  “I don’t see any lines down,” Jimmy called out a few minutes later as he cautiously moved around to the side, “but the poles are leaning every which way. And it was that big old palm tree that stood on the south side of the building that came through the roof. It took out the whole southwest corner. It’s a good thing that part of the building is made of cement blocks or it would have been a lot worse.”

  They watched as his flashlight bobbed out of sight around the corner and then returned. Jimmy and Randy came slowly wading back toward them. Jimmy was shaking his head. “I’m not going to have time to check on the animals. The rain’s already starting up again, and this water is moving too fast to be able to get through it quickly. We’ll have to wait until morning. The eye of the storm will be past in a couple minutes and then the wind is going to start up again.” Even as he spoke, they could see the trees and bushes begin to bend and the rain beating down on the two zoo workers once more. The men came back in and they shut the door against the storm. They settled down to wait out Jenna one more time.

  For some reason, Kristi’s heart felt lighter. They had come through the first half of the hurricane unharmed, and now the second half didn’t seem quite as scary. The wind still howled, the rain still pounded, the building creaked and groaned, and every once in a while a crash would echo around them, but somehow through it all Kristi and the other young people fell asleep at last and slept soundly for the rest of the night.

  Kristi opened her eyes. The room was quiet. There was no wind or rain, no one talking. She wondered what had wakened her. Suddenly she knew. “Aw, man!” she muttered, jumping up. One of them, either the little antelope or the kid—or both—had peed in the pen and she was lying right in it! One leg of her jeans was wet and suspiciously warm! “And after all I did for you last night, too!” she whispered to the two babies who were looking up at her innocently and wondering what her problem was.

  Kristi climbed out of the pen and tiptoed across the room to her bag. Everyone seemed to be sleeping. She glanced at her watch. No wonder. It wasn’t even five o’clock yet. She grabbed her bag and went into the restroom, closing the door quietly behind her. Kristi took off the wet jeans and scrubbed her leg, and the rest of her, too, as best she could with paper towels. She pulled some clean clothes out of her bag and got dressed. She looked in the mirror as she ran a brush through her hair and pulled it back into a pony tail. She still looked tired, but she certainly felt better after getting cleaned up. She went back out into the nursery.

  There was an empty cot next to her mother. May as well try to get a little more sleep since no one else is awake yet, she thought. That cot looks a bit more comfortable than the floor, too! Kristi crossed over and set her bag underneath the cot. She was just lying down when Rachel suddenly opened her eyes.

  “Why are you up so early, Kristi?” she murmured sleepily. “And did you already get cleaned up? You changed your clothes.”

  “One of my little friends over there peed on me!” Kristi said softly.

  “Oh,” her mom said, and closed her eyes again. Suddenly she sat straight up on her cot. “What?!” Her eyes darted to Robyn and Anna.

  Kristi looked at her mother in surprise and then all of a sudden she started to giggle as she realized what her mom was thinking. “Sh-sh-sh!” she tried to hush Rachel, but she was laughing so hard and trying to stifle the noise that she could hardly get the words out. “No, Mom! Not those friends! Them!” she giggled, pointing to the pen in the middle of the room.

  “Oh!” Rachel exclaimed. Then she started laughing, too. They looked at one another and tried as hard as they could to squelch their giggles, but the more they laughed, the harder it became. They both had their hands clamped over their mouths, but little squeaks and squeals kept escaping, and just when one of them would think she had it under control, she would look at the other and start all over again.

  Tears were running down their cheeks and they could hardly breathe when Elizabeth finally lifted her head and said, “Well, would you two like to let the rest of us in on the joke, too?” They looked around the room and suddenly realized that several people were staring sleepily at them—and none of them were laughing!

  “Oh, I’m so sorry we woke you!” Rachel finally gasped out. “Go back to sleep, everyone. It’s still early.”

  “Tell me about it!” Jimmy muttered. “May as well get up now anyway. Got plenty of work to do.” He staggered to his feet and Randy did the same. Soon the rest of them were up, too. Everyone, that is, except Anna and Robyn. They slept on a few minutes longer, blissfully unaware of their small part in the hilarity that had woken the rest.

  Jimmy opened the door. Sunlight came streaming in, almost dazzling their eyes. If they hadn’t just lived through the storm, they would never have believed a hurricane could have possibly been raging around them just hours before. They could see the blue, blue sky above Jimmy’s head and feel the warmth of the day already streaming through the door. It was going to be a beautiful day!

  Or so they thought until they went through the door themselves. They stepped out into a disaster zone. The rushing water that had swirled past the door the night before had receded a bit, but now a lake lay before them covering nearly all the zoo. Now that the sun was out they could see trees down everywhere. Trash floated in the water, blown in from who knew where. A part of someone’s roof lay up against the maintenance shed. They stared around in disbelief.

  Jimmy looked sick. “We gotta check on the animals and get them fed before we can even think of anything else,” he said. “Come on, Randy. Let’s get going.”

  “Just a minute, Jimmy,” Steve said. “What can we do to help? Obviously we can’t start the clean up until the water goes down, but there must be something we can do to help out with the animals. Just point us in the right direction and tell us what to do.”

  “That goes for all of us, Jimmy,” Gretchen said. “We’re going to throw out the job descriptions for now and all pitch in together until we have this place back on its feet. Right now, you and Randy take care of the more dangerous animals—the cats, pachyderms, wolves, bears, and so on—and let the rest of us handle feeding and caring for the rest. Steve, Bill and I will split up the kids and do that. Tammy, would you please take Rachel to the kitchen with you and start putting together some of the special foods that have to be distributed? The lists and directions are posted right there on the whiteboard. I want you to be on call, though, Tammy, in case we come across any injured or sick animals. Elizabeth, I’d like you to stay in the nursery and just do what you normally do with the babies. We’ll keep the animals from the hospital there for the time being until we can get the hospital cleaned up.”

  “Thanks, Gretchen,” Jimmy said gratefully. “I want each group to take a radio and report in to me about whatever damage you find at the different exhibits, the condition of the animals, and any problems you see. I’ll inspect everything myself as soon as I can, but it will help to know what needs my attention most urgently.”

  They loaded the trucks as quickly as they could. The golf cart and trailer would be useless in the floodwater, so Jimmy and Randy dropped each team and their supplies off at the habitats. They left Bill, Pete and Dan at the Reptile House. “You don’t have to get near the crocs or gators to feed them,” Jimmy said as they jumped out of the truck. “Just stand back behind the barrier and toss the raw chickens over. They’ll come on the run. Don’t stick your hands near the snapping turtles or snakes, either. Use caution and co
mmon sense and you’ll be fine.”

  “I’ll look after them,” Bill Janus said.

  Kristi and Anna were working with Gretchen at the Arctic exhibit. They waded through knee-deep water to get to the door. Gretchen unlocked it and they stepped over the sandbags and into the dark building. The floor was covered with several inches of water, but other than that there did not appear to be any damage inside the building.

  “It’s still cool in here!” Kristi exclaimed. “How did it stay cool without electricity for the air conditioning?”

  “This building has to stay cool, no matter what, for the sake of the cold weather animals that live here. The Florida heat doesn’t exactly agree with them, and we can’t take a chance on losing them in the event of a power outage, so we have emergency generators that kick on to run the air—conditioning if we lose electricity,” Gretchen explained. “There are coolers in the back, too, hooked up to the generators, where we keep fish to feed the penguins and seals. Come on, but be careful you don’t slip in this water.”

  The penguins were huddled together. There was none of the playfulness they had seen before. They seemed to be afraid, or at least nervous about what had gone on during the night. The seals, too, were not behaving normally. They were barking sharply, but now their barks sounded distressed, not carefree and happy as they usually sounded on days when they were swimming in their bright pool outdoors.

  The girls tossed fish to the seals and penguins and were relieved to see them perk up. They jostled and pushed one another, eager to be the first to reach their food. One penguin plunged into the icy water in their indoor habitat and that was all it took. Soon the rest of them had joined him, and were racing round and round the pool in joy. The seals on the other side of the building reacted similarly to their food. Things were almost back to normal for them, and life would go on!

  The girls watched in delight for a few minutes and then washed their hands. “What’s next, Gretchen?” Anna asked.

  “We’re going to go over to the Aviary, but let me call Jimmy and have him come and get us. It’s too far to wade through all this water.” Gretchen pulled the radio out of her pocket and spoke into it. “Hey, Jimmy? It’s Gretchen. We’ve finished at the Arctic exhibit and we’re ready to go on to the Aviary.”

  “Okay, Gretchen,” Jimmy’s voice came back. “I’ll send Randy over for you. How are things over there? Any damage?”

  “Just some flooding in the viewing area—about two or three inches. The animals are all fine, I think. Maybe a little shaken up, but once we fed them they seemed to be okay.”

  “Okay. Thanks, Gretchen. Let me know what you find at the Aviary.”

  Before Gretchen could answer the radio suddenly crackled in her hand, and Steve’s voice came through.

  “Jimmy? Hey, Jimmy—it’s Steve. We’ve got a problem over at the Monkey Jamboree. We found a cage open and empty. I think there were a couple young chimps in it. One of the orangutans seems to be missing, too. Did you hear that, Jimmy? We’ve got apes missing over here at Monkey Jamboree!”

  __________

  CHAPTER NINE

  __________

  Stolen in the Storm

  Skeeter looked into the great apes exhibit once more. His eyes moved through the clusters of apes in the play yards, searching one more time for the young orangutan with the carrot-top hair and freckles. He moved, trying to see through the shadows around the hollowed-out log, looking to see if the ape could be hiding inside. He was sure he wasn’t.

  Steve had brought Skeeter and Robyn with him to feed the primates at Monkey Jamboree. They had first discovered the door to the smaller enclosure where two young chimpanzees had been separated from the others hanging open and its inhabitants gone. Skeeter was sure they had been there just the day before. He had noticed them and asked Sam why they weren’t in the play yard with the others.

  “They’re a couple of little troublemakers, that’s why!” Sam had chuckled. “They’ve been annoying one of the old guys in the main exhibit until he got fed up and tore into them. They weren’t really hurt, but we decided it would be a good idea to separate them for a few days until the old fellow has a chance to cool off. It’s kind of like ‘time out’ for chimps! We’ll see how it goes when we put them back next week—if they’ve learned their lesson or not! It’s a lot more boring in this smaller space, so hopefully they won’t want another time out!”

  Now the cage was empty, and the youngsters were nowhere to be found. They had quickly checked the other enclosures and all had seemed well until they came to the big play yard. The door was closed there but unlocked—something they knew would never have been left undone by any of the zookeepers. Skeeter had noticed the orangutan missing immediately. It was the one Robyn had teased him about, and although full grown, it was smaller than the others.

  Jimmy’s truck made a small tidal wave of water as he fishtailed to a stop in front of the Monkey Jamboree. He jumped out into the water without a thought and ran into the building. Several inches of water stood in the viewing area of this building, as well, where the hurricane had blown the rain and storm surge from the Gulf of Mexico over the sandbags and under the doors. The animal exhibits themselves, though, seemed to be fairly dry and there was no other damage inside the building. Jimmy wasn’t paying any attention to that, however. His eyes were on the empty cage. He looked at the lock on the door, and then moved over to the great ape exhibit.

  “I don’t see the orangutan with the bright red hair and freckles,” Skeeter said nervously. Jimmy hadn’t said a word, yet, but he looked like he was about to explode.

  He didn’t explode, though. Instead he sighed, “The one that looks like you? You’re right. He’s gone.”

  Skeeter looked suspiciously at Jimmy, and then at Robyn, as if she had somehow put the words in Jimmy’s mouth. He started to say “Hey!” but then he realized that Jimmy wasn’t kidding around.

  He was counting the animals in the large play yard. Finally he looked up and said, “Well, everyone else is there. We’re lucky we didn’t lose any others. They didn’t seem to realize the door was unlocked. If they had, they would have all made the Great Ape Escape.”

  “What happened?” Robyn asked. “Did someone forget to lock the door?”

  Jimmy shook his head. “The lock on the smaller cage is broken. It looks like someone forced it open before they discovered the keys hanging over by the food prep area. This lock on the big door was unlocked with the key, but the keys are missing now.” He looked around. “Ah—here they are!” He walked over to a corner and pointed to a large ring of keys lying on the floor. “They tossed them over here. We’ll leave them for the police to check for fingerprints.”

  “So the missing apes didn’t just get loose by accident, or as a result of the hurricane, but someone stole them,” Steve said.

  “It looks that way,” Jimmy said grimly. “They probably thought the hurricane was their perfect opportunity to get away without getting caught. In all the confusion and uproar, who would miss them for a while? Maybe they even thought we would think the animals had escaped on their own.”

  The outside door opened just then and Gretchen and the other girls waded in, followed closely by Randy. “What happened?” Gretchen asked the moment she saw Jimmy.

  “Someone broke in and stole two chimpanzees and an orangutan,” he replied.

  “Stole! Are you sure they were stolen, Jimmy?” Gretchen said. “Are you sure they didn’t just escape during the hurricane?”

  He shook his head. “We’ve got a broken lock on this cage, and the keys were tossed into a corner over here after they took the orangutan. They left this door unlocked, too,” he said as he showed the evidence to Gretchen and Randy.

  “But how did they get into the building in the first place?” Gretchen asked. “The alarms didn’t go off. I didn’t see any damage on these outer doors.”

  “The alarms wouldn’t have gone off with the electricity knocked out by the hurricane,” Randy reminded her
. “And I’ll bet the thieves got in through the back door to the outside exhibit area.” He led the way through the storage and food prep area to the large steel door in back. Sure enough. Someone had cut a small hole through the door with a torch, just large enough to put their arm through and turn the locks. Whoever had done this had climbed the fences and scaled the moat to the empty play yard outdoors.

  “We’d better start checking the rest of the zoo and make sure none of the other animals are missing,” Gretchen said. “Check every single door and lock in every single building. In the meantime, I’ll get the police out here and get a search going.”

  “I already checked the Cat House,” Jimmy said, “before I got Steve’s call to come over here. Thank goodness all the big cats are accounted for. That’s all we would need—to have lions and tigers roaming the streets of Palm Shores!”

  “It’s bad enough to have some of the great apes loose,” Gretchen agreed. “I doubt if our thieves have any idea just how dangerous these animals can be. They’ve probably just seen orangutans and chimps looking all cute and funny in the movies, but they are still wild animals. They are far, far stronger than human beings and their bites can be very vicious. Those thieves could be in big trouble themselves right now!”

  Bill, Dan and Pete walked in just then. They had just finished feeding the reptiles and were on their way over to the Small Mammals exhibit. “What’s going on?” Bill asked. “My radio quit working. We were wondering where everyone was, and then we saw the trucks parked outside. Why are you all here? Is something wrong?”

  Gretchen told her husband and the boys what had happened. They were shocked. “Well, I’ve got some more bad news,” Bill said. ‘No, not another theft that I know of, anyway. But did you know we lost most of the stable in the storm? It’s a good thing we moved the antelope and zebras and llamas out to the Anderson’s ranch. The roof is gone on the stable and two of the walls are down. The giraffe and camel barn is still standing, though.”