I So Don't Do Mysteries (12 page)

Finally, finally, my
squashed lungs manage to suck in some
air. Just in time too. My head's spinning and starry from lack of oxygen. I lick my lips.
Ewwww. Spit. Spit. Spit. My mouth is caked with dirt.

I feel a flutter.

“Sherry, pumpkin, are you okay?”

I wheeze, “Maybe.”

Then I stretch out ultracarefully on the scorching-hot ground. No broken bones.
Raising my head on my nearly snapped neck, I watch the train move away. A few feet in front of me,
my phone sparkles in the sunlight. I commando-crawl over, grab it and stick it to my ear. No sound. I
blink at it. No screen graphics. I push the On button. Nothing. My phone is completely and totally
defunct.

“Sherry, pumpkin, talk to me.”

I pull myself up to my feet and brush off. “Go away.” I cross my arms
and stick my nose in the air. “I am so not speaking to you.”

“Sherry—”

I slide my finger and thumb across my closed lips like I'm zipping them, then
throw away the pretend key.

My mother sighs.

An animal bellows long and low and mean.

The hairs on my arms stand straight up like toothpicks. I spin around to see a huge
black animal squinting in the glaring sun at me. He has drooping, fringed ears and wide, curved horns.
And he stinks like a barn.

Holy cow. It's the superaggressive Cape buffalo. Only thirty feet away.

“Mom?” I squeak. “Mind thoughts?”

“On it. I'm directing its focus to a tree across the
savanna.”

The buffalo's small, dark eyes slit. He snorts. A line of snot dangles from his
nose.

“I have never met a more stubborn animal. His brain is really locked
up.” Mom's voice is low and forced, like she's trying to pick up something
heavy.

The creature paws the ground with a hoofed foot.

“Help, Mom.”

“Let me try a different method.”

There's silence while she's doing I-don't-know-what.

“Sherry”—her pitch jumps up—“nothing's
working.”

Blood pounds in my ears.

Then she's right by me. “Run to the hut. I'll distract
him.”

I want to run. I do. Run fast. But I can't move. It's my same-o lame-o
problem. Faced with a scary situation, I freeze.

“Mom, Mom, Mom.” The words come out hoarse and strangled.

“Sherry, you can do this.” She sounds supershaky.

Flies land on the buffalo's head and crawl toward his nostrils. He shakes his
head, rippling the muscles along his massive shoulders. His horns glint in the sun. His half-shut eyes
never leave me.

A tree drops a long, lavender blossom onto my shoulder. I don't brush it off. I
can't even budge my arms.

The buffalo snorts again.

“Run!” Mom screams.

I'm rigid. Like wood. Sweat trickles down my back. A strand of hair blows into
my eye. The sizzling ground burns through the soles of my shoes.

And then suddenly I can move.

It's exactly like someone flipped a switch, releasing me from frozenness. Like
it's spring in Narnia. I lift one foot, jut my elbows back, ready to dash fast like a bullet.

“Go, Sherry.”

Then slowly and gently, I plant my foot back down.

“Go! Go!”

I straighten my arms out up by my shoulders like branches.

“Run, Sherry! Run!”

“No,” I whisper out of the side of my mouth.

In my mind, I see a particular paper cup from the bathroom at home. In lime-colored
letters, it details the story of a safari guy who acted like a tree in the middle of a buffalo stampede. And
lived to tell his tale. And have it printed on a paper cup.

“Sherry! Run! Right this minute!”

I imagine bark on my legs and leaves growing out of my head.

There's rustling to the right of me. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Ongava,
the rhino calf, grazing. Chewing, he looks up at me. He steps toward me.

Oh great. He's probably attracted to my hair, washed this morning with Sassy
Girl.

Ongava takes another step in my direction.

Yikes. Is it my destiny to be the cream in an Oreo cookie of smelly zoo animals? No,
no, no. No bad thoughts. I'm a great tree. I can do this. I can do this.

My mom's yelling at me. She sounds all slow-motion and muffled, like
she's under water. I'm trapped in my own little time warp.

Hopefully those Dixie-cup people check their facts.

The buffalo paws the ground, scattering dust.

The calf trots right up to me.

I glimpse a grayish blur stirring under the palm tree and heading toward our little group.
It's the female crash.

My life flashes before my eyes, a bunch of things I wish I'd done differently. I
could've been nicer to Sam. I could've been nicer to The Ruler. I could've
been less of a drag for Junie. I could've grabbed Josh in the nurse's office and kissed
him. I don't want to die a squishy-stinky animal death.

The crash approaches. They stop and face the buffalo, then grunt. The buffalo stares at
the female rhinos. Then he stares at me.

A breeze comes up, carrying a sweet flowery smell. A crow caws in the distance. The
sun blazes down hot on us.

We're in it together. It's me and the rhinos against the buffalo.

The calf snorts. The female rhinos grunt again. I hold my breath in a treelike way. The
buffalo paws the dirt one last time before turning and tramping away.

The rhinos call to Ongava, then saunter back to the shade. The calf follows them. I let
out my breath.

“Sherry, thank goodness you're okay.” Mom blows my sweaty
bangs off my forehead.

I watch the rhinos' cute little tassely tails swing as they amble away. Their
adorable leathery skin gleams in the sun. I think fondly of their kind, squinty eyes.

I'm alive. We're all alive—me, the female crash and Ongava.
Today I shared a near-death experience with the big, beautiful rhinos. We're forever connected.
Cross my heart, I promise to find out who's trying to hurt you. I'll hunt him down and
stop him. No more fooling around. You are my soul mates, and you can count on me. I will face
challenges head-on and succeed. From this point forward, I am Sherlock Holmes Baldwin, Fearless
Rhino Warrior.

“Let's get out of here,” Mom says.

“Not speaking to you.”

“Sherry, I'm so sorry. I wouldn't purposely put you in
danger.”

“You threw my phone and my love life off the monorail.”

The door to the hut opens. A girl in an ugly tan safari uniform leans out. “Get in
here before you get yourself killed,” she orders.

On Jell-O legs, I wobble my way toward the hut. And away from my mother.

“Are you crazy?” The girl clutches my arm and yanks me through the
door.

Californians are so rude. Suddenly, the room is spinning.

“Hey, are you going to faint?” She eases me into a chair, then gets me a
wet paper towel. “Who are you?”

I press the paper towel against my forehead and close my eyes. “Sherry
Baldwin.”

“I'm Sue, the rhino keeper. This is my boyfriend,
Thomas.”

I open my eyes and gasp.

There, sitting across the tiny room with his arms practically scraping the floor, is
Monkey Man.

Sue would definitely
be grounded if she lived at my house.
The rhino hut's a disaster, junked up with things like tie wraps, duct tape, bottles of Sassy Girl
shampoo, trash from McDonald's. The place reeks of old fries and dirt and animals.

I look over at Monkey Man. The rhino keeper's boyfriend. Mind-boggling.

He looks down, but not before a flash of recognition flits across his face. He
remembers me from the tennis courts.

“You're very lucky you didn't try to run,” Sue says.
“The buffalo feels less threatened by someone standing completely still.”

“You will not believe where I learned that technique. These bathroom
cups—”

Hands on hips, she interrupts, “Is there a reason you jumped down from the
monorail?”

“I dropped my cell phone.”

Her eyes go jumbo round like doughnuts.

“It's brand-new.”

“You entered a wild-animal enclosure because of a cell phone?” Sue
says. “That's incredibly irresponsible.”

“Plus, I was talking to a dreamy guy.” And I suddenly remember I have
no idea what Josh called about.

“Do you even realize what a huge risk you took?” Her voice quakes with
anger.

“Obviously not, or I wouldn't have dived for my phone.” I
shrug. “I'm not a complete moron.”

She gawks at me. “Let's get you over to the Park office.”

My stomach churns like a blender on low. “The Park office?”

“They'll get some information from you, then someone will escort you
off the grounds.”

The blender kicks up to medium. “Why?”

“You're a danger to yourself and the animals,” Sue says.
“We can't have you here.”

Now the blender is blasting away at full power, chopping and grinding. If I'm
banished from the Park, how am I supposed to fulfill my destiny as a Fearless Rhino Warrior and save
the rhinos?

Wait just a sec, Sue. The stomach blender slows as I realize I have some ammo.

“I'm not the only one who jumped off the monorail,” I say.

Sue and Thomas exchange a look.

“That's different. He's a, uh, trained professional,” Sue
says in a way-less-mean voice.

My Fearless Rhino Warrior side hooks up with my detective side to tell me
something's not right. “So Monkey—I mean, Thomas—works
here?”

“Well, not exactly.” Sue draws out the words.

What exactly does “not exactly” mean? I decide to try the
intimidating-cop routine that's so successful on TV shows.

I cross my arms and lean toward her. I furrow my forehead, aiming for the
frightening-unibrow look. “Where does he work?”

“At the ostrich farm down the road.”

“And how does that make it okay for him to jump down from the
monorail?” I ask, all low and bad-cop husky.

“He totally connects with animals, which means he's not in danger and
they're not in danger,” Sue says. “They trust him.”

Trust him enough to eat seedy-pellety poison from him? “So he's like
Dr. Dolittle?”

“He can tell if they're sick or pregnant or depressed.” Her eyes
flash. “And Thomas
should
be working here. His talents are wasted at the ostrich
farm.”

“Why isn't he, then?”

“He will be. He's trying,” Sue sputters.

I can't really think of how poisoning the rhinos could help Thomas get a job
here, but maybe I'm missing something. Or maybe he's so peeved at not getting a job
that he's taking it out on the rhinos.

Thomas clears his throat and taps his watch. “Lunchtime.”

I almost fall off my chair. He speaks. What a shocker. I was starting to believe he
couldn't because he was, like, mute or French or something.

Sue takes a deep breath. “Look, Sherry . . .”

“Sue, I will never jump off the monorail again, and I won't rat Thomas
out.” I cross my fingers behind my back because I'll do whatever it takes to bust him if
he's the guy after the rhinos.

She nods.

He nods.

I nod.

It's like we all have Slinky necks.

“Let's get you off the savanna,” Sue says.

The three of us leave the hut and head to a tan pickup parked nearby. Sue scoots in
behind the steering wheel. I take the passenger seat. Arms swinging, Thomas climbs into the bed.

“I'm going to drop you at the entrance,” Sue says.
“Thomas and I only have an hour for lunch.”

A devious plot hatches in my detective brain.

The nanosecond the
pickup pulls out of view, I'm
off. I run out of the Park, down the drive, along the soft shoulder until I reach a small white sign.
SAN DIEGO RATITE FARM
. Ratite? I guess that means “ostrich.” I
take a left and huff and puff to the end of a short, potholed dirt driveway. Another small white sign
hangs from a wire fence.
ENTRANCE TO THE SAN DIEGO RATITE FARM BY
APPOINTMENT ONLY
.

Is nothing easy in mystery solving?

Gripping my knees, I lean over, trying to catch my raggedy breath. I can feel blisters
bumping up between my toes. Why did I wear sandals?

I hear shuffling and look. Eeks. Ikes. It's a huge ostrich. With flat red feet and
ugly, bony legs. Cocking its head, it fixes me with sad eyes.

I gaze behind it, down a hill to where a gazillion ostriches stand or walk around. A few
sit on the dirt ground. On eggs, maybe. Poor things. No trees and a blazingly hot sun.

I look back up at the ostrich by the fence. “Hey, boy. How ya doing?” I
cluck at him.

The big bird tilts his head to the other side, his eyes on me. He lifts one long, flat foot,
sets it down with a thump and then lifts the other foot. He shakes his brown tail feathers and bobs his
head from side to side.

Is he asking me to dance? I raise my right foot, then my left, and step heavily into the
dirt to mimic the thumping sounds of the ostrich's big feet.

“I see Kevin Bacon's got you dancing,” a gravelly voice
says.

On the other side of the locked gate stands a Weeble-like old man scratching his
sticky-out belly.

“Kevin Bacon?” I search my memory. I think he was a teenage dancer in
an old movie.

“Are you the egger I been expectin'?” The man hooks his
thumb in a belt loop. “You're half an hour late.”

“Egger?”

“Someone who decorates eggs,” he says. “So, if you're
not the egger, what're ya doin' here?”

Um. Um. “I'm doing a report for school on ostriches.”

He points a long, dirty nail at the sign. “Go home and phone for an
appointment.”

“I'm all the way from Arizona. Couldn't you spare a few
minutes?” I smile sweetly. “I won't take long.” Seriously. The clock is
ticking as I speak. Between Kendra and her rhino ceremony and Thomas and his lunch break, I
don't have much time.

The farmer picks a long stem of grass and sticks it between his teeth, chewing on it for
a while. “Okay,” he finally says. “But you're out of here when the egger
shows up. I don't do double appointments.”

“Thank you so much.”

Kevin Bacon plods off to join his feathered friends, abandoning me to the grumpy old
guy.

The farmer reaches into his jeans pocket and pulls out a rusty key. He unlocks the gate
and lets me in. He gestures with his head. “You can see the birds better from over this
way.” He ambles along, slow like a slug.

I speed up in the hopes he'll match my pace. Uh. No. Apparently not. I slow
back down.

“So, what do ya wanna know?”

My questions are all about Thomas, but I'll have to slide those into the
conversation. “I didn't realize ostriches were so big.”

“ 'Cuz of me, our birds are extra healthy,” he brags.
“They have more meat, hide and feathers than at other farms. And restaurants love our tender
meat.”

Meat? Hide? Feathers? “What? You kill the ostriches?”

He looks at me like I'm a drooling idiot. “Did you think this was the
Wild Animal Park?”

Honestly, I've spent as much time contemplating ostrich farms as I have
speaking Chinese. I certainly didn't know people ate ostriches. Well, yuck.

I'm walking along, pretty grossed out, when I realize something grainy is
underfoot. I look down. It's the same weird seedy-pellety mixture I found on the tennis
courts!

I bend over and let some dribble through my fingers. Definitely the same stuff.
“What's this?”

The farmer scowls. “Our own feed.”

“Feed? Not poison?”

He snorts. “Definitely not poison.”

“What's in it?”

“How would I know?” He spits at the ground. “It was
developed by a jerk who works here. Only he and the owner know the secret recipe.”

“Is the jerk named Thomas?”

“How did you know?”

“Um, um, I phoned here once.”

“I'm surprised he picked up. He usually just lets it ring. He's
not much of a talker.”

“Yeah, he does seem pretty weird.” Look at me, getting info out of this
guy.

“You don't know the half of it.” The farmer plucks his straw hat
off his head and runs his fingers through thinning, greasy hair. “Thomas's main friends
are the birds. I've seen them get up off their eggs for him. Almost like they're giving
him a gift.”

“How else do you get the eggs?”

“I go in with the dogs. The birds can get real aggressive.” He hitches up
his jeans by the waistband. “The dogs are always willing to help me out 'cuz I treat
them to a little raw ostrich meat mixed in with their dog food.”

Ugh. Disgusting visual. “Why don't you leave the eggs with the
ostriches?”

“They hatch better in an incubator.”

My mind's grasshoppering all over the place. If Thomas is whipping up batches
of healthy feed and is trusted by ostriches, he's probably exactly how Sue described him: an
animal lover. Not an animal hater. Not a rhino killer. Although, why was he spying from the tennis
courts?

Whatever. We're down to Damon, who needs money, and Rob, who needs a
story. Or it could be someone I don't even know about. Ack.

“What else do ya wanna know?”

“Nothing,” I say. Time to vamoose. I step in the direction of the front
gate.

“That's enough information for a whole report?”

“I'm only aiming for a C.” I take another couple of steps.

Finally, he starts his ambling thing. After about a million years, we reach the entrance.
Straw between his teeth again, the farmer jiggles the key in the lock, then creaks open the gate.

I explode outta there.