Poached (27 page)

“Teddy does,” Mom corrected. “It was all his idea.”

Now J.J. turned to me, intrigued. “Do you, now?”

“In fact, we were just about to implement it.” Bubba approached Hank, smiling, and launched into the speech we'd all prepared. “Perhaps we've made a mistake here, Mr. Duntz. Perhaps you really are just a tourist. But it's also possible that you're lying. Luckily, this zoo has an animal with the ability to sense lies better than we humans can. Mr. Duntz, meet George.”

With that, Mom raised the blinds on the window to the primate holding cell, revealing Furious George, who was still in solitary confinement. George sat behind the bars on his side of the cell, calm as could be, playing with some toys. He didn't even notice us watching him.

Hank grew slightly uneasy, unsure where this was going. “You're jerking my chain,” he said. “That monkey can't tell you anything.”

Mom sighed with annoyance. “First of all, Mr. Duntz, George isn't a monkey. He's a chimpanzee, which makes him an ape—”

“Same difference,” Hank said.

“Actually, there's a great deal of difference,” Mom countered. “For starters, apes are far more closely related to humans than to monkeys. In fact, chimps share over ninety-eight
percent of their DNA with humans, which means they're more closely related to us than to gorillas. And because of that close relation, they're extremely perceptive to human emotions. Far more than most humans are. And George is the most perceptive one I've ever met. He's incredibly attuned to the subtle behavioral changes people make when they're not telling the truth—and he doesn't like that. He doesn't like that at all.”

Hank eyed George warily. “What do you mean, he doesn't like that?”

I almost started laughing and had to step away so Hank wouldn't see me. Although everything Mom had said about chimps sharing DNA with humans was true, the part about being living lie detectors was a lie itself. However, Mom sold it extremely well. Hank, who'd been so tough in front of his fellow humans, was visibly nervous about the chimpanzee.

“Trust is very important to animals,” Mom told him. “If George senses he can't trust you, he gets upset.”

“Upset?” Hank echoed. “What's he do if he gets upset?”

“Well, there's something else that chimps and humans have in common,” Mom replied. “Sadly, we're two of the most violent species of animal on the planet. But you shouldn't have anything to worry about. Like you said, you've been telling the truth, right?”

“That's right,” Hank said, although he'd now lost a great deal of his bravado.

“Then I'm sure you and George will get along famously,” Mom said. She opened the door to George's cell and waved Hank through it.

Hank hesitated, worried, but then passed into the other room.

George glanced up at his new visitor. I couldn't tell if he recognized Hank or not, but the moment he saw the orange cap on his head, he got furious. He sprang at the bars, screaming and baring his teeth.

Hank nearly leaped out of his own skin. Some of the toughest guys in the world can turn into complete cream puffs around animals. In the same way that Bubba had freaked out near the sharks—or Vance Jessup had panicked on finding the snake in his gym bag—Hank instantly changed when confronted by the angry chimp. He shrieked in fear and scrambled for the door, only to find that Dad had already closed and locked it. Hank jiggled the knob desperately. “Let me out of here!” he whined to Mom. “Your chimp's going psycho!”

“That's his standard response to liars,” Mom shouted through the window.

“I haven't even said anything!” Hank cried.

“You said you'd been telling the truth before,” Mom said. “Was that a lie?”

Hank's eyes darted toward George. As I'd guessed, he had
no idea that his orange cap was the real trigger for George's anger, but since he was wearing it, George was directing that anger toward him. Even J.J., who hadn't been briefed on the plan, fell for it.

“What's going on here?” the billionaire asked. “Did Hank hurt that chimp?”

“No,” Dad explained, keeping his voice low so Hank couldn't hear through the glass. “But someone in an orange cap like that probably did. The thing is, chimps usually don't perceive slight physical differences between humans: Two men look as similar to them as two male chimps look to you. However, some chimps—like George—are very responsive to colors and clothing. Thus, he perceives virtually any man in an orange baseball cap as the one who caused him distress before.”

J.J. chuckled, impressed. “So that chimp isn't some living lie detector?”

“No,” Dad said. “But Hank doesn't have to know that.”

We all looked back through the window. George was trying to throw his toys at Hank, but they all bounced harmlessly off the bars. So George then resorted to throwing something he
knew
would fit through the bars. His own poop.

The first salvo caught Hank in the chest. Now Hank really lost it. “That's poop!” he screamed. “Your freaking monkey's throwing poop at me!”

“He's a
chimp
,” Mom corrected. “And yes, they do that when they get agitated.” She signaled to Dad to open the door.

Hank raced for it, though before he could make it to safety, George nailed him with something that appeared to have just come out of his digestive tract. It knocked the orange cap right off Hank's head. Hank squealed with disgust and scrambled into the office.

The instant he was gone, George relaxed. He dropped to the floor of his cage and allowed Mom to come right up to the bars. He now chattered to her, pointing toward the door, as though trying to tell her who Hank was.

Meanwhile, in Mom's office, Hank was a gibbering, quivering mess. He reeked of flop sweat and chimp poop. Normally, I might have felt badly about subjecting someone to this, but since this was the very man who'd nearly drowned me in a tank full of sharks that morning, I found the whole thing quite pleasant.

“This was a violation of my rights!” Hank whimpered. “You're not allowed to torture people!”

“We did no such thing,” J.J. told him. “All we did was give you a rare one-on-one encounter with one of our animals. Most tourists here would kill for an opportunity like that. In fact, perhaps we should give you another chance. . . .”

“No!” Hank shrieked. He bolted for the office door, but Bubba caught him.

“Aw, come on now, Hank.” J.J. grinned, enjoying this. “George there's normally gentle as a kitten. The only time he's ever like this is when someone's not telling the truth.”

Even in his terrified state, Hank still struggled to remain tough. “I
have
told you the truth!” he said.

“Well, let's see if George thinks that's true,” J.J. said, then nodded to Bubba, who dragged Hank back toward the chimp's cell.

The last of Hank's resolve slipped away. “All right!” he cried. “I admit it! I rigged the tube to blow! But I wasn't trying to hurt anyone, I swear! In fact, I took steps not to. I was watching the entrance to make sure no one was in the tube. You guys just came in the wrong way—and by the time I realized, it was too late!”

Bubba stopped dragging Hank. “Why were you trying to blow the tube at all?”

“To make FunJungle look bad,” Hank explained. “To create a disaster that looked like it
could
have killed people, so tourists would think FunJungle was too dangerous to visit.”

“Who paid you to do this?” J.J. demanded. “Ogilvy?”

Hank wavered, trying to protect his boss.

Bubba started dragging Hank toward George's cell once again.

Mom came back into her office from the cell. “I hope you like chimp poop,” she warned. “I fed George a really big meal last night.”

Hank cracked. “Yes, it was Ogilvy! He wants to bankrupt FunJungle!”

“So he paid you to destroy the shark exhibit and steal the koala?” Marge asked.

“No!” Hank exclaimed. “He only asked me to cause
one
disaster. I didn't touch the koala!”

“Oh, please,” J.J. snorted. “You expect us to believe that someone else just happened to steal it while you were around?”

“Yes!” Hank cried. “I admit, I
considered
stealing Kazoo. I paid Freddie Malloy to help me figure out what to target and feed me the security codes. The koala was the first thing he suggested. But someone else took him before we could do anything, so we shifted our target!”

All of us in Mom's office exchanged glances, surprised by this revelation.

“You think he's telling the truth?” Marge asked.

“He's already owned up to the shark tank and ratted out Ogilvy,” J.J. said. “Why would he keep lying about Kazoo?”

Marge turned back to Hank. “You're saying a stolen koala wasn't good enough for you? You had to go and destroy something else?”

“Yes!” Hank now looked like he was at the end of his rope. “Ogilvy said if the koala was recovered, the whole thing would blow over. He wanted something bigger. Something that'd scare visitors away from FunJungle. I didn't mean to hurt anyone—and I didn't touch the koala! That's the truth, I promise!”

He certainly sounded like he was being honest to me. J.J. seemed to think so too. “All right,” he told Bubba. “Don't take him in with George.”

“You sure?” Marge asked. “The guy caused you a couple million in damages this morning. We could lock him in with that chimp as long as you'd like.”

“That wouldn't be very nice—for the chimp,” J.J. said.

Bubba sat Hank back in the chair again. “So you fully admit to sabotaging the shark tank this morning?” he asked.

“Yes,” Hank said meekly. He now seemed only a shell of the tough guy who'd sat in that chair minutes before.

“And you admit that both Walter Ogilvy and Freddie Malloy were complicit in this?” J.J. asked.

Hank nodded.

“Lock him up,” J.J. ordered.

Marge obediently took Hank by the arm. He didn't even try to fight her as she led him toward the door. In fact he seemed relieved to be getting farther away from George.

“You sure you didn't take that koala?” Marge asked.

Hank shook his head. “I swear it wasn't me.”

Bubba turned to me, visibly unhappy about what he had to say. “Sorry, Teddy. It looks like I still need to bring you in.”

“What?” Mom cried. “Teddy just handed you Hank! If it hadn't been for him, the shark tube would have blown and no one would have known Ogilvy was behind it!”

“I understand that,” Bubba said sadly. “And I'll admit, Teddy might have saved my life today. But that doesn't change the fact that we still have a mountain of evidence against him.”

I backed away, stunned this was happening. I'd been so sure I'd figured out who the thief was, it had never occurred to me that I might be wrong. I thought about running again, but I was trapped in the office. Besides, I couldn't run forever.

“This is ridiculous!” Dad protested. He turned to J.J. “Tell these guys Teddy's innocent! Hank's the criminal here. He already confessed to plotting against FunJungle—”

“But not to stealing Kazoo,” J.J. said. I noticed he didn't seem nearly as sad about this as Bubba did.

Mom glared at him with disgust. “Are you actually saying that after everything Teddy has done for this park—for
you
—you believe he would have stolen Kazoo?”

“I'm saying that we need to recognize the facts.” J.J. gave
Mom a pointed stare. “
All
of us do, no matter how much we don't want to. I thought Ogilvy was behind the koala theft, but he wasn't. Teddy's the only one left who could have possibly done it. And let's face it, the kid has a history of causing trouble around here. So if you want to be upset with someone, maybe it ought to be your son.”

Before Mom or Dad could even respond, J.J. walked out, leaving us with Bubba—who looked sort of ashamed—and Marge, who looked like it was the happiest day of her life. “Let's go, Teddy,” she told me, grinning from ear to ear. “Seems I was right about you all along.”

For the second time that
day, I was marched through FunJungle in handcuffs. Once again, Bubba and Marge each held an arm of mine. Meanwhile, Hank the Tank was back in FunJungle security's holding cell. Industrial sabotage was a much bigger crime than the local police were prepared to handle, so J.J. had called some friends in the government and asked them to send federal agents.

Mom and Dad walked alongside Marge, Bubba, and me, although they'd given up on arguing that a mistake had been made, aware the argument would only fall on deaf ears. Now they were merely doing their best to comfort me.

“Don't worry,” Mom said. “We'll get you out of this as soon as we can.”