Tiger in Trouble (16 page)

“I do not have a phone.”

“But I do,” I said. “It’s in my room.”

“Let’s go and use the phone,” Vladimir said, jumping to his feet and starting for the door. Then he stopped. “Better still, go ahead and make the call. I will change into clothes.”

•

I pushed it and the phone beeped and flashed, then lights came on, illuminating the number pad. I scrolled down the list and found Erin’s telephone number and clicked on it.

“I hope the person you’re calling thinks this is as important as you do,” Nick said.

“What do you mean?” I asked as the first ring sounded in my ear.

“Because our mom would go ballistic if anybody called us this late.”

“Oh, my goodness, I hadn’t thought about —”

“Hello,” answered a very sleepy male voice — Erin’s father.

“Um, hello, I’m really, really sorry to call you this late, but I really need to talk to Erin. It’s an emergency.”

“Who is this?” he asked.

“It’s Sarah. Sarah Fraser.”

“Sarah? Aren’t you away on holidays?”

“Yeah, me and my brother.”

“And are you okay? Is your brother okay? Is everything all right?” he asked, sounding alarmed.

“We’re okay. It’s just that there’s an emergency and we have to get a message through to Mr. McCurdy.”

“What sort of an emergency?”

“There’s a tiger, and if we can’t get a hold of Mr. McCurdy, it’s going to die.”

“Sounds serious. I’ll go and wake up Erin.”

“Thank you so much.”

That was so nice of him. Instead of being angry he wanted to help. I heard the phone being put down and voices in the background.

“Kushna’s sick?” Nick asked.

“He’s close to being dead,” I said.

“Can’t Vladimir help him, or can’t they call in a vet?” Samantha questioned.

“It’s not something Vladimir can —”

“Hello, Sarah!” Erin said through the phone.

“Erin, thank God! I need you to get to Mr. McCurdy and tell him I need his help. Please. It’s really important.”

“I’ll go right now,” she said. “At least if …”

I couldn’t hear and I certainly couldn’t see what was happening at the other end, but I could picture Erin looking at her father, pleading with her eyes.

“Dad?” she asked. There was a pause. “Oh, thank you so much!” she almost screamed. “We can go out tonight.”

“Thank you so much, Erin, and please thank your father.”

“It’s not a problem. That’s what friends are for, and that’s what friends’ fathers are for. He’ll get the message within an hour.”

“Great. Thank you, and good night.”

•

I jumped up and practically landed on my feet. I hadn’t realized I’d fallen asleep. It was bright and sunny — it must be morning. I was still clutching my phone in my hand; Mr. McCurdy hadn’t phoned. Danny was curled in a little ball at the end of Samantha’s bed, sound asleep. Samantha was part on, part off her bed, her eyes closed, also asleep. On the upper bunk Nick was asleep, a pillow clutched tightly in both hands and pulled over his face. He had never looked lovelier.

“Wake up, Nick,” I said, grabbing the pillow away from him and tossing it across the room. “Get up!” I yelled. “All of you wake up!”

Everybody quickly climbed out of bed without complaining.

“Where’s Vladimir?” Nick asked.

“I don’t know. He wasn’t here when I woke up.”

“Did Mr. McCurdy phone?” Nick asked.

“You would have heard it if he did,” I said quietly. That worried me. It wasn’t like him not to follow through with something, and he’d promised he’d help if we called. Maybe Erin didn’t get him.

“Maybe the cell phone is dead,” Nick suggested.

“The battery is not dead,” I said. I looked at the phone. “But it is turned off.”

The others groaned their disapproval.

“I didn’t turn it off,” I said. “Honestly.”

“Maybe you rolled on it in your sleep and hit the off button,” Danny suggested.

I pushed a button, the phone beeped and then came to life, lighting up. Then it shut down again.

“It’s out of power,” I exclaimed. “That’s why it wasn’t on — it turned itself off. I’ll plug it in to recharge it. Nick, can you get me the charger.”

He looked sheepish. “Well … there is a slight problem.” He paused. “I remember how you asked me to pack it … I just didn’t remember to do it.”

“I asked you to do one little thing and you couldn’t do it!”

“Obviously it wasn’t that little. Besides,” he said, “I’m really disappointed in you.”

“In me?”

“Yeah, you should know better than to trust me. Why didn’t you just grab it yourself?”

“Great, just great,” I sighed.

“We need to talk to Erin to find out if she talked to Mr. McCurdy,” I said.

“Maybe we could ask the Armstrongs if we could use their phone,” Nick said.

“Yeah, right, like that would work,” I snapped.

“Maybe Vladimir can drive us into town and we can use a phone there,” Nick suggested.

“He can’t,” I said. “The van still isn’t working.”

“Maybe we can walk,” Danny said.

“It’s about a two-hour walk,” Samantha said. “Each way. That’s a long way to walk.”

“I don’t see any other way,” Nick said. “Besides, I am sort of responsible because I forgot the charger. I’ll go.”

“You can’t go by yourself,” I said.

“Then I’ll go with him,” Danny volunteered.

“That’s no better. You’re too little.”

“How about if I went with him?” Samantha asked. “We could take care of each other, and then Danny could stay here with you to help out with the animals.”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Do you have another solution?” Nick asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, it’s like Mom always says, sometimes you don’t have any good choices, so you have to choose the one that’s the least bad,” Nick said. “And this is the best I can think of.”

“Well?” Samantha prodded.

“Okay,” I reluctantly agreed.

“Great,” she said. “We’ll get dressed, eat and go right away. If we move fast, we can be back by noon.”

“Just be careful,” I said to Nick. “And I want you to go out through the back gate. I don’t want to risk you being seen by the Armstrongs,” I explained.

“Yes … big girl Sarah,” Nick said, imitating Vladimir.

Samantha chuckled.

“Both of you.”

She smiled. She wasn’t a bad kid … but she still was kind of bossy.

“I still don’t get it,” Danny said.

“Get what?” I asked.

“Why a tiger would be worth that much money. Do they eat it or something?”

“Sort of, but not really,” I answered. “I’ll try to explain. Lots of people think tigers are very special animals.”

“They are special animals,” Danny said.

“Of course they are. But they think they have magical powers, and the way people get those powers is to use parts of the animal.”

“What do you mean ‘use’?” Danny asked.

“They take things like the organs — the heart, liver and gall bladder — as well as the bones, and they include them in pills and ointments.”

“Like medicines?”

“The people who make them and use them think they’re medicines, but they’re not. There’s no scientific proof that they help anybody or anything. The only thing that’s for sure is that tigers are killed to make these potions. Slaughtered by stupid people.”

“Nobody’s going to do that to Kushna,” Danny said.

“Not if we can help it,” I said. “I just wish I could speak to Mr. McCurdy. He’d know what to do. I know he would.”

•

Vladimir rumbled off on the tractor, pulling the meat wagon, and the crowd disappeared along with him, scrambling to get a good viewing spot at the next cage. Danny was sitting on the back of the tractor and waved to me as they left. I waved back. I waited for the last straggler to pass and then moved in the opposite direction. I ducked under the chain that surrounded Kushna’s pen. He was sitting very close to the fence, a pile of ribs in front of him. He was chewing on a piece of meat, and I could hear his teeth crunching the bones.

He was the same type of tiger as Mr. McCurdy’s cat, Buddha. They were both Siberian tigers, the biggest of the big cats. While I couldn’t be completely sure without having them side by side, I thought Kushna was bigger. What I was sure about was the difference in their age and appearance. Buddha was only about five years old and looked, well, younger — more fit. It wasn’t that Kushna had grey fur or a cane or a little walker, but he was obviously older. It was the same way you could tell with a dog. When they were young, they were frisky and playful, and there was a look in their eyes. Maybe that didn’t sound very scientific, but I knew I was right.

Kushna got up, stretched and came in my direction. I stopped breathing and took a half step away from the mesh. I knew in my head he couldn’t get me, but still, there was something about seeing a tiger coming toward you — something that caused a chill to go up your spine, that caused you to want to run or hide or climb a tree. Maybe it was a small leftover part of the human brain that had been there since we weren’t much more than a fancy monkey sitting in a tree, something that said be afraid, be very afraid.

Kushna still had a piece of meat sticking out the side of his mouth. He came over and dropped it right at his feet — at my feet.

“Is that for me, boy?” I asked.

In answer, he pressed his head against the mesh and rubbed, pushing it back. I looked at the mesh. It was tight and small and he couldn’t get a paw through. He rubbed again, and this time rose slightly on his hind legs. I put a hand against the fence, careful to keep my fingers on my side, and pressed back. I could feel his fur and muscle against me.

“You’re a good boy, aren’t you, Kushna?” I said.

He rubbed again.

“I have a friend who’d love to meet you. His name is Buddha. You two could be buddies.”

Kushna turned his head to the side and looked at me with those gigantic yellow eyes. He looked thoughtful, as if he understood what I was saying.

“It must be hard to be here by yourself without any other tigers. I wouldn’t like it at all. It must be hard … for both you and Buddha. It would be something to get the two of you together.”

Kushna flicked out his tongue, and the tip went through the mesh and met my hand. I didn’t draw away. He was just giving me a little kiss. It made no sense, but I couldn’t help but think that somehow Kushna knew we were trying to help, that he knew he was in danger and that we were there to protect him. If only Mr. McCurdy were here. I looked at my watch. It was almost two o’clock. Nick and Samantha were supposed to be back by noon. At least, that was the time we figured it would take them. I was getting more worried by the minute. It was bad enough wondering if they were able to speak to Mr. McCurdy without wondering where they were and if anything bad had happened to them.

I tried to reason with myself. Our farm was about the same distance from the closest town as this park was to the place they were headed. Nick had walked that dozens of times. He was okay. They were both okay. I just hadn’t estimated the time right. Maybe it was farther than I thought, or maybe they couldn’t find a pay phone right away, or maybe Erin wasn’t in and they were waiting until they could speak to her, or maybe they spoke to her and they were waiting for a call back from Mr. McCurdy … or maybe they were dead, lying on the side of the road after being hit by a passing transport truck whose driver was drunk and —

“Don’t be stupid!” I said to myself.

“Pardon me?”

I turned around. There was an older woman pushing a baby stroller.

“I was talking to myself,” I said, feeling embarrassed.

“Oh. Should you be in there?” she asked. “I think we’re supposed to remain behind the chains.”

“It’s okay. I’m staff. I work here.”

“Oh, that’s nice. So you get to play with the animals.”

“I get to be around them.”

“That tiger seems to really like you,” the woman said.

I looked at Kushna. He seemed to be smiling at me.

“Yes, he does. And I like him, too.”

•

“It isn’t as if we could call you or anything,” Nick said.

“And we rushed back as quickly as we could,” Samantha added.

“You had me worried.”

“You’re always worried,” Nick replied.

“That’s because you always give me something to worry about.”

“And now you’re worried about Mr. McCurdy,” Nick said.

“Not worried. Just concerned.”

“Too bad the whole thing — the walk to town, waiting, all the phone calls — were for nothing,” Samantha said.

“Yeah, what a waste,” Nick said. “I wish we could have at least gotten hold of Erin. We called a dozen times, and all we could get was voicemail.”

“I wish you could have talked to her, too,” I said. “Then we would have known for sure that she’s talked to Mr. McCurdy.”

“I’m sure she talked to him,” Nick said. “She promised to do it right away. Right?”

“You’re right,” I said. “Of course she went out. I just want to know what Mr. McCurdy said. I wish we could hear from him. How about if you stay here and watch Kushna?”

“And what are you going to do?”

I looked at my watch. It was almost four o’clock. “It’s time for me to feed the girls. I’ll give them a good feeding, grab a snack and I’ll come right back and take over watching Kushna. It’s better that I’m here, anyway, because I’m the only one who could recognize that guy who was with Mr. Armstrong.”

“Do you really think we need to watch the tiger during the day?” Nick asked. “Couldn’t I help you with the feeding?”

“I don’t know.”

“It isn’t as if he’s going to try to take him during the day.”

“I guess you’re right.” I paused. “But once the park is closed for the day somebody’s going to have to be here at all times right through the night.”

“That could be kind of cool.”

“I don’t know about cool, but it certainly will be cold,” I said.

“We better dress warm and bring along some blankets.”

“That’s not what I want to have with me tonight.”

“What do you want to have?” Nick asked.

“Mr. McCurdy,” I said.

“Did somebody say my name?”

“Mr. McCurdy!” I gasped.