Tiger in Trouble (7 page)

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“Can we see the elephants first?” Nick asked as we walked along with Vladimir.

“No. You can’t see elephants.”

“Why not?” Nick persisted.

“No elephants anymore. Just elephant.”

“But it said in that brochure that you had three elephants.”

“Had three. Now one.”

“But how old are those brochures?” I asked.

“Only a few weeks old. The two elephants have been gone only a few days.”

“Where did they go to?” I asked. “They didn’t … they didn’t …”

“No, not die,” Vladimir said. “Both are young elephants, healthy elephants.”

“Then what happened to them?” Nick asked.

“Sold.”

“Somebody bought two elephants?” Samantha questioned. “I just can’t imagine somebody buying a couple of elephants.”

“Not somebody. Something. Zoo. Another zoo.”

“But why would your zoo get rid of them?” Nick asked.

“Maybe there wasn’t enough space,” Danny said.

“There’s lots of space,” Vladimir said.

“But why did you get rid of them then?” Nick asked again.

“Money.”

“You couldn’t afford to keep them?” Danny asked.

“Not money to keep. Money to go. When big animals go, you get big money back. Enough talk. You want to see animals or not?”

“Of course!” I exclaimed.

“Good. Then look at Boo Boo.”

“Boo Boo?”

Vladimir stopped and pointed into a cage. “Boo Boo the bear.”

“I don’t see any —
whOOO
!” Nick screamed as a black blur shot up a tree in the middle of the pen, stopping at the very top of the trunk. It had to be almost ten metres up.

“I’ve never even seen a squirrel that could climb that fast,” I said.

“Boo Boo is a good climber.” Vladimir smiled and rested his hands against the screening, looking up at the animal perched in the tree.

“He’s big,” Nick said. “Really big.”

“Not so big,” Vladimir said with a shrug. “Russian brown bears, they are big bears.”

“He looks pretty big to me,” I said, agreeing with Nick.

Vladimir shook his head. “Not big. Maybe two hundred and seventy-five kilograms. And not he — she.”

“I had no idea bears could climb that fast,” I said, still amazed at the speed with which it had scaled the tree.

“Black bears are good climbers. Other bears not so good. Want to hear an old joke? You know the difference between a black bear and a grizzly bear?”

“Um, the size and colour maybe,” I suggested.

“Yes, but another way: you run from the bear and climb a tree. If the bear climbs up after you, then it is black bear.” Vladimir paused, and a smile crept onto his face again. “If the bear grabs the tree and shakes till you fall down, then it is grizzly.”

I shuddered at the thought while Nick and Danny laughed along with Vladimir.

“How much bigger than Boo Boo is a grizzly?” Nick asked.

“Grizzly is twice as big.”

“I can’t imagine any bear being twice as big as that,” I said, gesturing at the tree.

“She doesn’t look that big,” Samantha said.

“She’d look a whole lot bigger if she was standing right in front of you,” I said. Samantha wasn’t the only one who could be disagreeable.

“Would you like to see Boo Boo closer?” Vladimir asked.

“Yeah, that would be great!” Nick exclaimed, and the other two agreed.

I remained silent. The only way I could see that happening was if we went into the cage, and I didn’t want to go into any cage with any bear — even if she was just a “small” bear.

“I will get Boo Boo down tree,” Vladimir said. He reached into his pocket and pulled something out. It was small, silver and shiny. He held it over his head. “Boo Boo! Look what I’ve got!” he yelled, waving one hand above his head while pointing to the object with the other. “Boo Boo!”

At first the bear didn’t seem to pay any attention. She appeared quite content at the top of the tree, staring into the distance. It was probably a good view.

Then she glanced down at us and cocked her head to one side, looking almost thoughtful. The bear started to edge down the tree, slowly, hesitantly. Then she began to pick up speed, coming down faster and faster until, a couple of metres from the bottom, she dropped and hit the ground running.

My heart stopped and my mouth fell open as this mass of black came racing toward us. I stepped back and gasped as she crashed into the bars. Boo Boo stood right up against the bars on her hind legs, her head high above me, her muzzle poking through. She opened her mouth to reveal incredibly large yellow teeth. I felt a rush of hot, foul breath, and she grunted. It wasn’t the noise I’d expected from a bear. It sounded more like what a pig would make.

Then I noticed the front claws hooked through the bars. They were curved, black and unbelievably long. No wonder she could climb so well. Those claws would easily dig into a tree — or a person. A shudder ran the length of my body.

“Do you want this, Boo Boo?” Vladimir asked. He opened his hand, and I saw what he was holding. It was a chocolate Easter egg wrapped in silver foil!

Boo Boo snorted loudly, pressing her face harder against the bars so that her muzzle stuck out. Her tongue snaked out even farther.

“Boo Boo has a sweet tooth,” Vladimir said as he unwrapped the egg to reveal the chocolate inside.

“You feed the bear chocolate?” Samantha questioned. “That can’t be very healthy.”

“No worse than for you to eat chocolate. A little piece will not hurt a big bear.”

“What does she normally eat?” I asked.

“Carrots, apples, potatoes, berries, little pieces of meat. Also things tossed over the fence by people. Boo Boo likes popcorn and hamburgers.”

Vladimir turned back to the bear and held the chocolate closer, but still well out of reach of the flicking tongue. The bear pushed harder and the fencing bulged slightly outward as it strained to hold in her bulk and muscle.

“No treat, Boo Boo, till Vladimir gets a kiss.”

“A kiss from who?” Nick asked.

“From Boo Boo. She is a pretty girl bear.”

Vladimir stepped forward and leaned toward the bear. She pressed against the bars and her tongue darted out and started to lick his face.

“That’s disgusting!” Samantha shrieked as Boo Boo gave Vladimir a complete face wash. For once I agreed with her.

Vladimir stepped back. “Boo Boo has bad, bad bear breath. She needs a breath mint more than chocolate.” He extended his hand, and the bear’s tongue shot out and took the treat.

“Why is she losing so much fur?” Danny asked, pointing to a few clumps of thick, coarse black fur that clung to the fence and lay on the ground at the bear’s feet.

“Her fur grows in winter. She loses it in summer.”

Danny nodded. “That’s good. I was thinking it was something else, like she was sick maybe.”

“Boo Boo is a healthy bear. Healthy
old
bear.”

“How old is she?” I asked.

“Nearly thirty years old.”

“I didn’t think bears lived that long.” Actually, I had no idea how long bears lived.

“Not in the wild. But in cages, bears can live long, and Boo Boo has always lived here.”

“Her whole life?” Nick asked.

“Since little puppy.”

“Puppy? Don’t you mean cub?” I said.

Vladimir shrugged. “I forget English words sometimes.”

I felt bad for correcting him. “Was she born right here?”

“Born in the woods. She was found by the road when she was little. This little,” Vladimir said, holding his hands out to form a small cup.

“That small! She couldn’t have been very old.”

“Five days, maybe one week. I saw pictures.”

“Where was her mother?” I asked.

“Mother died. Little Boo Boo was found by a man driving. Mother bear was by the side of road, dead. She was hit by a truck.”

“And Boo Boo was brought here?”

“Yes, brought here to be cared for by old boss. Everybody knew he was good with animals. He raised Boo Boo, fed her milk with an eyedropper, then bottle.”

“That’s amazing,” I said.

“’mazing — what does that word mean?”

“It means good, really good,” I said.

“Sort of unbelievable, like something that wasn’t supposed to happen,” Nick added.

“I like that word. It’s ’mazing that Boo Boo lived. Old boss was good with animals. He ’mazing, too.”

I had the urge to correct him and explain that the word was amazing, but I kind of liked it that way.

“Old boss knew more than animals.” He paused. “He knew people. He treated them well, too.”

Vladimir stopped talking and gazed off into the distance. I had the feeling he was thinking about that old boss, who was obviously much more than a boss. It was hard to lose people you cared for. It was funny. I had no idea what “old boss” looked like, but I couldn’t help picturing Mr. McCurdy.

“I think it is because of Boo Boo we are here,” Vladimir said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Boo Boo was the first animal here. Everything else followed. No Boo Boo, no zoo. No zoo, no me here, no you here. It is all because of Boo Boo.”

“That makes her a special bear.”

“Most special bear. Old boss would put Boo Boo on a leash and take her for walks down the street.”

“Do you do that?” I asked.

“Boo Boo would only walk for old boss. She thought old boss was her mummy. Me, I do not look like anybody’s mummy,” he said, laughing.

“Boo Boo must miss the walks,” Nick said.

“And the man who used to walk her,” I added.

“Boo Boo miss,” Vladimir said. “All the animals miss him.”

“Speaking of the other animals, can we see some of them?” Nick asked. “Maybe the elephant?”

“You can see the elephant, but not next. We see the tiger next.”

“I’ve walked a tiger before, lots of times,” Nick said. It was the truth, but it still sounded as if he was bragging — or lying.

We waved good-bye to Boo Boo and followed Vladimir down the road.

“What’s in that cage?” Danny asked as we passed by another pen.

“Trees.”

“I meant what sort of animal?” Danny said.

“No animal,” Vladimir said. “Just trees. Dangerous, wild trees. We keep them in the cage so they do not escape.”

Vladimir laughed. Even though I still thought Vladimir was scary looking, I was quickly learning that he loved to laugh.

“No animal now. Gone.”

“It escaped?” I asked anxiously.

“No escape. It was an old animal. It died.”

“What sort of animal was it?” Nick asked.

“Jaguar.”

“Too bad. I’ve never been around a jaguar,” Nick said.

“I don’t think you would want to be around this cat. It was not a nice cat. It spit and scratched. It did not like to be around people.”

“Are all jaguars like that?” I asked.

“Not all. Some are tame. This cat came from another zoo as a big cat. Other people treated it badly when it was little, so the cat acted bad when it was big.”

We continued to move, and I saw that while there were lots of pens, many of them were empty. At least they looked empty. If something was in there, it was hiding well.

“Do you want to see the tiger?” Vladimir asked.

“Of course we do,” I answered.

“This is the pen.”

Vladimir pointed to a large cage filled with trees and bushes. I scanned the pen, but I didn’t see any tiger. This was a big, beautiful area for it, though. That was good for the cat, but not good for somebody trying to see the animal. There were lots of places for him to hide.

“I don’t see anything,” Samantha said.

“Me, neither,” Danny added.

“Are you sure he didn’t get out?” Nick asked.

“Of course he hasn’t!” I blurted. There was no way I could know that, but I had a terrible rush of memory when he asked the question. Recapturing Mr. McCurdy’s Buddha last summer was the only time I ever wanted to have to deal with an escaped tiger.

Vladimir leaned against the fence and craned his head, looking for the tiger.

“He’s there, right?” I asked.

Vladimir didn’t answer and my heart did a flip.

“Kushna!” he yelled. “Kitty, kitty, kitty!”

If that wasn’t the stupidest way to call a tiger, I didn’t know what … and then the tiger appeared, standing up in some low bushes in the very centre of the pen.

Even from this distance he was obviously very large. Slowly he started to come toward us, picking his way around trees, bushes and stumps. As he closed in, I was captured by his eyes. Gigantic yellow eyes shining out from his enormous face. He stopped and stretched, his belly practically brushing against the ground. He started to move again, slowly, deliberately, coming straight toward us. Despite having a fence between me and the tiger, I still felt a rush of apprehension. It was just like the feeling I had the first time I spied Buddha in Mr. McCurdy’s barn.

Kushna pushed his head against the fencing. It was a massive face on a massive head. Vladimir reached his hand in and scratched the tiger behind the ears. That was where Buddha liked to be rubbed, too.

Standing right before my eyes, he seemed not just big but enormous. Was he bigger than Buddha? I couldn’t really tell, but either way, I was planning to stay on the opposite side of the bars.

“Can I walk him?” Nick asked.

“You can not!” I answered

“I wasn’t asking you, Sarah. Can I walk him, Vladimir?”

“And I already answered,” I said. “You can’t! It could be very dangerous!”

“Kushna is a good tiger,” Vladimir said, and Nick smiled smugly. “Most of the time,” the Russian continued, and Nick’s smile melted away.

“What do you mean, most of the time?” I asked.

Vladimir shrugged. “Kushna has good days and bad days.”

“He has bad days?”

“Everybody has bad days, no?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Can you tell when Kushna’s having a bad day?” Nick asked.

“Yes,” Vladimir said, nodding enthusiastically. “He takes a swing at your head.”

“At your head?”

“Big swing with big paw,” Vladimir said.

“Can you tell if it’s a bad day before he takes a swing at somebody’s head?” Nick persisted.

Vladimir didn’t answer right away. “Not usually,” he said thoughtfully.