Tiger in Trouble
Authors: Eric Walters
For my youngest daughter, Julia, who said there needed to be a sequel.
— E.W.
Chapter 1
“I don’t understand why we have to go,” I said to Mr. McCurdy as we left his house and strolled toward the barn.
“It’s only going to be for a week, Sarah,” he answered.
“That’s one week too long. All I wanted to do this summer was to hang around, spend time with my friends and help you with your animals.”
“I think I can take care of the animals for a few days without your help. And it’s not like I don’t have help besides the two of you.”
He was right about that. All of our friends were always over to help.
“I’ve got so many people helping that
I
could go away for a few days, so I think we can get by without you and your brother for a week. It isn’t like you’re being sent to jail. You’re going to a camp.”
“A camp,” I muttered, shaking my head. “I’m way too old to be going to any stupid camp!”
Mr. McCurdy laughed. “Sarah, unless my memory is failing … and it does happen when you get to be seventy-five, you’re only fourteen. As far as I can tell, about the only things you’re too old for are diapers, soothers and tricycles!”
“Funny, very funny.”
“I try. Besides, it might even be fun,” Mr. McCurdy said.
“Don’t you remember that my brother is coming with me? How could anything involving Nick be fun?”
“I don’t know why you’d say something like that. Nick always seems like a real hoot to me.”
“He’s a real something,” I said under my breath.
“And it sounds like it’s going to be exciting. Just imagine, an exotic animal camp. What did you say they called it?”
“Zoo camp. I guess it could be … okay,” I admitted reluctantly.
“When I was your age, the only way I could learn about animals was to run away and join the circus. Who knows, you might learn something new.”
“I already know lots about animals, and anything I don’t know I can learn right here from you!” I protested.
“That’s a mighty fine compliment, Sarah, but there’s lots of things that a broken-down, old circus man like me doesn’t know that you might learn at that camp. I bet they have some mighty fine experts there.”
“First off, you’re not broken-down, and second, I bet you know more about animals than most of the experts in the whole world!”
Mr. McCurdy smiled. “Well, I do know a thing or two about animals and …” He paused. “I noticed you didn’t argue the part about me being old.”
“Um … it was just … that —”
Mr. McCurdy started to laugh again. “Don’t go twisting yourself into a pretzel there, girl. I was just funning with ya! Who could argue with me being old? I think the only thing around this farm that’s older than me is the dirt under my feet.
“Here,” he said as he handed me the feed bucket, “I’m going to see if I can find Brent while you feed Buddha.”
I took the bucket from him. It held two dead chickens, their heads hanging over the side of the pail. As I walked across the barn floor, Buddha got to his feet and came toward the bars of his cage. Even though I’d known Buddha for almost a year, even though I knew he was safely in the cage and couldn’t get out, even though I knew he liked me and wouldn’t hurt me, the sight of him standing there still took my breath away. Something about a three-hundred-and-sixty-kilogram Siberian tiger gliding across the floor, his golden eyes glowing brightly, made the hairs on the back of my neck and arms stand right up.
“How are you doing, boy?” I asked softly as I stopped at the cage.
He rubbed his head against the bars, causing them to bulge out slightly under his weight. Hesitantly and slowly, I reached a hand between the bars and scratched Buddha behind one of his ears. He loved being rubbed there, and he pressed hard against my hand.
Suddenly he spun his head around and his tongue flicked out and licked my fingers. Instantly I withdrew my hand. I knew Buddha wouldn’t hurt me — at least he hadn’t in the ten months I’d known him — but I still didn’t like any part of me near that massive mouth.
With one hand, I pulled a dead chicken out of the bucket and tried to hide it behind my back so Buddha couldn’t see it. Then I took the bucket and set it on the ground with a noisy thud. Buddha stared at the bucket that he knew always contained food. I’d placed it clearly in his view, but far enough away from the bars that he couldn’t reach out a paw and hook it toward him.
Casually, while Buddha focused on the feed bucket, I moved to the far end of the cage. I slowly reached between the bars, swung the chicken and tossed it into the cage. As it flew, its legs, wings and head pinwheeled out, and then Buddha bounded across the pen and grabbed it mid-flight! There was a sickening sound as his jaws clamped shut with a snap. Most of the chicken had disappeared, locked away inside his mouth with only the legs and one wing hanging outside. I didn’t know what amazed me more: how big Buddha was, or how something that big could possibly be that quick and coordinated.
I leaned against the bars and watched with fascination as Buddha spit out the bird and grabbed it between his front paws. Carefully, almost delicately, he began to “pluck” the chicken, pulling out the feathers with his teeth and spitting them on the ground. Mr. McCurdy said that some tigers just ate birds, feathers and all, but some cats were like Buddha and were more particular.
I guess being around Buddha, and all of Mr. McCurdy’s animals, was one of the reasons I thought it was strange to go to this camp we were being sent to. Most kids would think it was really something to go to an exotic animal camp, but for me and my brother all we had to do was cross a couple of fields from our farm to the neighbouring farm and there we were with Mr. McCurdy and his animals. There was a time last year when the old mayor and some of the other politicians had tried to make Mr. McCurdy give up his animals. They thought it was dangerous to have exotic animals around. With my mother’s help, he was able to keep all of them. As long as he took good care of them, he could have whatever he wanted on his farm.
“Can’t find that darn snake anywhere,” Mr. McCurdy said as he came up beside me. “Maybe you and Nick can help me find him before you go home today.”
“Maybe Nick can,” I said. “But not me.”
“I don’t know why you don’t like my snake.”
“It’s not just
your
snake I don’t like,” I said. “I don’t like anybody’s snake.”
“But Brent’s a good snake.” Brent was Mr. McCurdy’s three-metre-long Burmese python.
“As far as I’m concerned, the words good and snake do not ever belong in the same sentence,” I said.
“Don’t go saying things like that,” Mr. McCurdy said. “Brent might overhear you and get his feelings hurt. He’s a pretty sensitive snake.”
“His feelings are the last thing in the world I’m worried about hurting,” I grumbled.
Of course, I didn’t know exactly where Brent was, but I did know he was somewhere in the barn. He had the run of the whole building: bedding down under the straw, moving through the stalls, hunting down any mice or rats unfortunate enough to take up residence in the barn. It was eerie to be walking through and catch a glimpse of Brent moving across the floor. Or even worse, to see him hanging from the beams or pipes above your head. I quickly glanced up at the ceiling. There was no snake above me right now — thank goodness!
“Are there any snakes at that zoo camp you’re going to?” Mr. McCurdy asked.
“I don’t know, but I certainly hope not.”
“You’ve really got to try and get over your fear of snakes. If you’d ever spent any time around Brent, you’d learn he’s just an old, cuddly python.”
I couldn’t help but shudder. I knew how pythons “cuddled” with people, and it was a lot more than a hug.
Mr. McCurdy reached down and grabbed the second chicken from the feed bucket. “You weren’t planning on saving this one for my dinner, were you?” he asked as he held it up.
“I was hoping you’d be having dinner with us tonight,” I said.
“Nope, not tonight. When you get back, I’ll come over. Do you want me to save this chicken until then?” he asked, waving the dead bird in my face.
“I only want my chicken as McNuggets … along with large fries and a Coke.”
Mr. McCurdy chuckled loudly. “Thank goodness old Buddha here isn’t quite as particular as you.”
He thrust the bird between the bars and tossed it toward the tiger. Without even standing up Buddha flicked out a paw and deflected the flying fowl, causing it to fall right beside the remains of the first chicken.
“Let’s get back up to the house. You and Nick have to be home soon, don’t you?”
I looked at my watch. It was almost five o’clock, and I’d promised my mom that we’d be back by six when she returned from work. She was bringing home supper. With my luck it would be chicken. I was hoping for pizza.
“Are you sure you don’t want to join us for supper?”
“As sure as I was when you asked me thirty seconds ago, and twenty minutes ago, and an hour ago, and first thing this morning and —”
“Okay, I get it.”
“Good!”
I’d tried a number of times to convince Mr. McCurdy to join us for supper tonight. It wasn’t unusual for him to eat at our house — he did it a couple of times a week — but he kept saying no this time. He said he thought it should just be “family” at my house tonight because it was the last dinner we’d have together before Nick and I went away for camp.
Mr. McCurdy wasn’t family, but he was more than just a neighbour or a friend. He was sort of like a grandfather. I mean, what I thought a grandfather would be. One of mine had died long before I was born, and the other passed on when I was only three, so I didn’t even have any memories of him.
Actually, I only knew one grandparent. That was my mother’s mother, my Nana, and, really, I hadn’t known her that well, either. It was strange but when she was alive and living halfway across the country, we’d only see her a couple of times a year, at holidays or at weddings or funerals. Then she died, at the same time as my parents separated, and our mother brought us here to live … leaving behind our home and lives and friends to move into the same farmhouse that my mother had grown up in.
It was hard to believe we’d been here less than a year. The only thing harder to believe was how angry I’d been about the move. I’d been so mad at our mother for tearing us away from everything and dragging us thousands of kilometres away from our lives. I’d been even more angry at her than I’d been at my father for leaving us. But now? This was home.
Mr. McCurdy pulled open the door of his house and we walked in. I trailed behind him down the hall and into the kitchen.
“Is there a winner yet?” Mr. McCurdy asked.
“Not yet, but he’s cracking,” my brother said.
He was sitting on a chair on one side of the kitchen table. Sitting on the opposite side was Calvin, Mr. McCurdy’s chimpanzee. The big ape had his arms propped on the table and his head resting on his hands. His eyes were wide open. The two of them were having a staring contest.
Of course, only Nick really knew they were having a contest — at least I thought only Nick knew. Sometimes you couldn’t tell what that chimp knew and didn’t know. If nothing else, the ape was as smart as Nick, so I guess that made this an even contest.
“How long are you going to keep this up?” I asked.
“As long as it takes,” Nick replied.
I laughed. “Stupid ape.”
“Calvin’s not stupid!” Nick protested.
“I wasn’t talking about Calvin.”