Tiger Town (3 page)

Mom frowned. “And just how did you manage to get your pyjamas so dirty?”

I looked down. There were jam and mustard stains on one of my legs.

“What did you have for breakfast?” she asked.

“We didn’t have breakfast yet, but we fed Laura, Polly and Calvin already,” Nick said.

“It’s encouraging to hear you’re taking good care of the animals, but what about the two of you?” she asked.

“We can’t eat until we feed Buddha. He still needs breakfast.”

“Buddha, the tiger?” the acting chief asked.

“Yeah.”

“Do you think I could come and watch?” he asked.

“Sure … I guess that’s okay.”

“That is, if your mother has time.” He turned to Mom. “Would it be all right if I got you to town a little bit later?”

“I’m just a passenger. Besides, it would be reassuring to have you here while they feed Buddha. Unlike my children, I’m still nervous around that tiger.”

I gave a weak little smile. What my mother didn’t know was that Buddha still made me a lot more than just a little nervous. They followed us back into the farmhouse as Nick and I went to get changed out of our pyjamas.

“Is that monkey in here somewhere?” the acting chief asked.

“Calvin’s not a monkey. He’s a chimp. He’s here,” I called back over my shoulder.

“He’s probably sleeping,” Nick added. “He was up pretty early this morning and probably went back to bed.”

“It’s nice to know somebody had an early morning,” our mother said.

I ignored what she said and looked around the kitchen. Laura was asleep on the couch, while neither Calvin nor Polly were to be seen.

“The kitchen is spotless!” my mother exclaimed. “I’ve never seen it look this good.”

“Thanks. I’m trying to get the place in good shape before Mr. McCurdy gets back.”

“You’re off to a good start.” My mother glanced at her watch. I knew she was supposed to be at work already, preparing for an upcoming trial.

“I’ll get changed quickly,” I said. I went to my bedroom, closing the door behind me. My clothes were neatly arranged on the chair beside my bed. I started to change. Despite everything the acting chief had said, I was uncomfortable having him around and wanted to get both him and my mother out of here as soon as possible. I balled up my pyjamas and tossed them into the corner. I’d take care of things later.

Coming back into the kitchen, I found the acting chief standing beside Laura. She was still sleeping on the couch. Carefully, slowly, he reached down and touched her side, giving her a little pat. Laura didn’t move.

“Let’s go to the barn and feed Buddha, so you can get on your way,” I said.

Nick came down the hall, still buttoning his shirt.

“Let’s go,” I said.

We left the house and went down the little lane to the barn. It was a big old run-down building with missing and weathered boards, and the roof had holes that let in the rain. We went down the side so we could enter the stable. Unlike the main floor, the stable was warm and snug and dry.

I flicked on the switch, and the fluorescent lights started to hum and then came to life, illuminating the stable. There were bales of hay stacked up to the ceiling along the far wall, and a large pile of straw occupied the centre of the stable. Along the walls there were stalls — empty cattle stalls with old, rusty bars — that extended halfway up to the ceiling. The only one that was different was at the far end of the barn. In that double stall, specially fitted so the bars reached the ceiling, sat Buddha — Mr. McCurdy’s fully grown, three hundred and sixty kilogram Siberian tiger. He was lying down at the back corner of his pen, curled in a ball like a big kitty.

As we walked toward him, Buddha got up, stretched and started moving toward the front of his pen. There was something about seeing him walking toward me that was exciting and thrilling and scary all at once. It always made me take a deep breath. In my head I knew that Buddha was tame — at least semi-tame — and was safely behind the bars. But often my head didn’t communicate well with my stomach, which did a little flip at the sight of the tiger.

“Wow,” the acting chief said under his breath.

“It’s an amazing sight, isn’t it?” my mother added. “At least for us. For Sarah and Nick, I guess it gets almost boring because they see it so often.”

“Nothing special,” Nick said, agreeing with her.

I didn’t agree, but didn’t say anything. I thought that I could walk in here every day for a thousand years and still have it affect my stomach the same way.

Buddha pressed against the bars and began to rub his head back and forth. Nick reached through the bars and stroked Buddha behind the ear.

“Nicholas, should you be doing that?” our mother asked anxiously.

“He likes it,” Nick said. “Do you want to give him a little head scratch?”

She looked up. “You were joking … right?”

“I was joking, but you could scratch him if you wanted to,” Nick said.

Mom held up her hands and vigorously shook her head.

“Could I?” the acting chief asked. “Could I give him a little pat?”

“Sure,” Nick said. “Come over here.”

The acting chief hesitated for a split second, as if he suddenly thought better of what he’d requested, then shuffled forward until he stood right beside Nick in front of Buddha.

“Just reach through the bars and rub him right here,” Nick said.

Tentatively he reached in and placed his hand on Buddha’s head and rubbed. “He’s so soft.”

“Especially that spot behind the ears,” Nick agreed. “Is this the first time you’ve touched a tiger?”

“That’s for sure.”

“Sure you don’t want to pet him, too, Mom?” Nick asked.

“I’m sure. The only thing I’d rather do less than pet the tiger is snuggle with that snake,” she said.

“Brent is a very snuggleable python,” Nick said. “Soft and warm.”

“I’m sure he is,” she said, “and I bet he wouldn’t harm a kitten.”

Nick and I exchanged a look. “Actually he would harm a kitten,” Nick said. “Or a cat or a small dog or —”

“But not a person,” I said, trying to soften what Nick was saying. “He isn’t nearly big enough to harm a person.”

“Not big enough!” our mother exclaimed. “I’ve seen him, and he must be over four metres long.”

“He’s not that big. Three metres tops,” I said.

“Oh, good. That makes it so much better.” She paused. “That snake lives out here in the barn, doesn’t it?”

“First off, it is a he, and yes, Brent does live out here,” I replied.

“And it — he — doesn’t have a pen? He’s free to just wander around the entire barn … is that correct?” she asked as she gazed nervously around the barn.

“That’s right, but you don’t have to worry. He spends most of his time under that pile of straw in the centre,” I said, pointing behind where my mother stood.

She turned to face the pile and took a few steps back.

“When he’s not in the straw, he’s most likely to be in the —” I stopped as I looked up and saw Brent wrapped around the beam, no more than a half metre above my mother’s head!

“He likes to be where?” my mother questioned anxiously.

For a split second I couldn’t even choke out a word.

“What?” I finally sputtered.

“You were saying that when he wasn’t in the straw he was someplace else, but you didn’t finish your sentence. Where is he the rest of the time?”

I had been about to say hanging from the beams. “Um … if he isn’t in the straw … he’s … he’s way over there in those bales of hay against the far wall.”

My mother let out a big sigh. “That’s good to know. I’ll just stay away from both those places.”

“I knew about the straw, but I didn’t think he liked those bales,” Nick said. “I thought that he spent the rest of his time hanging —”

“Around those bales on the far wall!” I snapped, cutting Nick off. I motioned upward with my eyes, and Nick looked up and saw Brent. His eyes widened and his mouth dropped wide open.

“Is something wrong, Nicholas?” our mother asked. She was staring at him.

He shook his head. That stunned look was still plastered on his face. As we stood there, Brent began to slowly lower his head toward Mom.

Suddenly I remembered why Brent liked being in the beams. In the wild, Burmese pythons climbed into low-lying trees, and the beams reminded him of those trees. There they waited until something passed underneath and then they dropped onto their prey and — oh, goodness, was he going to do that now?

“Mom!” I screamed as I grabbed her and practically yanked her off her feet.

“Sarah, what’s gotten into you?” she demanded, her expression reflecting the look of shock on Nick’s face, but for a very different reason.

“Nothing … nothing at all … I just wanted you to help get Buddha his food!”

“Fine, I’ll help you get him his food, but there’s no need to get so excited.” If she had looked up, the word excited would have taken on a whole new meaning.

“It’s just I know you have to get to work, and I didn’t want to waste any more of your time. Nick, could you take Mom with you to fill up the feed bucket?”

“No problem,” he said, grasping Mom’s hand.

“It’s certainly nice to see you two being this cooperative with each other,” Mom said, looking back over her shoulder as Nick dragged her to the freezer that held Buddha’s food.

“Is your mother afraid of snakes?” the acting chief asked quietly

“I guess she’s a little nervous,” I said.

“Just a little?” he asked. “Because that snake up there coiled around the beams could scare the living daylights out of most people.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“It was smart of you to get her away without letting her know where it was.” He paused. “But you’ve always been pretty quick on your feet, haven’t you?”

I looked at the ground. I knew exactly what he was referring to. Mr. McCurdy, Nick and I had once tricked the whole police department. Buddha had escaped and we had gotten him back, safe and sound, by pretending we were animal experts who’d been called in by the chief — the old chief.

“But your mother will be back here in a little while and that snake doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere.”

“I’ll take care of that.” I reached over and grabbed a broom that was leaning against a post. Turning it around so I was holding it by the bristles, I raised it and gently poked Brent in some of his many ribs. He didn’t move. I pressed harder and he started to squirm. I nudged him again and he began to climb higher into the rafters, away from my prodding. Slowly he moved out of reach. His head was followed by his middle, which was followed by his tail, and he disappeared into the darkness. Out of sight and out of mind.

“I think you’ll have to hold that broom a little differently if you’re planning on cleaning up,” Nick said as he and Mom returned.

“It seemed to work pretty well this way,” I said as I flipped it back around and leaned it against the post.

“You got the food?” I asked.

“Two chickens,” he said, holding up the bucket to show me.

“Does he always eat that much?” my mother asked.

“Sometimes he has different things, but he generally eats the equivalent of four chickens every day,” I said.

“That’s a lot of chicken. Fourteen hundred chickens in a year!” she said. “That’s a lot of money for Mr. McCurdy.”

I hadn’t really thought about that. Two tigers would mean twice as many chickens, not to mention what the lions and leopards and bear would eat. This was going to cost a lot of money. Where was Mr. McCurdy going to get that sort of —

“That was a strange sound,” the acting chief said.

“What sound?” Nick asked.

“It was like Buddha just sprung a leak and air was escaping.”

“Oh, you mean the puffing. It’s a good sound. That’s the sound a tiger makes when it’s happy to see you.”

“Or happy to see the feed bucket,” I added.

“Or both,” Nick said. “Do you want to hear the sound a tiger makes when he’s not happy to see you?”

“Sure,” the acting chief said.

“Listen carefully.” Nick crouched slightly down and everybody listened. Buddha didn’t make a sound. Then Nick burst into a grin. “Actually a tiger doesn’t make any sound when he’s not happy to see you — he just kills you.” That was an old joke of Mr. McCurdy’s.

“Nicholas!” my mother scolded him.

“Since you don’t want to pet him, do you want to feed Buddha?” Nick asked our mother.

“I think I’ll pass on that, too.”

“Chief?” Nick asked.

“I’ll just watch.”

Nick reached into the bucket and pulled out a chicken. It still had its head and feet and wings and feathers. As Nick strolled down the side of the pen, Buddha watched him intensely, following him with his eyes.

“You want a chicken, Buddha, old buddy boy?” Nick asked as he pushed the chicken through the bars and dropped it.

In answer, Buddha pounced, covering the few metres between him and Nick in one leap. Buddha caught the chicken with his teeth. There was a sickening crunch as his powerful jaws crushed the bones of the bird. I shuddered involuntarily. While Buddha’s attention was on the one chicken, I took the second bird out of the bucket and tossed it between the bars and into his pen.

“How long will it take him to finish breakfast?” my mother asked.

“The eating part could be just a couple of minutes,” I said, “but first he’ll want to prepare his meal.”

“What does that mean?”

“Buddha doesn’t like the feathers. Mr. McCurdy says they tickle on the way down, so Buddha plucks the chicken before he eats it.”

Buddha was already at work. Holding the bird between his two front paws, he was pulling out feathers with his teeth and dropping them to the side.

“At camp we used to pluck them for the cats,” I said.

“And chop off their feet and heads,” Nick added.

Our mother shuddered.

“It’s okay, Mom,” Nick said. “They were already dead.”

“Feeding time’s over,” I said. “You two better get going.”

“Sarah, if I didn’t know you better, I’d swear you were trying to get rid of us,” Mom said.

“Of course I’m not trying to get rid of you,” I answered. “It’s just I know you have lots of work to do, and if you don’t finish it now you’ll have to finish it tonight, and then you can’t join us for dinner … that’s all.”