Poached (19 page)

I hurried off that way. I was slightly worried Marge might follow me to see if I committed any more infractions, but then I heard her in the distance behind me, berating some tourists for putting recyclable bottles in the regular trash.

I headed into KoalaVille. The place was deserted. Even the bazaar had been closed down. After all, with Kazoo gone, FunJungle had made the wise—if rare—decision to stop selling any merchandise with the koala on it, feeling this was in bad taste. Kazoo's exhibit was shuttered, the doors locked. According to my parents, the koala keepers had already been transferred to other locations. (Kristi Sullivan was now working at the small mammal house.) I was all alone, able to wander the area freely without any tourists clamoring to take my picture.

As Summer had instructed, I went right to the exhibit to see if there was any way in or out that wouldn't be seen by the cameras.

My first thought was that perhaps there was an entrance I didn't know about, but this quickly proved to be wrong. The building wasn't big, so it didn't take much time to thoroughly examine the exterior. There were no hidden doors.

I also determined that there was no route to the exhibit
that avoided the security cameras. I knew where the four closest ones were, having figured out their positions from the footage I'd been unlucky enough to appear in. They covered every angle of the exhibit—and in addition, I spotted two more cameras close by.

So the question remained: How had the thief gotten in and out without being seen? I could come up with only two answers:

1) There was a secret underground entrance.

This was doubtful. There was almost nothing underground at FunJungle, as the park was built on solid rock, which was very expensive to dig through. (J.J. McCracken had declared that building Carnivore Canyon into the rock had been a colossal, money-sucking mistake he was determined to never repeat.) The koala exhibit was far from the rest of the park and thus would have required an extremely long tunnel. Plus, the building had been erected so quickly there probably hadn't been time to dig one anyhow.

2) Whoever had stolen Kazoo was a master of camouflage.

This seemed far more likely. Now that I considered it, camouflaging oneself was a surprisingly common skill in southern Texas. Lots of hunters lived in the area, and sporting-goods stores were chock-full of camouflage clothing and greasepaint (which the hunters used to cover their
faces). There were also several military bases close by, which meant there were lots of current and retired soldiers. The schools all had big ROTC programs, where the art of camouflage was taught. And on top of all that, there were tons of paintball enthusiasts. In fact a twenty-five acre paintball range sat only a few miles from FunJungle, where hundreds of men, women, and children showed up in full camouflage every weekend to play pretend war. Until FunJungle had come along, Killer Paintball had been the biggest tourist attraction in the region.

Even my own parents knew a decent amount about camouflage: Dad used it all the time to photograph animals, while Mom had employed it to get close to gorillas in the wild. There were plenty of other field biologists employed by FunJungle; many of them had probably used camouflage as well.

I wondered if someone could have concealed themselves so well that they would have been invisible to the cameras. After all, the theft had happened during the night, when it would have been easier to blend into the shadows. Whoever had stolen Kazoo would have still needed to open the exhibit door, but maybe if they'd done it quickly enough, that would have been hard to spot in the twelve hours of recorded footage. Yes, Dad had gone through all of it, but staring at video of nothing happening for that long must
have been mind-numbing. He'd probably only been looking for something dramatic, like the thief blatantly approaching the door, rather than someone more stealthy.

That might account for how Kazoo had been stolen, although the question of who'd done it was still wide open.

I poked around the exhibit a bit longer, but didn't find any more clues. In truth I didn't even know what I was looking for, short of a handy note saying
I took the koala
and signed by the thief.

It was already starting to get dark, which made it even harder to see inside the koala costume. I figured I ought to get back and return it soon. It was nearing closing time anyhow, and both my parents would soon be wondering where I was. I couldn't help feeling frustrated. Despite Summer's brilliant plan for me to remain incognito, I hadn't learned enough, meaning I would still be suspect number one when Large Marge presented her case to J.J. McCracken the next morning. I decided to make one last sweep of KoalaVille, just in case I'd missed something, though I didn't have high hopes.

And then I saw the man in the Astros cap.

It was the same man from the YouTube video Violet Grace had shown me at lunch, the man who'd been oddly stoic during the revelation that the koala had been poached. Even in the dimming light, it wasn't that hard to recognize
him. His orange cap stood out, and he was still wearing sunglasses, despite the darkening skies. He was standing near one of the closed-up koala merchandise tents, talking to someone I couldn't see.

I crept closer. Unfortunately, now the koala costume was working against me. It was hard to be inconspicuous while dressed as a giant marsupial. There were no tourists around I could pretend to be entertaining. In fact, it occurred to me that Astros Cap was probably here for that exact reason: no tourists. Therefore no one to see or overhear him. I simply had to hope that because I was in KoalaVille, I'd look like part of an advertisement for Kazoo merchandise that someone had forgotten to clear away.

I finally reached a point where I could see around the corner of the merchandise tent. The person Astros Cap was talking to came into view.

It was Freddie Malloy.

It was tough to make him out at first, as he had a safari hat pulled down tightly over his head, but when he gestured, I could see there were only three fingers on one of his hands.

Freddie and Astros Cap definitely seemed to be familiar with each other. They were standing close together, like friends or business associates rather than two people who had just met. Freddie was pointing up the hill, away from KoalaVille, toward the rest of FunJungle.

Astros Cap listened intently, nodding every once in a while. At one point he reached forward, as though Freddie had handed him something small, and tucked it into the pocket of his jacket.

Unfortunately, I was too far away to hear what they were saying, and there was no way I could get closer in the koala costume. I'd have to ditch it and hope no one from security noticed me.

Just as I started to wriggle out of it, however, Astros Cap and Freddie started to walk away. They disappeared around the corner of the tent, heading back toward the park.

I kept the costume on and followed.

By the time I had made it to the tent, they had already split up. Apparently, the two of them didn't want to be seen together. Freddie was moving quickly toward Carnivore Canyon, while Astros Cap was angling toward the park exit.

I couldn't follow both of them, so I quickly opted to go after Astros Cap. I could always track down Freddie, while I might never see the other man again.

Astros Cap moved cautiously, pretending to be a regular tourist but keeping a close eye on his surroundings. I kept my distance until we made it back to Adventure Road, where there were a few tourists and it made at least some sense for a giant koala to be wandering about. Then I stepped up my pace to try to catch up to him.

Astros Cap suddenly stopped in front of Shark Odyssey.

I stopped as well and pretended to wave at some tourists.

Astros Cap looked around to see if anyone was watching him. His eyes fell right on me, but he didn't seem to think anything of it. Eventually he decided the coast was clear, then ducked around the side of the building into the employees-only area.

That certainly seemed suspicious. Now that Astros Cap couldn't see me anymore, I hurried toward Shark Odyssey as quickly as I could. It was hard to run in the costume, though, and despite the cold weather I began to sweat. A tourist family yelled at me to stop so they could take a picture, but there was no time. I pantomimed pointing at my watch and kept on going, as though perhaps Kazoo had a big appointment he was late for.

I reached the point where Astros Cap had slipped off Adventure Road. A small walkway wound through the landscaping along the side of Shark Odyssey. I followed it, although it was difficult to fit my giant koala head through the dense brush. My huge ears got hung up in the branches several times.

The path led to a door marked
MAINTENANCE. EMPLOYEES ONLY
. As with almost every other door at FunJungle, there was a keypad entry for it. I looked around. Astros Cap couldn't have gone anywhere except through the door. The
landscaping was too thick for him to have left the path without breaking some branches or leaving a footprint in the mud, but there was no sign of that.

I pulled off my koala glove and tried entering J.J. McCracken's secret code.

As Summer had warned, it no longer worked.

Whoever Astros Cap was, he must have had the proper code for Shark Odyssey. Was he an employee there? Or was that what Freddie had given him? If so, how had Freddie gotten it? He didn't work at Shark Odyssey himself.

Whatever the case, I'd hit a dead end. I schlepped back down the path, figuring I'd just have to wait until Astros Cap emerged from Shark Odyssey again.

The moment I stepped out of the landscaping, someone broadsided me.

For a moment I thought I'd been ambushed. But then I realized my attacker was only three feet high.

The tourist family had caught up to me. The three-year-old daughter was now clamped tightly to my left leg, hugging Kazoo for all she was worth. “Kazoo! I love you!” she crowed.

I did my best to give her a friendly rub on the head, the way I'd seen Kazoo do to other kids, although I ended up bonking her pretty hard. She didn't seem to care at all. In fact she giggled happily.

“Isn't that cute?” her mother cooed. “Kazoo loves you, too!”

While the parents snapped pictures, a line started to form. It was now past closing time. All the exhibits had shut down for the night, so I was the only thing left for people to see. The last batch of tourists filed out of Shark Odyssey, and every kid among them clamored to have their photo taken with me. Before long there were more than twenty families waiting to see me.

I didn't want to make any waves, so I dutifully stood for photos with everyone. But more and more people kept showing up. Some people didn't even know what they were lining up for; they simply saw a line and got in it, figuring it must be for something important. (This happened quite a lot at FunJungle.) I posed with one German family that seemed to think I was Yogi Bear. After a while, I lost track of how long I'd been standing there.

I was having my photo taken with a busload of Japanese tourists when Astros Cap finally emerged from Shark Odyssey again. He slipped out of the landscaping and headed for the park exit. There were still lots of people in line to meet me, but I had to go after him. Even though it was a direct violation of FunJungle character protocol, I spoke for Kazoo, using what I assumed was a cute, koala-like voice, “Sorry folks! The park's closed and I have to get home for dinner!”

Unfortunately, the tourists weren't so easily put off. As I tried to leave, several blocked my way. “Come on,” one father implored. “My kid's been waiting fifteen minutes to see you.”

“Sorry!” I chirped again. “I'm real hungry! I haven't had any eucalyptus since lunch!”

A child latched on to my leg. “Don't go, Kazoo! Please!”

Astros Cap was gaining ground. I didn't have any more time to be polite. I dropped the koala voice and used the gruffest one I could. “Let me go, kid! I've really got to pee.”

The kid released me, startled.

Several adults weren't quite as obliging. They all grabbed for me, but I shoved through them like a running back gunning for a touchdown. I knocked over at least two people with my giant ears, but I couldn't even stop to see if they were all right. Instead I ran after Astros Cap as fast as I could.

He was trying to fit in with the other tourists, so he was only walking and I was able to close the gap on him. I wasn't too far behind him when he suddenly ducked off the main path again.

He'd gone behind the Polar Pavilion. I rounded the corner after him.

This time, however, he wasn't heading inside the building.

Instead, he was waiting for me.

Astros Cap completely caught me
by surprise. Between the darkness and the Kazoo head, I could barely see as it was. He ambushed me easily, grabbing me by the fur and slamming me against the wall of the Polar Pavilion.

“Why are you following me?” he demanded. Because he was much taller then me, I couldn't see his face through the downward-angled mask. He had a strong Texan accent, though.