Poached (31 page)

We heard Bubba and Marge scrambling somewhere back in the junkyard, but Vance had gotten a huge jump on them.
He quickly scaled the fence and leaped to the ground. Now the only thing standing between him and escape was me and my parents.

Before we even knew we were doing it, we were running to stop him. Mom and Dad flanked him on both sides, while I ended up facing him head on.

Vance froze, looking from one of us to the next, unsure what to do. He no longer seemed tough and menacing to me. Instead he seemed like a scared, desperate kid. There were a lot of new scratches on him, including a slash of claw marks across his face.

Kazoo was thrashing about in the backpack, screeching and howling.

“There's no point in running,” Dad told Vance. “There's nowhere you can go.”

“All we want is Kazoo,” Mom said, trying to sound as soothing as possible. “His life is in danger. Just hand him over and we'll tell the police you cooperated.”

Vance relaxed for a moment, as though ready to give himself up.

But then Marge and Bubba burst out of the garage and charged toward him. “Get him!” Marge howled.

Vance bolted. As I was the smallest and weakest of the people boxing him in, he came right at me. Dad and Mom grabbed for him, but he dodged them.

Without really thinking about it, I planted myself in his path. “Stop!” I yelled.

“Move it, loser!” Vance yelled back.

Although it only took Vance a second to reach me, a hundred thoughts went through my head. I considered getting out of the way, but decided against it. Every moment still counted for the koala. So I stood my ground, even though Vance was much bigger than me and coming on like a freight train. My father's advice about how to deal with bullies came back to me. Just pop him in the nose, he'd said. I'd never hit anyone in my life, but when I thought about all the things Vance had done to me—harassing me and threatening me with swirlies and framing me for a crime he'd committed—not to mention all the mean things he'd done to Xavier and dozens of other kids, and how he'd even threatened to hurt Violet if she told the police what he'd done, and how he'd been so rough with Kazoo when he'd stolen the koala and probably had been even rougher over the past few days . . . the next thing I knew, my hand had tightened into a fist, and it was swinging right toward Vance's face.

I connected harder than I expected because Vance was running right at me. He could have gone around, but his inner bully had kicked in. He wasn't merely trying to get away. He was trying to flatten me in the process. I don't think it ever occurred to him that I might try to fight back.

I caught Vance right on the chin, so hard that his teeth clacked. His head snapped back and he wobbled on his heels. For a moment he stared at me in shock, as though unable to believe that I'd punched him. And then he pitched forward, passing out on the ground at my feet.

Mom and Dad stared at him for a moment. Then Dad turned to Mom and grinned. “I told you that would work,” he said.

Mom sighed, but then stole a glance at me, and I could see that despite her best intentions she was actually proud of what I'd done. She quickly turned her attention to Kazoo.

Luckily, Vance had collapsed face-first, so he hadn't landed on the koala, which was still thrashing about in the backpack.

“It's all right, Kazoo,” Mom cooed softly. “You're safe now. We're here to help.”

To my surprise, Kazoo calmed quickly, soothed by Mom's voice. Mom unfastened the clasps on the pack, and the koala poked his head out.

He wasn't in good shape. He'd lost a lot of weight in the last few days. His hair was matted and dirty, and a few patches had fallen out. He shivered in the cold. It seemed he'd used the last of his energy trying to fight his way out of the backpack. Now he simply collapsed on his side. He didn't even try to fight as Mom picked him up and wrapped him in her jacket.

“Is he going to be all right?” I asked.

“Yes,” Mom said. “Thanks to you.”

Dad put an arm around my shoulders. When Mom's back was turned, he winked and whispered, “Great punch, kiddo. Trust me, that guy's never gonna bother you again.”

Marge and Bubba arrived, gasping for breath after their brief run. Marge looked like she was about to lay into me for getting involved in police business, but before she could, Mom said, “We need to get Kazoo to the animal hospital at FunJungle as fast as possible.”

“Of course,” Bubba agreed. Then he turned to Marge and threw her his keys. “Take my car. I'll stay here with Vance. Get the Fitzroys and the koala back to FunJungle, pronto.”

Marge wasn't happy about being ordered to chauffeur us, but even she knew it was pointless to argue. “All right,” she grumbled.

“Come on,” Mom said to me, motioning toward the police car.

“I don't need to go back to school?” I asked.

“I think you've earned a day off,” Dad said.

As we headed for the car, my fellow students arrived in force. They all swarmed around us, expressing concern for Kazoo and gaping at Vance Jessup.

“We saw you deck Vance!” Xavier crowed. “That was amazing!”

Lots of other kids echoed this. Dozens who had never even bothered to introduce themselves to me now shook my hand and patted me on the back.

I pushed through them all toward the police car. “I have to go,” I told Xavier. “See you Monday?”

“You bet,” he grinned.

As I reached the car, Violet Grace emerged from the crowd. “How's Kazoo?” she asked.

“He'll be all right,” I told her.

Violet sighed with relief, then glanced at Vance's prone body. “Do you still have my phone number?” she asked.

I paused, halfway into the police car. “Yes.”

The cheerleader gave me a shy smile. “Then call me sometime,” she said.

KoalaVille came down even faster
than it had gone up.

Doc Deakin, the head vet at FunJungle, had done a miraculous job of quickly nursing Kazoo back to health, but that was of little comfort to the Australians. They had already been furious about the koala's theft. When the entire story was revealed—that FunJungle hadn't properly installed the security cameras in the exhibit, that a keeper hadn't locked the door, and worst of all that no one had noticed the koala's disappearance for more than a day—FunJungle's contract to display Kazoo was immediately revoked. Within twenty-four hours a team of official “koala ambassadors” arrived to take Kazoo back home to Australia. To J.J. McCracken's dismay, they still charged him the full five million dollars he'd agreed to for six months of koala rental.

And so, on a chilly, slate-gray day only a week after Kazoo had been recovered, my parents and I stood on the hill above KoalaVille, watching a demolition crew flatten the koala exhibit as quickly as possible.

“It's not a bad exhibit space,” I said as the bulldozers churned toward it. “Couldn't they have put another animal in it?”

“Of course,” Mom said. “But everyone would still think of it as Kazoo's old home—for a while, at least. And J.J. McCracken doesn't want that.”

“The longer KoalaVille stands, the longer it reminds people of Kazoo,” Dad added. “And Kazoo is a pretty big failure for FunJungle.”

I nodded understanding. Under Pete Thwacker's direction, anything with Kazoo on it had been removed from FunJungle as quickly as possible. Banners had been taken down. Park maps were reprinted. The bazaar was packed up and, under the auspices of charity, thousands of Kazoo dolls, T-shirts, and other merchandise were shipped off to the developing world and distributed to poor people who didn't have enough toys, clothes, or koala-themed snow globes.

Luckily for FunJungle, at least the Kazoo story had a happy ending: The koala hadn't died. And while the press had a field day with the theft, they—and the public—never learned about the
real
disaster that had occurred that week: the sabotage of Shark Odyssey. Pete Thwacker had done an
incredible job keeping a lid on the story, and perhaps more importantly, not a single shark had been hurt. However, it would be months before the tank could open again. All the sharks had been moved to a different facility while the tank was drained and the glass tube was rebuilt. Meanwhile, park engineers were dreaming up a few new bells and whistles that could be added to bolster the story that Shark Odyssey was merely closed “to enhance the viewing experience.”

In the meantime, Hank the Tank was in custody—as was Freddie Malloy, who the police had caught at the San Antonio airport, trying to board a plane to Mexico. J.J. McCracken was now quietly pressing charges against Walter Ogilvy and the Nautilus Corporation. Ogilvy was actually suing back, claiming that placing Hank in a room with an angry, poo-throwing chimpanzee was illegal coercion, and therefore his confession had been given under duress. Since no one had apparently ever used a chimpanzee to extract a confession before, it was probably going to be a long time before the case was settled. “It might even go all the way to the Supreme Court,” Dad had joked. “Hank the Tank versus Furious George and his flying feces.”

As my parents and I watched, KoalaVille collapsed like a house of cards under the bulldozer. Within seconds, Kazoo's home was gone.

Seeing this bothered me more than I'd thought it would.
I turned away—and noticed someone else had come to watch the demolition.

Kristi Sullivan stood by herself uphill from us. The view was much better where we were, but Kristi had been avoiding my family. Or maybe it was just me. Mom said Kristi was still terribly embarrassed about her role in Kazoo's theft—and how all her mistakes had ended up implicating me. Now she seemed like she was on the verge of tears.

“Is Kristi going to be fired?” I asked.

“No.” Mom sounded annoyed. “Though, thankfully, she's not going to be a keeper anymore. Instead Pete Thwacker transferred her to public relations. He claims she has some attributes that would make her a strong asset in dealing with the press.”

“What's that mean?” I asked.

“That she's pretty,” Dad explained.

Mom frowned at the very thought of this. “If that girl had been doing her job, Kazoo would never have been stolen in the first place. If that koala had died, it would have been her fault as much as Vance's. Any other zoo would have sacked her. But here they give her a promotion.”

I looked toward Kristi again and caught her watching me. She quickly turned away, not wanting to meet my gaze. Then she pulled the hood of her parka over her head and hurried away.

Although Mom was obviously angry at Kristi, I didn't feel
that way toward her. Yes, she'd messed up, but she hadn't done anything wrong on purpose. I was still more upset with Marge, who'd been so determined to arrest me that she'd never bothered looking for the real thief. To my relief, Tracey Boyd also shared this opinion. In fact she was livid at Marge for botching the investigation. Marge wasn't going to be fired either, but she was getting demoted to shoplifting patrol while someone with actual crime-fighting experience was brought in to run park security.

Meanwhile Arthur Koenig
had
been fired. I'd been right: He was the one who had stolen—and then sold—the photos of the tiger cubs. This was a violation of his contract, and so FunJungle didn't even have to give him two weeks' notice. Security just showed up at his office and forcibly removed him from the park.

Most importantly, Vance Jessup had also gotten the punishment he deserved: twelve months in a juvenile detention facility. Which meant he wouldn't be bothering me again for a long time.

With Vance gone, TimJim had stopped bullying me—and everyone else—as well. Maybe they were just nicer without Vance around. Or maybe they'd been shamed after getting trounced by Dashiell and Ethan. Or maybe they were simply trying to be on their best behavior; Bubba Stackhouse was still figuring out if he could arrest them as accomplices in the koala theft, since they hadn't told the police about it.

All in all, school had become significantly better since I'd solved the crime and helped catch Vance Jessup. Maybe that
was why I wasn't angry at Kristi Sullivan; while she'd unwittingly gotten me tangled up in the whole Kazoo business, I'd ultimately benefited from it. Lots of kids wanted to be friends with me now—and since Xavier was my friend, they wanted to hang out with him, too. Dashiell and Ethan were encouraging me to try out for the school soccer team in the spring. And Violet Grace now seemed to be interested in
me
, rather than just my connection to Summer McCracken.

At Dad's urging, I'd called Violet. (“When the head cheerleader asks you to call her, you call her,” he'd advised.) But I didn't just do it because she was cute and popular. She was also really nice and turned out to be much less superficial than I'd originally thought. I'd been nervous on the call at first, but it had gone pretty well. At one point I'd mentioned that I could give her a private tour of FunJungle, and she'd jumped at the chance. She was going to come do it the next Sunday. I didn't really think of it as a date, but Xavier did. I think he was more excited than I was.