Big Game

by Stuart Gibbs

  Mom walked to the edge of the viewing platform and scanned the exhibit. “Someone ought to be here. There’s a clear shot at Rhonda’s house from here.”

  “There’s a guard,” Dad said, pointing. “See? He’s down in the exhibit.”

  I looked the way he was indicating. At first, I couldn’t make anything out in the shadows, but then I noticed some movement. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, a shape took form, someone cautiously slinking toward Rhonda’s house, a rifle slung across their back.

  Instead of relief, however, I felt worry. “Um, Dad. Are you sure that’s a guard? He looks like he’s trying not to be noticed.”

  “And he has a gun,” Mom said.

  “The guards aren’t armed?” Dad asked.

  “I don’t think so,” I replied.

  Dad stepped to the edge of the railing and yelled at the top of his lungs. “Hey!”

  The person in the exhibit froze, turned our way . . . and ran.

  “That’s no guard!” Mom cried. “That’s the hunter!”

  Dad was already moving. He climbed over the railing of the viewing platform and leaped down into the Asian Plains. Without even thinking about it, I started to follow.

  “No, Teddy!” Mom warned. “It’s dangerous in there. Stay up here and alert security. Your father and I will handle this.” Then she scrambled over the railing and dropped in as well.

  The hunter was racing toward the far side of the exhibit, where the park fence was, blending into the shadows more and more as he got farther away. Many of the antelope in the exhibit were now running as well, startled by the hunter’s sudden movement—and probably put on edge because Dad reeked of tiger, their number one predator. Antelope have acute senses of smell and hearing; even antelope on the far side of the Asian Plains were making calls of alarm.

  I didn’t have the direct number for park security, so I scanned the station for an emergency phone. There were red emergency phones all over FunJungle, but of course, now that I wanted one, I couldn’t see one anywhere.

  So I fished out my phone and dialed Summer.

  She answered on the third ring. “Wow. You just can’t get enough of me today.”

  “Are you with your father?” I asked.

  “Yes.” She sounded concerned by the tone of my voice. “We’re still in the car. Is something wrong?”

  “The hunter’s back. My parents scared him off, but they need help.”

  There were some shuffling noises as the phone switched hands. Then J.J. McCracken got on. “I heard what you said. I’m notifying Hoenekker right now. Where’s the hunter?”

  “In the Asian Plains. My parents are chasing him.”

  There was a sudden pained cry from my mother in the darkness. It sounded like she’d been hurt.

  “Where in the Asian Plains?” J.J. asked.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted, scanning the darkness. I’d lost sight of my parents and the hunter and couldn’t find them anymore.

  “Charlene!” Dad yelled. “Are you all right?”

  “I’ll be fine!” Mom yelled back, though I could hear the hurt in her voice. “Stay after him!”

  “Is the rhino all right?” J.J. asked.

  “For now,” I said. “I have to go.” I jammed the phone into my pocket and jumped over the railing into the Asian Plains.

  I wasn’t even aware I was doing it until I was dropping into the exhibit. I was thinking only about my mom. Then I landed badly and tumbled through the grass. I could feel the ground trembling beneath me from the thunder of hoofbeats and only then realized that I may have made a big mistake.

  I rolled to my feet quickly, scanning the grasslands for trouble. By now panic had spread through the entire antelope and deer populations. I could sense movement in the darkness throughout the exhibit, different herds scattering in different directions. The night air was alive with the rumble of their hooves on the ground. The loudest was coming from my left.

  I turned that way to find three nilgai coming right for me. Nilgai are the largest Asian antelope. From the viewing area above, they had never seemed too imposing, merely slightly larger than normal deer. But now that they were bearing down on me at a full gallop, they were far more frightening. They were more than six feet tall, with sharp horns and thickly muscled bodies. Getting trampled by one of them would have been like getting hit by a car.

  I scrambled out of their path toward a small tree, grabbing a low branch and hauling myself up as they ran by. They came so close, one’s horns scraped my thigh, leaving two thin gouges in my skin.

  Then they continued on, vanishing into the night, leaving only a cloud of dust behind.

  None of the other stampeding herds sounded close by, so I dropped to the ground again and called out, “Mom! Where are you?”

  “I’m all right!” she yelled. “Do not get into the exhibit! It’s too dangerous!”

  “Too late!” I yelled back. I’d gotten a good bead on her voice and headed that way. I went as fast as I could, but the ground was uneven and strewn with rocks, so I couldn’t quite run at full speed for fear of wiping out. I crested a small hill and nearly slammed into a stampede of chital deer. The chital were pretty small compared to many of the other animals in the paddock, but they were still bigger than me. It was like I’d suddenly turned the wrong way onto a one-way street. I curled up, tucking my head into my arms to avoid being gored by antlers. The chital swarmed around me, bumping me from side to side as they passed, and then faded into the night behind me.

  I continued onward, searching for a sign of either of my parents ahead. Unfortunately, it was hard to pick out their movements, because now everything was moving. All around me, the herds were on the run, giving the impression that the entire landscape was alive. There were so many hoofbeats, it was hard to separate them all, to tell which herds were running away and which were bearing down on me.

  Ahead, toward the back fence of the park, I thought I caught a glimpse of two men running among all the other shadows, but then they melted away again.

  “Teddy!” Mom’s voice came from surprisingly close by. I found her struggling out of the creek bed that rambled through the exhibit. In a month, after the spring rains, there would be two feet of water in it, but at the moment, it was almost dry, a mere trickle surrounded by steep banks. Mom was hobbling, putting as much weight as possible on her right leg, wincing every time she touched her left foot to the ground.

  I ran to her side and put my arm around her, taking her weight. “What happened?”

  Mom sagged against me, folding her left leg up under her like a flamingo. “I got knocked over by something. A sambar deer, I think. Then I fell down into the creek and twisted my ankle.”

  Though I wanted to follow after my father and the hunter, I had no choice but to turn back toward the exit. I could tell Mom was frustrated by this too, but she didn’t complain. With her injured, we were sitting ducks out there.

  We made our way back across the plains as quickly as we could, though that wasn’t very fast, given that we had only three working legs between us. Mom wasn’t very big, but she was still bigger than me, and it was tough to support her weight over the rocky, uneven ground.

  Luckily, most of the antelope and deer seemed to be calming by now, perhaps because Dad, with his reek of tiger, was out of range. Not nearly as many were racing about, but they were still on edge. I could sense them around us in the darkness, watching us carefully, ready to run—or possibly attack—at the slightest sign of danger. Occasionally, I caught a glimpse of their eyes reflected in the distant park lights, riveted on our progress.

  However, we didn’t see the gaurs until we almost ran into them.

  Gaurs are wild cattle from India. The ones in front of us were each more than six feet tall at the shoulder and weighed nearly a ton, with wide racks of horns set across their brows. Thanks to their dark fur, they had blended perfectly into the darkness. Mom and I might have slammed right into the lead female if she hadn’t given us a war
ning snort.

  We froze in fear.

  In the wild, gaur are usually shy and timid, running away from humans rather than at them, but we’d come upon a small herd of females with young calves, and the mothers were determined to protect their young. They had formed a wall, keeping the calves behind them and aiming their thick, sharp horns our way, prepared to gore—or trample—us at any provocation.

  “Back away slowly,” Mom warned me, in a voice barely above a whisper. “No sudden noises or movements.”

  I knew this already, but I didn’t bother arguing. Instead, I did exactly as she’d ordered. I took a few steps back, and Mom hopped along with me.

  The matriarch snorted again, letting us know she wasn’t quite ready to back down yet.

  We gingerly moved another few feet in reverse.

  The gaurs remained motionless as a row of statues.

  And then my cell phone rang.

  A few bars of music suddenly blared in the night. It wasn’t loud, but it was enough to startle the gaurs. They bellowed angrily, frightening a nearby herd of chital deer, which exploded out of the grass around us. Mom and I spun toward them in fright, a far-too-sudden movement, and the gaurs charged.

  “Run!” Mom shouted, and before I knew what was even happening, she’d shoved me away from her, removing herself as a burden so that I could escape. There was no way she could hold off their attack, though. Compared to the enormous cattle, she might as well have been made of paper. She was obviously hoping they’d be distracted by her and ignore me.

  The cattle charged toward her.

  “No!” I yelled.

  And then a pair of headlight beams swept across the plains, landing right on the herd. The cattle stopped at once, blinded by the lights but staring into them anyhow, trying to assess the new threat.

  An engine’s roar carried across the paddock. I was afraid to pull my gaze from the gaurs, so I couldn’t see the car, but from the sound, I could tell it was one of the FunJungle safari rovers.

  My phone was still ringing. Our confrontation with the gaurs felt like it had taken hours, but it had been only seconds. Now that I had a moment of calm, I recognized the ringtone. It was my father calling.

  Things were still too dicey to answer it, though. The gaurs remained on alert. Mom stayed frozen on one leg beside me, watching the cattle carefully for any sign of what they were about to do.

  The whole night seemed to light up as the headlights got closer. The rover skidded to a stop between us and the gaurs, kicking up a cloud of dust. The gaurs flinched but stayed put.

  Chief Hoenekker was behind the wheel. “Get in!” he yelled.

  Mom and I didn’t need to be told twice. I started back to help her, but she was already hopping toward the vehicle. We both dove inside, her in the front seat, me in the back, and Hoenekker slammed the pedal down. The rover lurched across the grass.

  The lead gaur bellowed angrily, then charged. The females behind her followed suit. One’s horn clanged off the rear of the rover as it sped away.

  Through the rear window, I watched the angry cattle follow us a few more steps, then pull up, convinced they had dispensed with the threat. They quickly hooked U-turns and returned to their calves.

  Hoenekker kept the pedal down anyhow. Normally, park vehicles were supposed to stick to designated dirt roads in the paddocks. Hoenekker had gone cross-country to rescue us, and now the uneven terrain was bouncing us around like popcorn kernels. Neither Mom nor I had had a chance to buckle up. I was nearly thrown to the floor.

  “Slow down!” Mom ordered. “Before you kill some innocent antelope!”

  Hoenekker glared at her but braked anyhow. “A ‘thanks for saving our lives’ might be nice.”

  Mom held his gaze a moment, then gave in. “Thanks for saving our lives. How’d you find us?”

  “Teddy called J.J. J.J. called me. Lucky for you, I hadn’t gone home yet tonight.”

  I pried my phone from my pocket and called my father back. I didn’t want him to worry about us.

  Hoenekker spotted one of the dirt roads to the right and veered toward it. “Where’s your husband?”

  “I don’t know,” Mom replied. “Last I saw, he was chasing the hunter toward the back fence.”

  “That was him calling,” I told them. “I’m trying him back now.” I flipped the phone to speaker so they could hear it ringing.

  Hoenekker glanced at Mom’s ankle. “You need to go to the hospital?”

  “I’ll be fine,” Mom told him.

  Dad finally answered the phone. “Where are you?” he asked. “Is everything all right?”

  “I’m with Mom in a rover,” I replied. “Chief Hoenekker’s driving. Where are you?”

  “Outside the park.”

  “What?” Mom asked. “How’d you get past the fence?”

  “Same way the hunter did. He laid a towel across the barbed wire and climbed right over.”

  The rover reached the dirt road in the exhibit and swerved onto it. It was a smoother ride than going over the grass had been, but not much. With every jounce over the ruts and bumps, Mom winced in pain.

  Hoenekker snatched the phone from me. “Any idea where that shooter is now?”

  “No,” Dad replied. “By the time I found his access point, he was long gone.”

  “So you lost him.” Hoenekker sighed, annoyed.

  “Yes,” Dad admitted. “I lost him.”

  “Meaning you just risked your dang fool lives for diddly-squat,” Hoenekker growled.

  “We saved Rhonda’s life!” I snapped.

  Hoenekker looked at me in the rearview mirror and narrowed his eyes. “Maybe,” he muttered. “But only for a little while.”

  LAKESIDE ESTATES

  My parents let me skip school the next day. After all the excitement in the Asian Plains, we’d had to spend hours relating what had happened to Hoenekker and a bunch of other security guys, so by the time we finally found the new location of our mobile home and got to bed, it was after midnight and I was exhausted. My parents were too. Dad thought maybe Mom should go to a hospital about her ankle, but she kept insisting she was fine; she took some painkillers and went right to bed. Dad said I deserved some rest after all I’d been through, so he told me to sleep in.

  I did. I might have slept all morning had I not been awakened by someone pounding on our front door. Our trailer was so poorly built that the entire thing trembled with each knock.

  I pried my eyes open and tried to find my alarm clock. Since we hadn’t been notified about the move of our trailer, we hadn’t packed our things beforehand. I didn’t have much stuff, but what I did own was scattered all over my room. It looked like my closet had blown up.

  “Answer the door, Teddy!” Marge hollered. “I know you’re in there!”

  I groaned and dragged myself out of bed. Our trailer’s heater was so awful, it was freezing inside. The moment my feet touched the cold, bare floor, I snapped awake. It was like sticking my toes in ice water.

  Marge started pounding on the door again. It felt like someone was jackhammering the house. “Teddy!” she roared. “Show yourself!”

  “I’m coming!” I yelled back. I dug some socks out of a pile of clothes in the middle of the room and found my alarm clock buried beneath it all. It was almost nine o’clock. I couldn’t believe I’d slept so late. At school, I’d have already been in second period.

  I glanced out the window. I couldn’t see Marge, but I could see her golf cart. There was only one bush anywhere near our front door, but Marge had managed to run into it.

  This was the first time I’d seen the new location of my home in daylight. Lakeside Estates didn’t look anywhere near as nice as Pete Thwacker had made it out to be. None of the landscaping or pathways he’d promised had been laid down yet. Our home sat in a large clearing, surrounded by bare slabs for the other trailers: a dozen cement rectangles looking bizarrely out of place in the woods.

  The so-called lake barely had any water in it, and w
hat little there was had frozen, so it was really only a patch of ice-encrusted mud.

  Marge kept banging on the door, apparently convinced this was the way to get me to move faster. Instead, I decided to take my time, knowing it would aggravate her. Maybe I’d get lucky and her head would explode from frustration.

  I slowly pulled on my jeans, shoes, and a sweatshirt. Through it all, Marge kept pounding away.

  It occurred to me that my parents must not be home. I’d expected that they might sleep in too, but if either one had been there, they surely would have told Marge to can it by now. Sure enough, there was a note from Mom on the breakfast table. “Went to work. Don’t try to shower. Water isn’t hooked up yet. Call when you wake up.”

  My cell phone was still in my pocket, set to silent mode. I pulled it out and found twenty-five texts from Summer about the previous night’s excitement. She’d texted me questions right up until midnight and apparently had thought of plenty more since then:

  How’s Rhonda?

  Is UR mom OK?

  Where R U 2day?

  I thought about taking the time to answer them all, but the trailer was trembling so much from Marge’s incessant thumping, I worried it might collapse. “I can hear you in there!” she yelled. “Open the door!”

  “Who is it?” I asked sweetly, simply to get under her skin.

  “You know darn well who it is!” Marge snapped, then added, “It’s Marge!”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “Open. The. Door!”

  “Why?”

  “So I can search your house.”

  “No.”

  “Your house is technically the property of FunJungle,” Marge growled. “I’m being nice, asking you to open it. If I wanted to, I could just kick the door down.”

  I didn’t challenge her on this. The door was so flimsy, a grasshopper could have kicked it down. It already appeared dented from Marge’s knocking.

  So I opened the door. Marge stormed right in, barreling past me, her face flushed as red as a uakari monkey’s. “You’ve really done it this time,” she told me, going right to our freezer and yanking it open. She seemed surprised to find it empty, save for a few bags of frozen vegetables, then wheeled on me. “Where is it?”