by Stuart Gibbs
Which was when the herring hit me.
It was an exceptionally large herring, and it caught me right in the chest.
Summer had finally managed to grab the tube and steady it, but not before realizing it was pointing directly at me. The herring hit me at full speed, hard enough to knock the wind out of me and throw me off balance. I stumbled backward, tripped over a chinstrap penguin—and fell into the water.
Penguins prefer their water very cold. At some places in the Antarctic, due to some interesting physics about ice and salt water, the ocean can actually be colder than freezing temperatures. The water in the exhibit wasn’t quite that frigid, but it was close enough. It felt like my whole body had been slapped. Every one of my muscles tensed at once. And if the cold wasn’t bad enough, I was also in a maelstrom of agitated penguins and half-eaten fish.
Many of the fish had been too big to eat in one gulp, so the penguins had torn them to bits instead, leaving clouds of white flesh and fish guts in the water. Penguins were darting through it all, gulping down what they could, moving far faster in the water than on land. It was like being surrounded by a swarm of fighter pilots, who dipped and whirled and corkscrewed around me.
My hip-length boots immediately filled with water and dragged me down, while Summer’s ski jacket became saturated and heavy as an anchor. I shrugged everything off as fast as I could. Luckily, the water wasn’t deep, so I quickly broke back through the surface.
Cindy was there, waiting for me, having finally turned off the fish cannon and waded through the penguins to my rescue. She grabbed my arms, hauled me back onto land, and wrapped her own parka around me to keep me from freezing solid. “Let’s get you warm,” she said, and hustled me toward the door.
Now that the cannon was off and the penguins had devoured all the loose fish, the birds had calmed down. The panic was over and they were now milling about, preening themselves as if nothing had happened.
I wasn’t doing as well. The chill of the water had already sunk into my bones. My legs were trembling so badly I needed both Summer and Cindy to steady me as we hurried through the exhibit.
“I’m so sorry,” Summer told me. “I didn’t mean to shoot you!”
“It’s n-n-not your f-f-fault,” I said through chattering teeth. “It w-w-was an accident.”
The door out of the exhibit was concealed behind a fake glacier. We passed through it into the keeper’s area. This wasn’t much warmer, but after the arctic temperatures I had just been subjected to, it felt like I had suddenly gone to the tropics.
Sanjay Budhiraja was there, holding a large blanket he’d found somewhere. Given the smell, I figured it had last been used to dry off a polar bear, but I didn’t care. It was warm. Sanjay draped it over my shoulders and asked nervously, “Are you all right?”
“Y-y-yes,” I said, shivering. “Just c-c-cold.”
Sanjay heaved a sigh of relief, then said, “I just want you to know, this was not an insurmountable problem. Zoom can make alterations to ensure this doesn’t happen again. And we can penguin-proof the intakes. . . .”
I suddenly realized there was another person in the room. She was a young adult—barely past college age, if that—and short but extremely fit. Her hair was cropped short, almost in a crew cut, and her nose was pierced. She wore a T-shirt and cargo shorts. There was something strangely familiar about her face, though I couldn’t tell what. She was sitting in Cindy’s chair, quietly observing everything.
Cindy seemed surprised by her presence too; she didn’t appear to know the woman. “Are you with Zoom too?” Cindy asked.
“Zoom?” the woman asked, confused. “I don’t even know what that is.”
“It’s a company that makes fish cannons,” Sanjay said, as if that would make sense to anyone.
The mystery woman gave him a confused look, then told us, “I’m Lily Deakin. Doc’s daughter.”
I suddenly understood why she looked so familiar; she looked like Doc, the head vet at FunJungle. Not exactly like him, which would have been weird. But she was definitely the younger and more feminine version of him.
I had heard of Lily before, but never met her. Or even seen a photo of her.
Summer had apparently heard of her too. “Lily Deakin?” she repeated. “The ecoterrorist?”
“I’m not a terrorist,” Lily said flatly. “I’m a warrior for animal rights. I fight for those who can’t fight for themselves.”
“What are you doing in my office?” Cindy asked.
Lily shifted her gaze to me. “I’m looking for you, Teddy. Something terrible has happened, and I need your help.”
2
THE ACTIVIST
“I thought you were in jail,” Summer said to Lily.
“No one ever pressed charges,” Lily told her. “But I’ve been lying low for a while, just to be on the safe side.”
We had left the Polar Pavilion so that Cindy and Sanjay could get things cleaned up before the park opened. Cindy still thought the fish cannon had potential, but it obviously needed some tweaking before it could be used in the exhibit.
We were following Adventure Road, the main pedestrian route that looped around FunJungle, not heading anywhere in particular. Even though the park wouldn’t open for another fifteen minutes, there were still dozens of staff members around, making sure everything was in pristine condition before the tourists arrived: Every railing was polished; every piece of trash was cleaned up; truckloads of food were delivered to the animals before the concourses got too crowded to drive the trucks through. On that day, there were even more workers than usual: FunJungle’s one-year anniversary was in four days and there was going to be a huge party to celebrate. A lot of decorating was underway. Work crews were hanging bunting, planting fresh flowers, and scrubbing the public bathrooms until they gleamed.
“So where have you been?” I asked Lily.
“Antarctica,” she replied. “I did a couple months with Sea Shepherd, fighting illegal whaling.”
A year before, Lily had been a member of a radical animal-rights group called the Animal Liberation Front and had attacked a meat-packing plant in West Texas. She and the ALF had believed that the plant was treating the animals inhumanely, and tried to burn the place down. From what I understood, they had failed pretty badly, only destroying a trash heap and leaving ample evidence that they were behind the crime. Several of the ALF members had gone to jail, but Doc had cut some sort of deal with J.J. McCracken to get his daughter off. I was pretty sure Doc was embarrassed about the whole thing. Doc was a gruff, taciturn guy to begin with, but he was even more guarded when it came to Lily. I hadn’t heard him mention her name in months.
Sea Shepherd was a less radical animal-rights group than the ALF, though you had to be extremely committed to animal rights to join it. They sent boats out to prevent ships from killing whales or capturing dolphins in international waters; its crews could be out on the sea in frigid climates for months at a time. I had heard it was a rough life, but a boat in Antarctica sounded like an awfully good place to lie low.
“Is there a problem with Sea Shepherd?” I asked.
“No,” Lily replied. “I’m not with them anymore. I’ve done enough time on boats to last me the rest of my life.”
It was already hot outside. Summer and I had ditched our sopping ski jackets, hanging them on a railing in the employee area behind the Polar Pavilion. I was now only wearing my damp clothes, but they were drying rapidly in the blazing sun.
“So what do you need our help with?” Summer asked.
Lily gave her a wary look. “I was really only looking for Teddy. I understand he’s solved a few crimes around here.”
“With Summer’s help,” I said quickly. I had noticed Summer was slightly offended by the idea that I had acted alone. “I couldn’t have done any of it without her.”
“Okay, so you both have solved some crimes,” Lily said. “You figured out who murdered the hippo and who kidnapped the koala and who stole the panda. .
. .”
“And we busted a rhino-horn smuggling operation too,” Summer added proudly.
“Well, I have a crime that needs solving,” Lily said.
Summer looked to me, her blue eyes gleaming with excitement, already prepared to accept the case.
I wasn’t quite as eager. “We’re not really detectives,” I told Lily. “We’re just kids who’ve gotten wrapped up in things.”
Summer obviously wasn’t pleased with my lack of enthusiasm. She turned to Lily and said, “But we still solved the cases.”
“Even so,” I added cautiously. “If this is a serious crime, you ought to be going to the police. Not us.”
“The police don’t think it’s a crime,” Lily said.
That struck a chord with me. The very first time I had gotten involved with a case at FunJungle, it had been because the police hadn’t taken the crime seriously. Henry the Hippo, FunJungle’s former mascot, had been murdered, but when I called to report it, the policeman I talked to thought I was just a dumb kid crying wolf.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Do you know who Lincoln Stone is?” Lily said.
“Of course,” I said. “He’s like the second-most famous person who lives around here, after Summer’s dad.”
“And he’s a jerk,” Summer put in. “A huge one. He tried to keep FunJungle from being built.”
Lincoln Stone was a huge media personality who had a radio show, a TV show, and multiple bestselling books. I hadn’t watched or listened to him much, but his basic premise seemed to be that everything the US government did was wrong. He was always complaining about something the government was doing, and millions of people tuned in every day to hear about it. Despite his hatred for the government, Lincoln always claimed to be the most patriotic American there was. He often dressed up like George Washington or Abraham Lincoln to deliver speeches about how disgusted they would have been by what our country had become, and the set of his TV show was festooned with American flags, portraits of the Founding Fathers, and stuffed bald eagles.
Lincoln had started out small, delivering his rants on YouTube and a tiny talk-radio station in southern Mississippi. He was quite a showman, and he seemed to legitimately believe what he was saying, even when it didn’t make any sense. (Dad had often remarked that “Lincoln Stone is often wrong but never in doubt.”) Lincoln had built a devoted following, which had led to his getting a show on a national cable channel. Lincoln Stone Tells the Truth had quickly become a hit, and suddenly, Lincoln was influential and rich. Shortly afterward, he had bought a large ranch in the Texas Hill Country (“where real Americans live”) and moved his TV recording studio to San Antonio.
“FunJungle might be the one thing Lincoln and I actually agree on,” Lily said, looking around the park with obvious distaste. “This place is nothing but a huge prison for animals.”
“It is not a prison!” Summer said sharply.
“Really?” Lily asked. “So all these animals aren’t here against their will?”
“Your father doesn’t seem to think it’s so bad,” Summer replied. “My daddy pays him plenty to work here.”
It seemed like the conversation was taking a bad turn, so I intervened. “Lincoln Stone didn’t fight FunJungle for environmental reasons. He hates environmentalists. He only tried to stop this park from being built because he lives close by and didn’t want all the tourists around.”
“That’s true,” Lily admitted, dropping the argument.
Summer was obviously still annoyed, though. She kept glaring at Lily as we walked. “Stone cost my father a ton in lawyers’ fees. And he still keeps suing every time Daddy tries to build anything. Like that.” She pointed toward the back fence of the park, where the newest section of FunJungle, the Wilds, was under construction.
Lincoln Stone’s lawsuits might have inconvenienced J.J. McCracken, but they hadn’t slowed construction down much. Unlike the rest of FunJungle, the Wilds had no wildlife exhibits; it was all theme park rides, designed to lure tourists more interested in thrills than animals. It was going up with startling speed, thanks to the fact that J.J. McCracken owned a construction company and had made this project a priority. The Raging Raft Ride, a course of fake rapids built into a manmade mountain, was already mostly completed and loomed in the distance beyond the fence. We could see hundreds of workers scrambling all over it, looking like ants on an anthill.
Lily glared hatefully at the enormous construction project, like she was looking at something odious. Then she turned her back on it, continuing toward Carnivore Canyon. “Anyhow, Lincoln Stone claims that last night, a mountain lion ate his dog.”
Summer and I were both caught off guard by this statement. Summer spoke up first. “A cougar ate King?”
“You know his dog’s name?” Lily asked, surprised.
Even I knew about King, though, and I had barely ever seen Lincoln’s show. “King is Lincoln’s golden retriever. He was crazy about that dog.”
“Lincoln talks about King all the time,” Summer replied, then slipped into an imitation of Lincoln Stone’s deep Southern accent. “King’s the best dog there ever was. King’s smarter than that pinhead we call a president. King could run this country better than anyone in Congress. King could do open heart surgery if there weren’t laws against letting dogs be doctors.”
“Well, King’s dead,” Lily said flatly. “He was killed last night.”
“By a mountain lion?” I repeated. “I didn’t even know mountain lions lived around here.”
“There used to be lots of them in this area,” Lily said. “Back before humans started tearing down every last tree to build shopping malls and golf courses and theme parks. They were all over Texas. That’s why the University of Houston’s mascot is the cougar. Heck, their range used to cover almost the entire United States. But they’ve been eradicated almost everywhere. I thought they were all wiped out in this area long ago. But I guess there’s at least one left. For now.”
I frowned, feeling embarrassed for not knowing any of this. I had spent the first ten years of my life in the Congo in Africa, where I had tried to learn everything I could about the local wildlife. And now I’d been in Texas over a year without even hearing about the mountain lions. We were passing Carnivore Canyon at the moment, and it occurred to me that I probably knew far more about tigers—which lived on the opposite side of the earth—than I did about an animal that lived right outside my door.
On the big wide lawn in front of Carnivore Canyon, an outdoor stage was being erected. This was the largest open space at FunJungle, so it was going to be where most of the celebrations would take place for the anniversary party. FunJungle’s publicity department had revealed some of the events, like performances by famous local musicians and rare chances to get close to exotic animals, but they also had hinted there would be lots of surprises as well.
“What’s all this have to do with us?” Summer asked Lily.
“I’m getting to that,” Lily answered. “Whenever there’s an incident like this, the US Department of Fish and Wildlife gets called in to investigate. I have a good friend there, and he was the one who got the call last night.”
“A close friend like how?” Summer inquired. “Like he’s one of your fellow activists?”
“No,” Lily clarified. “He’s not an activist like me. But he’s a person who cares a lot about animals. Which makes sense, given that he works at Fish and Wildlife. Anyhow, he went out to Lincoln Stone’s house, and while there was plenty of evidence that a mountain lion ate this dog, he saw a few things that were suspicious, too.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“It’d probably be better if you saw them for yourself.” Lily stopped near the Asian plains portion of SafariLand and stared out at a herd of muntjac deer. “I’d like you to come out to the scene of the crime, meet my friend, and hear what he has to say. Because if he’s right, then something really strange is going on.”
We stepped to the side of the r
oad as a flatbed truck rumbled past. Not long before, it had been stacked high with bales of hay, but now all of that had been delivered to SafariLand and the truck was heading back to the garage. A few stray pieces of hay fluttered in the air in the truck’s wake.
“How strange?” I asked. “Are you saying your friend doesn’t think the mountain lion killed this dog?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Lily answered. “My friend thinks someone else killed it and pinned it on the lion.”
“Someone framed a mountain lion for a murder?” Summer asked, astonished.
“Yes,” Lily said.
I gaped at her, dumbfounded as well. “That’s crazy.”
“That’s exactly what my friend’s boss said,” Lily told me. “She doesn’t believe it. Or maybe she’s turning a blind eye for some reason. Which is basically condemning the mountain lion to death.”
“How?” I asked. We all started walking again, moving along the edge of SafariLand.
“Normally, you can’t hunt mountain lions,” Lily explained. “They’re protected under the Endangered Species Act. But if one gets too close to civilization and starts causing trouble, then it can be deemed a nuisance and the ban on hunting can be waived. Lincoln Stone is very upset about his dog, and he’s already made it clear that he’s going to petition for the lion to be put down. He wants revenge.”
“So the lion could be killed even if it’s innocent?” Summer asked, horrified.
“Not if we can prove it was framed,” Lily said. “That’s what I was hoping you could help with. If we find out who really killed the dog, then we can save the lion.”
I looked at my feet, unsure what to do. I was certain my parents wouldn’t want me getting involved in another mystery: Each of my previous four had ended up putting me in danger. At the same time, I knew they’d be mortified to hear that an innocent lion might be killed—and that the proper authorities weren’t even going to investigate. My gut instinct was to help, but I was concerned about my own safety as well. I didn’t want to end up in danger again. Investigating the murder of a dog didn’t sound hazardous, but maybe I was wrong about that.