by Stuart Gibbs
“How long do you think that will take?”
“Probably a while. I’ll bet there’s millions of fingerprints in the database.”
I glanced back toward the mobile unit doors, wondering how long we had until the FBI realized they were on a wild-goose chase. “We should probably get out of here.”
“Hey!” Summer exclaimed. “There’s Xavier!”
She pointed to the computer that was live-streaming the news. Xavier was now talking to the reporter. He was still wearing his tuxedo and panda ears.
Despite the fact that she’d just warned me not to touch anything, Summer turned the sound up on the computer.
“. . . so of course I’m disappointed,” Xavier was saying. “I mean, I’ve been waiting months to see Li Ping. My whole life, I’ve wanted to see a panda. And now some jerk steals her? I hope that FunJungle and the police find her quickly and that she’s okay.”
The report cut to a grown man who was wearing a panda costume and had his face painted black and white. He was bawling. “Li Ping never did anything to anyone!” he sobbed. “Whoever stole her ought to go to jail for life!”
I clicked off the sound and checked my watch nervously. “We really ought to leave now.”
As I said this, however, the fingerprint display on the other computer stopped running. A single enlarged print appeared on the right-hand side, along with the heading “99.99% Match.” A name appeared beneath it.
As much as I wanted to get out of there, even I couldn’t resist seeing who the fingerprint belonged to. Summer and I both returned to the computer, seeking the identity of whoever had sent the ransom note.
The name on the screen was Carlos Edward Gomez.
“Ever heard of him?” Summer asked.
“No,” I said.
“Me either.” Summer started to type something on the computer.
I caught her arm. “Don’t start messing with anything. We don’t have time.”
“Don’t be such a spaz.” Summer pulled away from me. “This won’t take long. We’ll be gone way before the FBI gets back.”
A half second later, the FBI came back. The rear doors of the truck flew open. The sunlight from outside was blinding, casting the person who stood there in silhouette, but I could easily recognize the shape as that of Molly O’Malley. “I thought I made it clear that the two of you were to keep your distance from this investigation,” she said coldly.
Summer was caught off-guard, but she recovered incredibly fast, spinning a lie with amazing skill. “We were looking for you!” she exclaimed. “Teddy and I had some ideas about this case and thought you should hear them. So we came down here, but no one was around . . .”
“Spare me the lies. I’m not an idiot.” Molly grabbed both Summer and me by the collars and marched us out the door. “I know you two were in cahoots with my sister. She told me everything.”
Outside, Marge stood between two of the FBI agents. Her arms were wrenched behind her back, handcuffed.
“She did?” Summer asked, looking betrayed.
“Actually, she claimed this was all your idea,” Molly told me. “But I figure that’s a lie as well.”
“It is.” I glared at Marge. “She’s the one who made us do this.”
“How?” Molly demanded.
Marge met my eyes. There was a threat in them. If I revealed her blackmail methods to Molly, Marge could still release the footage she had of Summer out of spite. And frankly, I was nervous about saying Summer had shoplifted right after Molly had just nabbed us for trespassing; I didn’t want her to think Summer was a serial troublemaker. So, instead, I replied, “She just said she’d get us in trouble.”
Molly stared at me for another few seconds. She seemed to suspect there was more to my story, but it was impossible to tell with her eyes hidden behind her sunglasses. Finally, she said, “It is a crime to tamper with evidence in a federal investigation. Since it appears you were coerced into this, I’m going to let you off with a final warning, but if I catch you anywhere near this crime scene again, I will have both of you arrested.” She shifted her gaze to Summer and added, “I don’t care who your daddy is. Is that understood?”
All of Summer’s usual bravado vanished. “Yes,” she said meekly.
Molly looked back at me.
“I understand,” I said. “Is Marge under arrest?”
Molly said, “My sister not only participated in this boneheaded scheme, but she also discharged a firearm in a public area. I don’t take behavior like that lightly.”
I couldn’t help but smile. I’d been handcuffed by Marge myself, so it was nice to see her getting a taste of her own medicine. Now that she’d been busted by her own sister, I figured she’d back off forcing me to investigate this crime. And maybe Summer would back off as well. Meaning I could go back to my normal life and stay out of trouble.
I couldn’t have been more wrong. My troubles were just getting started.
THE RALLY
Molly O’Malley found an extremely effective way to guarantee that Summer and I couldn’t do any more investigating: She called our parents.
They were all very upset with us. Even when we protested that Marge had coerced us.
“Since when have you ever done anything Marge wanted you to do?” Mom asked me. “You could have told us what she was doing, but you chose not to.”
“It’s not that simple,” I said, but she and Dad were too annoyed to listen to any more.
J.J. had his driver take Summer home for the rest of the day. Mom brought me to her office at Monkey Mountain, then took my phone away so that I couldn’t communicate with Summer—or do anything else online—and ordered me to read a book instead.
I tried. However, I couldn’t focus. As much as I wanted to steer clear of the panda investigation, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Too many questions were tumbling around in my mind: Who was Carlos Edward Gomez? Had the bad guys really been able to kidnap Li Ping and Doc from a moving truck without anyone on board noticing? Despite Greg’s insistence that it could be done, it still seemed like an insanely elaborate heist to me. Who had the skills, know-how, and funding to pull off something like that? Or was there another way it could have been done? Where was Li Ping? Did Doc know more than he was letting on? What would happen to the panda if J.J. didn’t deliver the ransom money—or if he tried but things went wrong?
I also had questions about the incident at Dolphin Adventure: Had someone really been teaching the dolphins to steal people’s bathing suits—and if so, why? Whose bathing suit had been left behind in the dolphin tank? And why was there tuna fish in the pockets?
It turned out, I wasn’t the only one thinking about this. Around three in the afternoon, Olivia Putney called my mother. Mom spoke to her for a few minutes, growing more and more surprised.
Once she’d hung up, I asked, “What was that all about?”
“Olivia wants to know if you can help her figure out who’s been getting into the tank at Dolphin Adventure.”
“Can I? Even though it’s investigating something?”
Mom thought about this for a bit, drumming her fingers on her desk. “I suppose. It doesn’t sound as dangerous as dealing with kidnappers . . . and it seems like it’s a bit of an emergency.”
“Why?”
“Olivia said you had”—she paused to choose her words carefully—“an incident this morning with Snickers.”
I could feel the blood rush to my face as I turned red. In all the excitement with Li Ping, I had forgotten to tell Mom about the mishap at Dolphin Adventure. “Yes.”
“Well, they just had a similar incident with another dolphin. And a paying guest.”
“Uh-oh. What happened?”
“Twix tried to pull his bathing suit off during a session. But she wasn’t quite as good at it as Snickers. She only got the bathing suit down to the man’s knees. The man didn’t like it, though, so he punched Twix. And then, Twix bit him. On the bottom.”
I laughed, despite myse
lf.
“It’s not funny,” Mom said.
“Actually, it kind of is.”
Now Mom broke, laughing too. Then she struggled to regain control. “The trainers had to close Dolphin Adventure. And it’s going to stay closed until they can figure out how the dolphins learned to do this and then teach them not to do it. On the heels of the whole panda crisis, they have a lot of angry guests. So they want to get to the bottom of this quickly.”
“Before the dolphins get to the bottom of anyone else?” I asked.
Mom snorted with laughter. “Exactly. Anyhow, if you’d like to help . . .”
“Definitely!” I sprang from my chair, excited to have an excuse to get out of the office. “Can I have my phone back?”
Mom gave me a suspicious look.
“Just in case you need to reach me,” I explained. “Not to talk to Summer.”
Mom took my phone from her desk and handed it to me. “I want you to go right to the dolphin tank and that’s it,” she said. “I hate to say this, but I’m going to have to check in with Olivia. If I find out you’ve gone anywhere near the FBI investigation . . .”
“I don’t want anything to do with that,” I told her. “I swear.” I shoved the phone into my pocket, gave her a hug, and went straight to Dolphin Adventure.
With only one tiny detour.
Panda Palace wasn’t far out of the way. I’d meant to avoid it, but a commotion there grabbed my attention. A large crowd of PandaManiacs had gathered in front of the exhibit, making a scene. So I swung past to get a better look.
The guy in the panda costume and face paint from the news was standing atop a picnic bench, making a speech to the crowd. Most of them were wearing black and white, and lots of them were recording him with their phones. “We can’t just sit back and let this happen!” the man told them. “I know it seems like there’s nothing we can do, but that’s not true! We can appeal to the common decency of these villains who stole Li Ping and implore them to bring her back!”
A cheer went up from the crowd. The man in the panda costume started to chant, “Bring Li Ping back! Bring Li Ping back!” The other PandaManiacs joined in.
I spotted Emily Sun and the other people from the Chinese Consulate in the distance. The four old people in traditional Chinese clothing appeared to be quietly conducting some sort of ceremony. Maybe they had decided to go ahead with sanctifying the exhibit, or maybe they were praying for Li Ping’s safe return. The men held copper bowls with water in them, which they sprinkled on the exhibit with their fingers, like they were anointing it. Meanwhile, the women were spreading flower blossoms across the pavement.
Emily Sun wasn’t paying any attention to the ceremony. She was watching the rally instead. The whole scene appeared to make her angry.
A keeper was standing nearby, keeping a wary eye on the proceedings. Her name was Chloé Dolkart, and she’d originally worked at Monkey Mountain but had recently transferred to take care of the panda. Chloé was an extremely intelligent and enthusiastic keeper, though today she was obviously nervous. It should have been an extremely busy day for her, but now, since the panda was missing, she didn’t seem to have anything to do. She noticed me and came over. “Hey, Teddy.”
“Hi, Chloé. When did all this start?”
“About fifteen minutes ago. I think they all felt like they needed to do something. They were all very upset when Li Ping didn’t come on exhibit. And then word of the panda-napping got out.”
“Panda-napping?”
“That’s what they’re calling it. Instead of your standard kidnapping. So finally, Crazy Panda Guy there got up on the table and started shouting.”
While the crowd continued to chant “Bring Li Ping back!” Crazy Panda Guy started imploring them like a Sunday preacher. “Lift up your voices, my friends! Let the world hear us! Let those horrible people know we will not sit quietly while our panda has been taken from us!”
The rally was growing bigger. People began to wander over from other exhibits. The actors dressed as Eleanor Elephant, Kazoo the Koala, and Li Ping began to clap along—although their job descriptions prevented them from making any vocalizations.
I wondered if the person in the official Li Ping costume should even be there, since the actual Li Ping was missing. It seemed like a bad idea to me, but maybe whoever was in charge of the actors hadn’t felt the same way. They were still letting someone dress up as Kazoo the Koala, even though the real Kazoo had returned to Australia months before; apparently, the guests enjoyed seeing someone dressed like a koala, even if there wasn’t a real koala around.
“Have you heard anything about Li Ping?” Chloé asked hopefully.
“Not really,” I said. I figured anything I’d learned from poking around the FBI investigation ought to be kept a secret.
“Oh,” Chloé said. “I was hoping that since, you know, you’ve been involved in so many other cases here . . .”
“Not this time. The FBI is handling it.”
“Well, I hope they know what they’re doing. Pandas aren’t easy to take care of.”
“I’m sure we’ll get her back,” I said, even though I wasn’t really sure at all.
“We better,” Chloé said. “I mean, if the panda-nappers think all they have to do is give Li Ping a bunch of bamboo and she’ll be fine, they’re sorely mistaken. Pandas don’t eat just any bamboo—and Li Ping is pickier than most. There’s only one kind she likes. If the panda-nappers don’t have it, she might not eat. Or she might get really stressed out. Neither one would be good.”
“I guess not,” I agreed.
“Plus, pandas eat more than most people realize. At least twenty-five pounds a day. But sometimes up to forty. Do you think the panda-nappers will have that much around?”
“I doubt it.” I was surprised to learn how much pandas ate. They had never seemed big enough to put that much food away.
“We will not rest until Li Ping is returned!” Crazy Panda Guy proclaimed. “We will not give up our vigil until she is safe and sound once again!”
By Panda Palace, the Chinese women began their own dance while the men plucked old-fashioned string instruments. The dance was very methodical and deliberate. The women moved as though they were in slow motion.
Emily Sun stood close by, observing everything with a big frown.
“Have you told the FBI about this?” I asked Chloé.
“I haven’t had a chance. I keep thinking someone will come along to talk to me, but no one has. And I don’t even know how to get ahold of them myself.” Chloé brushed the hair from her eyes and looked to me expectantly. “Could you tell someone to talk to me?”
“I don’t think so. The FBI doesn’t really want anything to do with me.”
“How about J.J.? He listens to you, right?”
“Sometimes. I guess I could talk to Summer.”
“Anything you could do would help.”
I quickly wrote a text to Summer, urging her father to ask the FBI to talk to Chloé, wondering if it would ever happen.
“In addition,” Crazy Panda Guy was saying, “we will not let FunJungle lie to us about the state of Li Ping anymore! If they know anything about our panda—good or bad—then we deserve to know it too!”
The crowd cheered about this as well, although the actors playing the FunJungle characters seemed to grow worried and started to sidle away.
As I sent the text, an elderly woman approached. If there hadn’t been so much else going on, I probably would have noticed her sooner: She was dressed very differently from the usual FunJungle tourist. Most visitors to the park wore T-shirts and shorts, while this woman was wearing a nice white pantsuit and long lace gloves more suited to a cocktail party. She also had an enormous sun hat, with an entire bouquet of flowers in the band and a brim so wide it was hard to see her face. “Excuse me,” she said in a honeyed Southern drawl. “I couldn’t help overhear you talking about Li Ping.”
Chloé and I both turned to her, worried. We probab
ly weren’t supposed to be talking about the FBI investigation in front of guests.
“Are you involved with the care of the pandas here at FunJungle?” the woman asked Chloé, then leaned in to examine the name tag on her uniform. “Chloé, is it?”
“Uh, yes,” Chloé said.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” the woman said. “My name is Flora. Flora Hancock.”
“You’re the animal lady!” I exclaimed before I could think better of it. Her name had come up during the Kazoo investigation. She supposedly owned a great number of wild animals, including things like panthers and tigers, on a large ranch somewhere north of FunJungle.
Flora appeared pleasantly surprised, putting a gloved hand to her chest. “And you are . . . ?”
“Teddy. Teddy Fitzroy.”
“Both his parents work here,” Chloé explained.
“And how is it that you know of me?” Flora drawled.
“I’ve just heard your name a couple times,” I said. “People say you have your own private zoo.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” Flora opened a lace fan and flapped it in front of her face. “I merely own a few exotics. I truly love animals, you see. And I was so excited about Li Ping. I had Arthur drive me all the way down here to see her today.” She pointed her fan toward a man I hadn’t noticed before.
The man stood a respectful distance behind her. He was about the same age as Flora, dressed in a nice suit that looked extremely uncomfortable, given the heat. He nodded graciously to us.
“Is that your husband?” Chloé asked.
Flora laughed. “Goodness, no! Arthur is my manservant!”
Chloé turned beet red in embarrassment. “Oh. I’m sorry . . . uh . . .”
Flora waved this off, indicating it didn’t bother her. “Anyhow, we were absolutely devastated to hear that Li Ping had been stolen. Do you have any idea who did it?”
“No,” I said.
“But we’ll find them,” Chloé added quickly. “And we’ll get her back.”
“I certainly hope so.” Flora clucked her tongue sadly. “I can’t believe those scoundrels would actually steal a panda. And you say they probably don’t even have the right bamboo for her?”