I studied the key. "It"s solid bra.s.s," I said to myself. "Not just painted gold." Then it hit me. "The missing zoo key!"
But how could I have gotten Mrs. Wofsey"s key? I didn"t remember dropping a key. Mrs. Wofsey lost hers a week and a half before on Friday. I must have had my own then, because *no I used it to gather information about emus from the kiosk.
Shortly after, the emu was freed, so someone else must have had the key at that moment. The only other time my key was out of my backpack was when I dumped my pack onto the table to look for change for a soda. Alan and Howie both emptied their packs, too. That"s when the key exchange must have happened.
Suddenly everything made sense. "Alan has the key!" I announced to the next group of strangers who had come to look at the bears. Normally I would have been embarra.s.sed to have been caught talking to myself, but today it didn"t matter. I had solved the mystery.
Alan Gray stole the zoo key. But why? Alan must have freed the emu so he could observe the emu on the run and win the contest. I stuck the key in my pocket and marched down the zoo sidewalk toward the emu enclosure, muttering, "No wonder he knew so much about emus. n.o.body could get that kind of information watching from a park bench outside the fence. He was inside the emu"s cage. And that also explains the berry stains. He was standing in the bushes."
Alan was sitting by the emu enclosure with his notepad open when I arrived. "We have to talk," I said bluntly.
"You look worried," Alan said, shutting the notebook. "You shouldn"t be. With all the information I have here, we"re sure to win the prize."
I looked directly into his eyes. "I know how you got your information." He blinked nervously. "How?" "You gave yourself away." This time he swallowed before he spoke. "How did I do that?"
I put my hands on my hips and announced, "Alan, I have the key. The one you used to open the emu cage. We accidentally switched keys when we were pooling our money to buy a soda at the snack bar. But before that, you opened the cage and went inside. How do I know this?"
Alan shook his head, too confused to answer.
"Because there were berry stains inside the cage. You stepped on the berries outside the cage before you went inside to take a closer look."
"Berry stains . . . zoo key?" Alan finally muttered. "What are you talking about?"
"I"m talking about all of that information you picked up about the emu. n.o.body could find it out just sitting on one of these benches. You had to have been up close and personal."
"That"s not true," Alan snapped.
I threw my hands in the air. "Well, how else could you know so much about emus?"
Alan shot a nervous glance at his backpack, which was sitting open on the park bench. I followed his gaze and saw what he was looking at a large picture book t.i.tled Australia"s Flightless Bird, the Emu.
"You - you found your information in a book?" I stammered.
"Shhhh!" Alan gestured for me to lower my voice. "I really need the extra credit. I wasn"t observing anything from this bench. I mean, Edith just eats and sleeps. She never even comes near the fence."
"I know," I muttered. "It"s kind of frustrating. But Mrs. Gonzalez told us we were strictly forbidden to use any information from a book. It has to be based on observation."
"Great." Alan"s shoulders slumped. "This way we"ll never beat Logan"s group."
"Look, Alan," I said, "I think we have a lot of good information without that book. And you certainly didn"t need to go into the emu"s cage - "
"Hold on a minute!" Alan nearly shouted. "Don"t you understand? I never went in the emu"s cage. I never had the zoo key."
"Well, I didn"t have it when the emu was freed," I shot back.
Alan squinted at me. "If you didn"t have it, and I didn"t have it, then - "
"Howie must have had it!" we both said at once.
"Come on." Alan tucked his notebook into his pack and looped it over one shoulder. "Let"s find Howie."
"He must be at the seal pool," I said, "because I was watching the bears, and I didn"t see any sign of him."
That"s where he was, too. Howie was in the little gra.s.sy area across from the seal pool, lazily eating an ice-cream bar.
You should have seen his face when Alan confronted him. He turned so red the tips of his ears were blazing.
"Okay, okay. I found the key on the ground by the berry bushes," he confessed. "But I thought it was mine. I only realized it wasn"t when I couldn"t make it work in the information kiosk."
"So you tried the key on the emu"s gate?" I asked.
He nodded. "But I only stepped into the pen. I mean, I wasn"t there three seconds when I turned and ran." He looked at Alan and me and winced. "I guess I must have left the gate open. I felt terrible when I heard the emu had escaped." Suddenly I remembered something. "I should have known you weren"t observing the bears that day. You told me they were all napping in the trees. Bears don"t sleep in trees!"
Alan frowned at Howie. "Way to cover, dimwit!"
Howie narrowed his eyes. "You believed me."
Then Howie turned to me. "Hey, I may have accidentally freed the emu. But what about the giraffe and the gibbons? You had Mrs. Wofsey"s key when all that happened."
"I was at the elephant painting exhibition when the giraffe got loose, and at the gorilla lecture when the gibbons" cage was left open." The boys stared at me, not quite convinced. "There were plenty of witnesses!" I cried.
"Time out!" Alan made a T with his hands. "I think we can safely say that none of us had anything to do with those two escapes. Which means there"s a criminal running around with his - or her - own key."
My eyes widened. "You"re right. Because we"ve had Mrs. Wofsey"s lost key the entire time." I realized it was time to fill Howie and Alan in on the BSC"s investigation. I told them everything we"d discovered and listed our key suspects. When I finished, Howie nudged Alan. "I think we should do some investigating of our own. You know, like scope out the zoo, and see who has a key, and who doesn"t.
Maybe tail those two spies in the jogging suits some more."
Howie liked the idea. I decided to let them do their research. I was anxious to find Logan, Claudia, and Dawn, so I could tell them what I"d found out.
I b.u.mped into the three of them in front of the visitors" center. But Claudia had news of her own, and could hardly wait to tell me about it.
"Mary Anne, I talked to Mrs. Wofsey this morning," she blurted out. "And those people in sweatsuits are agents, all right. But not spies. They"re agents for an eccentric tyc.o.o.n in New Hampshire. He wants to build a zoo on his estate. Mrs. Wofsey is helping them figure out how much it would cost to set one up."
"Whoa!" I said. "Wait till the animal rights activists hear about that!"
"Not to mention his neighbors," Logan joked. "Can you imagine? Instead of neighbors complaining about a dog barking, he"ll be getting calls about his lion roaring."
"Or his gibbon shrieking," I said, laughing.
"Speaking of gibbons," Dawn said, "we still don"t know who tried to set them free."
"Well, we do know who didn"t do it," I said, "which is a start." Then I told Claudia and Logan how Howie had found Mrs. Wofsey"s key and accidentally freed the emu. "Now I have the zoo key, so that means whoever did it has his or her own key."
"That probably eliminates the protestors," I said.
"And narrows it to zoo employees," Claudia said. "Like that guard, Mike, or Tim the vet-"
"Or Mr. Chester," I said. "Remember how unpleasant he"s been to Mrs. Wofsey? He really seems to dislike her."
Logan pointed at me. "Remember the time we were watching the seals, when they were being fed?"
I nodded. "We talked about the compet.i.tion, and then we went to Dr. Wordsworth"s lecture."
"That was just before the gibbons" cage was found open," Logan said. "Now, do you remember what Mr. Chester said when he was late to the lecture?"
I nodded. "He said he had to feed the seals ..." A light bulb in my brain suddenly went on. "But he didn"t feed the seals, because you and I watched the blond guy with the moustache feed them fifteen minutes before."
"Exactly!" Logan cried.
"And the berry stains," I said, suddenly remembering the stains outside the gibbons"
cage door. "Mr. Chester must have made them - "
"Because he was standing in the bushes," Dawn jumped in, "when he yelled at Howie and Alan about feeding the animals,"
I was so excited I could hardly breathe. "We"ve got to tell Mrs. Wofsey right away. Like now."
Logan pointed to the office by the front gate. "Let"s try her office."
We were in luck. She was in.
Logan, Claudia, Dawn, and I crowded into her tiny office and took turns telling our story. We told her about finding the zoo key, how the emu gate was accidentally left open, and especially about the berry stains and Mr. Chester"s lie.
When we were finished, Mrs. Wofsey looked grim. She pursed her lips and shook her head for a long time before she spoke.
"It comes as no surprise that our culprit is Mr. Chester. You may or may not have noticed that there has been some tension between us. When I was hired for this position, he was resentful. He thought the job should have gone to him. He"s done everything in his power to undermine my authority."
"What are you going to do?" Claudia asked. "Call the police?"
Mrs. Wofsey sighed. "Not just yet. You see, we really don"t have anything concrete against him. All of the evidence is circ.u.mstantial,"
"You need to catch him in the act," Logan said, nodding his head.
"But how?" Dawn asked.
Mrs. Wofsey stood up and moved to her bulletin board, where a big color photo of Mojo and James was displayed. "If Mr. Chester really wants to get me into trouble, he"ll free the gorillas."
Chapter 14.
Good-bye, Gorillas! read the banner above the visitors" center. A large sandwich board outside welcomed the eighth-graders from Stoneybrook Middle School to the farewell party. Bouquets of green, silver, and purple balloons were everywhere.
That Sat.u.r.day morning, Dawn and I had risen early. We"d wanted to go over our plans for the big stakeout.
After Mrs. Wofsey had expressed concern that Mr. Chester might try to free the gorillas, we had agreed the best time for him to do it would be the day of the good-bye party.
"Today"s the day," Logan said as Dawn, Claudia, and I huddled outside the front gate that morning. "We"ll have to be on our toes, never let Chester out of our sight, and report anything, I mean, anything strange."
"You got it," Alan said, joining our huddle.
Howie was right behind him. "Just tell us what to do and we"re there." He had arrived a little early so he could apologize to Mrs. Wofsey about leaving the emu pen open. After she let him off with a warning, he was even more excited than Alan was about catching the other suspect.
I realized I had forgotten to tell my friends that I"d invited Alan and Howie to help with our stakeout. I figured they were already involved because of the zoo key and the emu escape, and besides I"d filled them in on Mr. Chester. And well, they were my group partners. It would probably have been okay if they hadn"t looked so ridiculous.
Howie had chosen to wear all black. I think he"d been watching too many spy movies. Alan was dressed in camouflage pants, T-shirt, and a camping cap.
"I thought hunting season was over," Logan cracked, looking at Alan. I shot Logan a warning look and he immediately backed off. "Thanks for helping out, Alan."
"No problem," Alan said. "I want to catch this Chester guy in the act."
I guessed that Alan"s determination was fueled by the embarra.s.sment he"d felt when Mr. Chester had yelled at him in the berry bushes.
"Okay, now that there are six of us," Logan continued, "we can put two guards on the primate area, near the gorillas, one on Mr. Chester - "
"Which should change every fifteen minutes," I cut in. "Or he"ll get suspicious."
"Right," Logan said. "The rest of us will patrol the area until it"s our turn to watch Chester."
We made a list determining who would do what job first and in what order. Then I checked my watch. "It"s ten o"clock. The party starts in half an hour. That gives us plenty of time to get to our positions."
"Now, the party lasts for an hour," Logan reminded us. "Then everyone is going to meet at the gorilla cage, where James and Mojo will be served banana cake."
"Gross," Alan said, grimacing. "I hope they don"t want us to share it."
Logan chuckled. "Seriously. It would probably have gorilla s...o...b..r all over it. I"ve watched those guys eat. They lick everything first."
I was glad Logan was keeping his promise to be nice to Alan. It made everything so much more pleasant. Even spying on a possible criminal.
My first a.s.signment was to stay by the visitors" center and watch the party guests, keeping an eye out for anyone looking suspicious. I liked this job because it let me attend the party. And boy, was it fun!
Mrs. Wofsey and her a.s.sistants had turned the center into a gorilla carnival. The pictures of the different animals had been replaced with life-size photos of Mojo and James at the Bedford Zoo. The room was lined with booths featuring a gorilla theme. At the far end of the room the video that Dr. Wordsworth had introduced to us was playing.
Kristy, who had missed the action during the week, brought her brother David Michael and her stepsister Karen to the party.
"I want to try the gorilla ring toss," Karen said, tugging on Kristy"s arm. "Could I, please?"
"Of course." Kristy laughed. "We can try everything. And afterward we"ll have a banana split at the Banana Boat snack bar."
My favorite display was the one t.i.tled Gorilla My Dreams. The zoo staff had made cardboard cutouts of two gorillas standing arm-in-arm, with a place between them for people to put their faces. A photographer with a Polaroid camera stood by, ready to take pictures. I made a mental note to bring Logan back here, if all went well.
I roamed the room, watching children color drawings of gorillas and make day gorillas with a plastic mold. There were gorilla masks and even several guys dressed in gorilla suits in the crowd.