Tiger Trap by Eric Walters Page B

long, hard, serious talk about not getting more animals for Tiger Town. It just couldn’t go on like this, adding animal after animal.
    I wanted to explain to them that they had to think of Tiger Town as a big boat — like Noah’s Ark. And all boats, no matter how big, could hold only so many animals. Heck, Noah took a pair of every animal, but he didn’t take every animal. There was a limit to how many animals any boat — or farm — could handle. And if you tried to put more animals on a boat than it could handle, the boat would eventually sink. Instead of saving all the animals you’d save no animals. That made sense … didn’t it?
    I’d sit those two down and talk logically, making sense, explaining everything so they could see that what I was saying was right. The big problem, of course, was that sometimes their passion, their love of animals, got in the way of their thinking. At those times they didn’t even want to listen to logic because their minds were already made up. If they weren’t both such nice guys — wonderful guys — I’d get mad at them.
    I entered the farmhouse. “Hello!”
    Calvin came running down the hall toward me, using his arms to propel him, a big smile on his face. I knew what was going to come next, and I also knew I was helpless to stop it from happening.
    The chimp threw his arms into the air, wrapped them around my neck and pulled me over until my head was at the same level as his. He then planted a big, loud, sloppy kiss right on my forehead!
    “Calvin!” I screamed. “Let me go!” He released me from his vise-like grip, and I straightened back up. I wiped away the ape slobber from my face — at least he hadn’t kissed me on the mouth this time.
    “I wish you wouldn’t do that,” I said.
    The smile on Calvin’s face faded, and he looked sad. Oh, great, I’d hurt the chimp’s feelings. Now I felt bad. I didn’t like him kissing me because it was a bad combination of stale banana breath and saliva, but I knew he only kissed people he liked, so it was sort of an honour really. Maybe it would be better if I just put up with it and didn’t say anything. Sort of the way I put up with my great-aunts kissing me when we went to family gatherings. Either way I didn’t have much choice. There was family pressure to let my aunties kiss me and a pressure of a different kind involved with Calvin’s kiss — the sort of pressure that involved an animal so strong that he could actually rip an arm right out of its socket.
    “Calvin,” I said, “I’m sorry. If you want to kiss me, that’s okay.”
    He peered up at me, and his expression changed as he began to smile again. That was nice. I was glad he understood and that he was happy. Then Calvin put a finger against his nose, spread out his other hairy fingers, and went
“Ppplllllllzzzzzzzz!”
A mist of saliva shot into the air. He threw back his head, howled with laughter and raced back down the hall toward the kitchen.
    Great! I’d just been rejected by a chimpanzee. The only good thing was that my brother hadn’t been around to witness it. I followed Calvin, but when I walked into the kitchen, I stopped dead in my tracks. There, sitting at the table, was that man!
    “What … What are you doing here?” I asked, my voice barely louder than a whisper.
    He smiled, but it wasn’t a friendly smile. It was the sort of smile the big bad wolf gave to Goldilocks. Lots of teeth and no sincerity.
    “Answer me,” I demanded. “Why are you here?” I was shocked that I was so bold.
    “I guess I could ask you the same question,” the stranger said. He stood up and suddenly seemed much bigger here in the confines of the kitchen. So much for feeling bold or brave. I took a half-step backwards.
    “I just want to know where Mr. McCurdy is,” I said, my voice cracking over the last few words.
    “Not far,” he said, taking a couple of steps toward me.
    Terrified, I retreated the same number of steps. “Don’t you