Belly Up Read online

  The hardest thing about starting a zoo from scratch isn’t building it; it’s getting the animals. You can’t walk into the closest pet store and ask for a couple hippos. A hundred years ago, when zoos were a new concept, they all used to simply capture animals in the wild—and when those animals died, they’d go back and get more. Today, most zoo animals are endangered, so regulations have been established to prevent taking them from their natural habitats. Instead, most animals are procured from other zoos or official breeding facilities. These places aren’t like puppy farms, though, churning out new animals as fast as they can. Hippos only give birth to one or two young a year, tops. Hippo River had enclosures for four hippos, but it wasn’t until construction was almost completed that anyone discovered procuring even one hippo might be difficult.

  Naturally, J.J. McCracken wasn’t pleased to hear this. (I heard he threw a chair through a plate-glass window.) Then he demanded his people better get him at least one hippopotamus—and do it fast. FunJungle couldn’t open without a Henry. So the purchasing department scrambled to find a hippo. Any hippo. And in their haste, they ended up with the worst hippo in America.

  Henry was originally named Brutus, and he’d already been in four different zoos before FunJungle got him. Each place couldn’t wait to get rid of him. First of all, he was dangerous. In Boston, he’d bitten three keepers badly enough to send each to the hospital. And in Seattle, he’d squashed a keeper up against the side of his enclosure so hard that he cracked four of the man’s ribs, then kept him pinioned there for half an hour until being coaxed away by a box of Twinkies.

  Next, there was the mating problem. In order to increase their animal populations, zoos usually try to pair all their male animals with females. This had been attempted with Brutus every place he’d lived. His interaction with females had been limited to two emotions: complete disinterest and occasional bursts of inexplicable anger. The females would at first find him cold and aloof. (In Los Angeles, where they tended to psychoanalyze things a bit too much, one keeper had accused Brutus of giving the female he was paired with “a devastating case of low self esteem.”) And then one day, for no particular reason, Brutus would turn against his partner: a full-force attack, biting, kicking, butting them with his head. On several occasions, Brutus had to be tranquilized before he mortally wounded his mate.

  Finally, there’d been the poop.

  In the wild, male hippopotamuses occasionally exhibit an extremely disgusting method of battling for dominance: They aim their butts at one another and fire streams of feces. This had rarely been documented in zoos, probably because male hippos are usually kept apart. And until Brutus arrived on the scene, it had never been witnessed in any situation other than dominance conflicts.

  Brutus seemed to think it was funny.

  He genuinely enjoyed shooting poop at people. There was no rhyme or reason to it, except that he was said to have an uncanny knack for knowing which zoo visitor was wearing the most expensive outfit. Without any warning, he’d hoist his rear out of the water and fire away. In the National Zoo in Washington D.C., where the walls around the hippo pit were unfortunately low, in the course of one week Brutus had sullied two senators, the secretary of state, the Swedish ambassador and the president’s daughter, along with four of her Secret Service agents.

  After that, even the conservation-minded National Zoo Association had given serious consideration to putting Brutus to sleep. Fortunately, a small circus had offered to buy him. They’d put up with him for only two months; he’d bitten three clowns and had taken to firing feces at the audience every time he was brought into the center ring. The circus’s owners were ready to feed Brutus to the lions when they heard FunJungle was desperate for a hippopotamus. The owners quickly fudged Brutus’s records, claimed he was an entirely different hippo, and didn’t feed him for three days before the FunJungle purchasing department came to visit so that he couldn’t soil them. The circus offered him for a song and FunJungle snatched him up in a second.

  The hippo was renamed Henry and delivered to FunJungle with great fanfare. The Marketing Department turned Henry’s journey across the country into a national media event. They made no secret that Henry had been bought—or rather, “rescued”—from a circus; it was a much better story that way. A specially designed semi with its own built-in pool was constructed to transport Henry. In each town he passed through, families lined the streets to see him. His arrival at FunJungle had been celebrated with a huge party. Even though the zoo wasn’t open yet, thousands of people had come to get their first glimpse of Henry and consume a giant hippo-shaped cake.

  The next morning, within the space of forty-five minutes, Henry bit one keeper and then showered none other than Martin del Gato himself with poop. It was at this point that Doc, who knew Brutus’s reputation, determined that FunJungle had been hoodwinked.

  Martin was livid. J.J. McCracken was even angrier. The entire animal purchasing department was fired on the spot and the marketing department began damage control. Plexiglas “just-in-case” shields were quickly installed along the walls of Henry’s enclosure to protect the public from hippo poop. Hildegard, the only other hippo FunJungle had managed to acquire, was removed from Henry’s enclosure. All keepers were given orders to stay the heck away from Henry unless armed with electric cattle prods, and even then, they were only to approach him at night, since he was on display during the day. A feeding system was designed to keep his contact with humans to a minimum. The emergency measures seemed to work; Henry still fired feces at visitors on occasion, but the shields protected them and the kids thought it was funny. (Still, in the name of good hygiene, cleaning crews were on call during park hours to clean up the messes as quickly as possible.)

  In the meantime, Martin had his minions desperately combing the world for a new male hippo that could be secretly swapped out with Henry. After all, to humans, all hippos basically looked the same. People could usually tell the difference between a male and a female—which was why FunJungle’s administration hadn’t tried to pass Hildegard off as Henry (although, believe me, they’d thought about it)—but no one would really know if Henry had suddenly been replaced with another male. SeaWorld did it all the time with killer whales. Some of the parks were on their tenth Shamu already.

  If the “new” Henry had already been found, the death of the old Henry probably wouldn’t have bothered many people at the park. No one there had liked Henry, not even his keepers. But his death now, so shortly after the park had opened, was most likely going to be a public-relations disaster.

  By the time I returned to Hippo River, damage control was well underway. Temporary fences had already been erected around Henry’s paddock and signs were posted every ten feet announcing: SORRY. THIS ATTRACTION IS TEMPORARILY CLOSED TO IMPROVE YOUR ENJOYMENT. (Ironically, the only signs FunJungle had with this message featured Henry Hippo.) A phalanx of young employees had been deployed to allay any concerns guests might have. Any guest who asked about Henry was told he was “off display due to medical reasons.” Any guest who complained he was dead was immediately refunded their entry fee and given a coupon for 10 percent off FunJungle merchandise to boot. Meanwhile, a crane was being brought over from one of the construction sites to hoist Henry’s body out of his pool the moment the last visitor left for the day.

  Martin was in the midst of everything, working two cell phones at once. He frowned when he saw me approaching alone. “Where’s Doc?” he demanded.

  “Doing surgery on a warthog.”

  “Now? Did you make it clear to him how urgent this situation is?”

  “Yes, but he said Henry’s not going to get any deader.”

  Martin glared at me a moment, then rubbed his temples. “Did Doc, by any chance, indicate when he might feel like joining us?”

  “It shouldn’t be too long. He’s just lancing a boil.” I hesitated a moment, then added, “He wants you to find him a place to do the autopsy.”

  As I feared, telling Martin th
is was like poking a cobra with a stick. His entire head turned red. “An autopsy?!” he snapped.

  Everyone within earshot—including a lot of tourists—stopped in their tracks and turned toward us.

  Martin mustered the best smile he could for them, then grabbed my arm and dragged me behind a stand of banana trees. “It’s bad enough that our mascot is dead. Now that quack wants to cut him open? Where does he expect to do that?”

  “The animal hospital?”

  “Henry won’t fit in the hospital! They don’t make autopsy tables big enough for hippopotamuses!” Martin nervously ran his fingers through what was left of his hair, not so much talking to me as talking with me nearby. “I mean it’s not like this is a human being. You could autopsy a human anywhere. This is a hippo, for Pete’s sake! It’s the size of a truck! And God knows what’ll come out of him once Doc cuts him open. We’ll have to sanitize the whole park.” Martin paused and thought a moment, like he was adding up how much sanitizing the park would cost him. Then he turned to me and said, “I’m not doing it. I’m just burying Henry. Go tell Doc that. And then tell him to forget about the stupid warthog and get over here!”

  I knew there was no point in arguing. So I ran all the way back across the park to talk to Doc again. FunJungle was over a mile from end to end and it was nasty hot out. I was pouring sweat by the time I got back to SafariLand.

  Doc didn’t look much better. He’d lanced the boil, but it obviously hadn’t been easy. He was covered with dirt and sweat and there was a long, bleeding scrape on his shin where the warthog had tusked him. My reappearance—along with the news that Martin didn’t want to do the autopsy—didn’t help his mood at all.

  “Go tell that knucklehead that an autopsy is standard operating procedure for any deceased zoo animal,” he growled. “And tell him if we don’t figure out why Henry died, it’ll cost us money in the long run. That ought to get his attention.”

  “How will it cost money?”

  “Suppose something toxic is leaking into Hippo River. The autopsy would tell us that and then we could fix it. But if we don’t do the autopsy, then we don’t find out about the toxic leak—and next thing you know, we’re up to our necks in dead hippos. Ask Martin if he’s comfortable with that.”

  I ran back to Hippo River. By now, FunJungle had closed for the night. The last guests had left. Usually, the stores by the entrance stayed open an extra hour to give the guests a chance to spend every last penny they had on FunJungle merchandise, but Martin had ordered everything shut down early that night. The crane had arrived and the strongest employees at the park had wrapped a huge metal sling around Henry. Now the hippo’s massive, dripping corpse was being winched out and loaded onto a flatbed trailer.

  The local news stations had gotten wind that something was up. News vans were parked right outside the front gates and park security was shooing camera crews away from trying to film the crane over the wall. I could see Large Marge up on a ladder, swatting a cameraman with a rolled-up newspaper.

  I found Martin and told him Doc’s argument. He grimaced at the thought of more dead hippos, then reluctantly conceded Doc was right. “Great,” he muttered. “One more thing I have to deal with.”

  “I thought of some places big enough to autopsy Henry,” I told him. I’d had plenty of time to mull it over while running back and forth across the park. “The employee cafeteria’s huge. Plus the floor’s linoleum, so it wouldn’t be too hard to clean. . . .”

  Martin shook his head violently. “No way. If the state health inspectors find out we’ve had a dead hippo anywhere near the food, they’ll shut us down.”

  “Does it have to be indoors? We might be able to haul out some big lights and do it right in the entry plaza. . . .”

  “Not a chance. It’s only a matter of time before the news copters get here. I’m not letting them film it. Plus, we’ll end up with every vulture in the state here by the time we’re through.” He pointed at the sky. There were already a staggering number of vultures wheeling overhead, lured by the smell of Henry’s corpse. In the landscaping nearby, hidden from the TV cameras, members of the security team were trying to fend them off with BB guns, but it wasn’t working.

  “How about the Henry and Pals Theater, then?” I asked. That was a big auditorium near the entrance where a musical revue was performed five times a day, featuring actors dressed as Henry and other FunJungle characters. “It’s got a big stage with a lot of lights, and since they have to move scenery in and out, there’s these big doors that you could probably get Henry through. . . .”

  Martin started to shake his head again—saying no to me was an automatic reflex for him—when it struck him that I’d had a good idea. He quickly dialed one of his phones and ordered whoever answered to start prepping the Henry and Pals Theater for an autopsy. Then he returned his attention to moving Henry’s corpse. He didn’t even bother to compliment me on a job well done or thank me for my help.

  I’d been hoping that, in return for my assistance, Martin might allow me to watch Henry’s autopsy. Sure, it would probably be disgusting, but it would be a heck of a lot more interesting than hanging around Monkey Mountain for the hundredth time, waiting for Mom to finish her work. Only, Martin made it clear he was done with me and I knew he wasn’t going to change his mind; the whole Henry situation had put him in a fouler mood than usual.

  I also knew I wouldn’t do any better to ask Doc. Doc never let me watch anything—not even the birth of a baby wildebeest out in SafariLand, and I’d seen a thousand of those in Africa.

  None of this meant I couldn’t see the autopsy, though. It only meant I’d have to do it without permission. So while Martin was distracted, I slipped away and headed for the Henry and Pals Theater.

  At the time, I was merely looking for some excitement. If I’d had any idea how much trouble sneaking into that autopsy would ultimately cause me—or how much danger I’d end up in—I never would have done it. Never in a million years.

  Getting into the auditorium wasn’t any trouble. All the adults had their hands full moving Henry and the doors were left unguarded for long stretches of time. There was a big network of catwalks and lighting grids over the stage. I scrambled up into it, found a spot where I could blend into the shadows, and then sat down to watch the show.

  Once the flatbed brought Henry to the theater, it took half an hour for everyone to lug him up on stage and an additional fifteen minutes for Martin to shoo everyone out; plenty of adults wanted to watch the autopsy as much as I did. But eventually, only Doc, Martin, and I were left in the room with the dead hippo.

  Doc turned on the stage lights to illuminate Henry. I’d never realized how hot those things were. They burned so brightly I could feel the heat from them five feet away—but they were also blinding to anyone on the stage, which allowed me to watch everything below with little fear of being spotted.

  Henry had been laid on his back on a huge sheet of protective plastic; Martin didn’t want bodily fluids leaking all over his new stage. As I stared down at the hippo, I realized I’d forgotten how big he was. Even as hippos went, Henry was enormous. Doc looked like a toy next to him, barely the size of his head.

  Martin turned out to be one of the only park employees with no desire to watch the surgery. But then, as I said, Martin didn’t like animals that were alive . A dead one was even more repulsive to him. So he found a seat in the back of the auditorium, as far as he could be from the body while still able to talk to Doc, then began texting feverishly on his phone.

  Doc wheeled out a tray of gleaming scalpels, some of which were the size of meat cleavers. He pulled on a white smock, latex gloves, a face mask, and protective goggles, then took out a canister of clear goo and dabbed a bit under his nose. I wasn’t sure what it was for—until Doc made his first incision into the body. Up till that point, I’d been worried that watching an autopsy might make me sick; it hadn’t occurred to me that smelling it would. Henry’s insides reeked worse than month-old diape
rs. The goo somehow masked the stench for Doc, but I caught it full-on, even from ten feet above. For a moment, I thought I was going to heave my lunch onto Henry. I had to clap my hand over my nose and wait a few minutes for the nausea to pass.

  Eventually, I risked another look down. Doc had already made surprising progress, given the size of his patient. I should’ve expected as much. Doc had been a zoo vet for nearly thirty years; he’d done plenty of autopsies before. Still, it wasn’t fast enough for Martin, who fidgeted in his seat.

  “What’s taking so long?” he asked.

  “You do realize this is a hippopotamus I’m working on?” Doc shot back. “I have a wall of fat a foot thick to cut through here. It’s like operating on an opera singer.”

  Someone knocked on the auditorium door. Martin opened it, then ushered Pete Thwacker inside.

  Although I was trying to keep quiet, I couldn’t help but let out a tiny groan.

  As the head of public relations at FunJungle, Pete’s job mainly appeared to be to look good on TV. He was handsome—all the women said so—and he knew it. He had blond hair with so much product in it that it wouldn’t budge in a tornado, and teeth so white that a full smile could blind you. He always wore expensive suits and rarely passed a shiny surface without checking his reflection in it.

  It was a joke that he worked for FunJungle, though. He’d been transferred from a detergent company J.J. McCracken owned. I guess he’d done a good job there, but that didn’t mean he was prepared to work at a zoo. He knew less about animals than anyone I’d ever met and was constantly making bonehead statements. Only two days before, during a press conference, he’d said that gorillas were monkeys. So I’d corrected him, telling everyone that gorillas are apes . Although I’d been serious, the reporters thought it was hilarious. Pete didn’t. He’d kept smiling in front of the adults, but after the conference he’d called my mom and claimed he’d seen me shoplifting at FunJungle Emporium. Then he suggested she should consider sending me to military school. Luckily, Mom had seen right through this; she wasn’t a big fan of Pete Thwacker’s either.