“Owange?” Squirt’s eyes lit up. “Mine!”
Jessi hurried to get the markers and some extra large pieces of construction paper for Squirt to scribble on. While she was in the other room, the doorbell rang again.
“I’ll get it,” Becca called to her. “It should be Haley Braddock.”
Jessi grabbed the markers from a shelf in the kitchen and hurried to the front hall. “How many more people are you expecting?” Jessi asked, as Becca let Haley in.
“I think that’s it,” Becca answered, leading Haley into the living room. “But I’m not sure.”
“Look, Becca,” Jessi said, as pleasantly as possible, “if anyone calls, tell them to come back another day. I’m afraid we won’t have enough paper or pens to write with.”
“Don’t worry,” Haley Braddock said cheerily. “I brought my own stationery. It has my name on it. And I have some extra pens, too. Here are my supplies.” Haley held up a slender box of lavender stationery and a plastic zipper bag of pens. “I already wrote my first letter. Want to hear it?”
Jessi was impressed. The girls really had been working on the Free Babar project. “Sure, Haley. Read it to us.”
Haley opened her stationery box and carefully lifted out the top sheet. “Dear Mr. or Mrs. Shopping Center Owner.” She lowered her paper and explained, “I didn’t know the person’s name so I thought that would cover everything.”
“Sounds good,” Jessi said, with an encouraging smile.
“We all need a nice home where we can be happy,” Haley continued. “If where we live is not nice, then we will be sad. Babar needs his own place to be happy. It’s not fair to keep an elephant in a shopping mall. He needs trees and grass like his home in Africa. Animals have feelings. Babar’s feelings are hurt. Help make him happy. It would make me very happy if you did. I will help you in any way that I can. Sincerely, Haley Braddock. Age nine. Stoneybrook Elementary.”
Becca and Charlotte applauded when Haley finished reading her letter, while Squirt banged his hands on the table.
“That’s telling them,” Becca said. “Can I look at your letter when I write mine?”
Haley blushed and handed Becca the piece of paper. “Sure. You can copy it exactly if you want.”
Charlotte Johanssen was not to be outdone. She quickly signed her name at the bottom of her stationery and then said, “Would you like to hear my letter? This one is to the mayor.”
“Mine!” Squirt suddenly appeared from around the side of the couch, grabbed Charlotte’s letter, and ran for the kitchen again.
Once more Jessi chased after him. This time Charlotte was right behind her.
“Squirt!” Charlotte cried. “Please don’t wrinkle my letter. I’ll have to do it all over again.”
“No!” Squirt crawled under the kitchen table and then squirmed beneath the chair. The letter was now a crumpled sheet of paper clutched tightly behind his back. He giggled and a long string of drool ran down his chin.
“I’m sorry, Charlotte,” Jessi said as she inched slowly toward her little brother. “Squirt thinks this is a game.”
Charlotte knelt on the floor and looked at Jessi’s brother with her big dark eyes. “Oh, Squirt. That makes me sad.”
He lurched out from under the chair and shoved the letter into Charlotte’s lap. “No cwy. No cwy.”
Charlotte took the crumpled piece of paper and gave Squirt a hug. “Thanks for giving it back. I guess I can use it as a guide for my next letter.”
Jessi smiled warmly at Charlotte. “Thank you for being so understanding, Charlotte. I’ll make sure Squirt stays away from your work from now on.”
For the next hour, Becca, Haley, and Charlotte worked diligently on their letters. Jessi tried to keep Squirt away from the table by reading him stories. She chose, appropriately enough, some Babar books, which entertained everyone.
When the girls tired of writing, they went into the kitchen for a snack of yogurt and fruit. Jessi took that opportunity to fill them in on the plans for the walkathon.
“You know, Kristy and her stepfather, Watson, have made arrangements to let us do a walkathon,” Jessi said, as she passed out apple and orange slices on paper towels. “The course will be four miles long, and it will wind in and out of the neighborhoods, with the final stretch going right down Main Street to the courthouse steps.”
“What can we do to help?” Becca asked, taking a bite of her apple slice.
“We need to design pledge sheets for you kids to take around.”
“We can do that,” Charlotte said. “You just need the name of the walkathon at the top and little lines for people’s names and addresses. You also need a line for how much they’re willing to pay per mile.”
Jessi took a spoonful of her yogurt. “Kristy suggested we ask for a dollar a mile. If every kid walks the full four miles, that could really add up.”
“Does the walkathon have a name?” Charlotte asked.
Jessi smiled. “Kristy named it the Elephant Walk.”
“The Elephant Walk!” Haley giggled. “I love it. We could dress up in elephant costumes and lead the parade.”
“That would be awfully cute,” Jessi said, smiling at the thought of the girls in elephant costumes.
Charlotte, who is not a big fan of dressing up and being silly in front of people, said, “Why don’t you and Becca be the elephants, and I’ll design the pledge sheets?”
“If you draw up the pledge sheets,” Jessi said, “I’ll bet Watson Brewer could have them copied for us. After Kristy talked to him, he said he would do anything he could to help out.”
“While Charlotte does the pledge sheets, we can work on our costumes. Don’t you have some gray tights we could wear?” Becca asked Jessi.
“I’m sure I do,” Jessi replied. (Actually, she must have at least two dozen pairs of tights and as many leotards.) “Some of my pink pairs are so faded they look almost gray. And Mama could probably help you sew on the ears and trunk. I think she has some gray felt left over from the cat costume she made me a few years ago for Halloween.”
The kids hurried to finish their snacks, anxious to start on their new projects. Jessi stayed in the kitchen and washed Squirt’s face and hands, as well as the area where he’d been sitting. “I don’t know how you do it,” she said, dabbing at his face with a warm washcloth. “But you have managed to get yogurt on every part of the table, your chair, and the floor all the way to the wall.”
Squirt smiled and another string of drool dripped onto his T-shirt.
“Very attractive,” Jessi said, swiping at it with a wet washcloth.
Ding-dong!
Jessi set Squirt down and hurried to the front hall to answer the doorbell. Becca was already there, with her back pressed against the door, smiling sheepishly. “Remember when I said I didn’t invite any other kids?”
“Yes.” Jessi raised an eyebrow.
“Well, I forgot.”
Jessi peered through the peephole in the door. Vanessa and Margo Pike, Sara Hill, and Corrie Addison were standing in a tight cluster on the front porch. Jessi looked down at her sister. “So you forgot, huh? There are four more kids out there. What did you do? Make an announcement over the PA system?”
Becca shook her head. “No, I just mentioned it at recess.”
Jessi gasped. “I can’t take care of that many kids.”
Ding-dong!
The girls on the front porch were growing impatient.
“Aren’t you going to open the door?” Becca asked.
“I’m thinking,” Jessi replied, “of what to say.”
“How about, come on in?” Becca suggested.
“Not to them,” Jessi shot back. “To Aunt Cecelia, when she sees that I’ve been baby-sitting for eight kids. She’ll have a heart attack.”
Jessi really didn’t want to tell the girls to go home. Especially since they’d come to help Free Babar. But she was feeling overwhelmed by the number of kids she was suddenly supposed to be responsible for.
>
Luckily for Jessi, her aunt’s car pulled into the driveway then, and the crisis was resolved.
Except for one thing. While Jessi and Becca were talking in the front hall, Squirt found the half-empty yogurt carton. He emptied it onto the floor and was busy practicing his skating when Jessi’s aunt walked through the door. What a day!
“The adult emu generally weighs about one hundred and twenty pounds,” Alan was saying. “He stands on three toes. His wings are short and nearly hidden under his tail feathers. The main shaft and second shaft are the same length so it looks like he has two layers of feathers. The emu eats hundreds of caterpillars and grasshoppers, which he keeps in his mouth until it forms a big ball about the size of a baseball, then he swallows it. The emu doesn’t sweat, he pants to stay cool. He also does quite a bit of yawning. When he sleeps, he lies with his head stretched out along the ground. He doesn’t take water baths, but he does like to give himself a dirt bath. The dirt sops up the excess oil and gets rid of parasites and ticks.”
Logan and I listened as Alan read from his observation book on Saturday afternoon. He was very proud of what he had recorded.
“You learned all that from watching the emu pen?” Logan asked, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.
“I didn’t just watch,” Alan corrected him. “I observed. Big difference.”
“Well, I made some interesting observations about gorillas,” Logan said, turning his back on Alan and focusing on me.
“Yeah, he observed that they look a whole lot like some of his relatives,” Alan joked.
“They may look like my family,” Logan retorted. “But they act like yours. Especially when they’re picking fleas out of each other’s hair.”
Logan pretended a flea had jumped from Alan to him. He swatted at it and returned the imaginary dead flea to Alan’s head.
“That’s so funny I forgot to laugh,” Alan said, staring angrily at Logan.
“Okay.” I waved my hands in front of their faces. “Fun time is over. Time for us to regroup and go our different ways.”
Alan and Logan continued to glare at each other. I had to grab Alan’s arm to pull him away from Logan. “Come on, Alan. I want to hear more about your observations. I’m amazed at how detailed they are. When I was watching Edith, all she did was sleep, take a drink of water, and sleep some more.”
Alan was distracted. He murmured, “If you’re going to win this game, you have to do a little more than just sit and stare.”
“It’s not a game,” I reminded him.
“You’re right.” Alan glanced over his shoulder at the spot where Logan had been standing. “It’s war.”
“Oh, brother!” I groaned. Every time I saw Logan or Alan I could feel my shoulders tightening and a knot forming in my stomach. This had to change. Sooner or later I was going to develop an ulcer.
My group had agreed to meet at the emu enclosure. Howie was there waiting for us when Alan and I arrived. He wasn’t even facing the pen. His attention was glued to a group of girls from our school who were watching the gorillas playing outside in the area next to the emu enclosure.
“Yo, Howie,” Alan called, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Watcha staring at? Girrrlls?”
Sometimes boys can act so geeky.
The group of girls Howie had been staring at moved on, and I spotted Jessi and Matt Braddock standing in front of the cage.
At the BSC meeting on Friday, all we had talked about was the zoo mystery. What would happen next? Would we be able to unearth new clues? That was when Jessi had the brilliant idea of bringing Matt Braddock to the zoo to talk to Mojo in American Sign Language. She thought Matt could ask Mojo if she knew who freed the animals, and we all thought it was a terrific plan. So Jessi talked to the Braddocks and arranged a visit for Matt.
I left Alan and Howie at the emu pen and went over to talk to Jessi and Matt. I only know a little bit of sign language. For instance, “Hi, how are you?” and, “I’m hungry” and “time for bed.” (Matt did teach us how to sign “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” but that doesn’t come in handy very often.)
Anyway, I said hi to Jessi and signed hello to Matt. I also asked him how he was doing. He smiled a big ear-to-ear grin and answered me.
“Matt can’t wait to talk to Mojo,” Jessi translated.
Mojo, a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound female gorilla, was leaning on a rock near the front of her enclosure, idly munching on browse. Browse is a leafy plant that the zoos put in cages so the animals can eat but not gain weight. (Kind of like humans eating carrots for a snack instead of crackers.) I learned this from the information kiosk.
James was lying on his back in a corner, taking a nap in the afternoon sun. He was a huge silverback male, and weighed over four hundred pounds.
Matt and Jessi tried to position themselves in front of Mojo, so that the gorilla could easily see Matt’s signs. Matt caught Mojo’s eye and signed hello.
Hello, Mojo answered casually.
Matt asked Mojo if the food she was eating was good.
Mojo signed good.
At that moment the small door in the back of the cage opened and Mr. Chester peered into the enclosure. He was holding two trays of food. Mojo instantly sat up.
I turned to Jessi. “I guess it’s feeding time.”
Jessi nodded. “It looks like those guys are eating extremely large TV dinners.”
Matt couldn’t hear us but it didn’t matter. All of his attention was focused on Mojo. He signed the question, Who let the emu out of her pen?
Mojo looked sideways at Mr. Chester and the big metal trays full of food, and didn’t answer.
Matt asked the question again.
This time Mojo responded with the word for food.
Matt’s shoulders slumped. He turned to Jessi and signed, “It’s not working.”
Jessi patted him on the shoulder and signed back, It’s okay. She wants to eat. She looked at me and said, “Maybe it’s hard for Mojo to think when it’s her lunchtime.”
Mr. Chester was just about to enter the cage when he spotted something behind us and frowned. He slid the metal door shut. Moments later he appeared around the side of the building, and shouted, “Hey, you boys, what are you doing?”
He was talking to Alan and Howie, of course. They were by the berry bushes. “Just standing here,” Alan replied. “Why?”
Mr. Chester pointed at the twig full of berries Howie held in his hand. “It looked as if you were going to feed the gorillas some of those berries.”
Howie looked at his hand guiltily and dropped the berries. “I didn’t even know I’d picked this. I wasn’t thinking. Honest.”
Mr. Chester bent down and picked up the twig. “These would not be good for the gorillas,” he said sternly. “I don’t want to see you touching those bushes again. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Howie replied. “I won’t.”
Mr. Chester gestured for the boys to move onto the sidewalk. “And stay on the walkways, that’s what they’re here for.”
Alan and Howie took two giant steps forward. Once Mr. Chester was satisfied that they weren’t going to return to the bushes, he hurried back to the side of the building.
Mojo and James had seen their lunches coming and were upset when they didn’t arrive. They were now pounding on the metal door.
“I’m coming! I’m coming!” we heard Mr. Chester call. He slid the little metal door open and then unlocked the gate, slipping the two trays inside.
Mojo took her tray to a rock. We watched her daintily sift through the vegetables, sampling each one.
“Let’s get out of here,” Alan murmured.
I didn’t blame them for wanting to leave. Mr. Chester had sounded pretty harsh. If he had said those things to me, I probably would have cried.
“Look, why don’t you two watch the bears,” I said, “and I’ll take the seals. And we’ll all come back here to the emu pen a little later.”
“Fine,” the boys muttered.
Logan, who had been at the snack bar near the seal pool, saw me as I came around the bend and ambled over to see what I was up to.
“Popcorn?” He held his bag out to me.
“Thanks. Popcorn is a lot more appetizing than what they’re eating,” I said, pointing to the fish the keeper was tossing to the seals.
“How’s it going with Howie and the jerk?” Logan asked, tossing a handful of popcorn into his mouth.
“Logan?” I stared down at the rail surrounding the seal pool. “I wish you wouldn’t call Alan a jerk. He may act like one sometimes but it doesn’t help when you provoke him.”
Logan looked hurt. “He’s not exactly Mr. Nice Guy to me.”
“I know that. It’s just that things have become so tense between you two, it makes me feel awkward. This project should be fun — observing the animals and picking up behind-the-scenes information about a zoo. But instead of enjoying it, all I do is worry about what’s going to happen when you two see each other.”
Logan’s face filled with concern. “Gee, Mary Anne, I didn’t know you felt that way. I guess you’re right. This competition thing has gone a little too far.”
“A little?” I raised one eyebrow.
“All right, a lot too far.”
“I mean, I’d like to win,” I told him. “I could really use that extra credit. We all could. But I won’t resent it if your team wins.”
Logan put his left hand on his heart and held up his right hand. “You have my word that I won’t be angry if your team wins either — although it would be nice if my team won. But to show you I mean it, I promise from this moment forward to try to be nice to Alan.”
I laughed. “Well, you don’t have to go overboard. Knowing Alan, he’ll think something’s up. He’ll probably say you’re trying to kill us with kindness so you can do something tricky behind our backs.”
Logan laughed and nodded. “You’re right. He would think that.”
“I have to admit I thought Alan was going to be a real goof-off on the project, but it’s amazing how much it matters to him. Look at all of those great observations he made about the emu.”