Monkey Business
My second short story this year
I woke up just like any other day. I got out of bed, took a shower and put on my uniform and hat. I grabbed my keys that were hanging up on a hook by my front door and walked to work. The first thing I do in the morning is open the front gates. I stuck my key in the slot and swung open the huge black iron rod gates. Above the gates, I was welcomed by the big sign I see everyday, at this exact time. In big green print it says, “Welcome to the Baldwin County Zoo!” Yes, I work at a zoo. I don’t only work there, I own it. To the right of the entrance is a small brownish green building. In there is my office. I used another key to open my office and sat down at my desk. I loved my office, I loved all of the pictures of our zoo’s famous animals on the walls. I loved the “zooish” smell it had. I loved that it was my office and I loved what I did everyday in it. I couldn’t have asked for a better job.
Just as I was about to go for my daily walk around the zoo, one of the zookeepers came in to my office, out of breath with a worried look on his face.
“Clementines gone!” he gasped. Clementine was one of our female chimpanzees.
“What?”
“We can’t find her anywhere!”
We both ran to the chimpanzee exhibit as fast as we could. We checked over and over again making sure she was not just hiding. We checked the whole zoo, she was nowhere to be found. We had all of the zookeepers frantically looking. When the the zoo opened we knew she wasn’t going to turn up. She was scared of most people, especially in large groups. We came back to the chimpanzee exhibit to see Abby with her face pressed to the glass staring at the exhibit.
Abby was seven years old. She visits the zoo everyday during the summer. She comes with her nanny, Estella. Her and Estella had seen every animal at the zoo. They know all their names and some of the animals even recognize them. They have become a part of our zoo family.
I walked up to Abby.
“Hey Abby.”
“Hi Mr. Quinn.”
‘“Whatcha doing?”
“Watching.”
“Hey Abby, have you seen Clementine today? We have been looking for her all morning.”
“Yeah, I seen her.”
“You have!” I was so relieved, “Where is she?”
“Africa.”
“What?”
“Shes in Africa.”
“What do you mean she’s in Africa?”
“Her home is in Africa now.”
“How do you know that Abby?”
“Becaaauuusseee she told me!”
“So, exactly when did she tell you that?”
“Yesterday, at feeding time, she said her home is in Africa.”
“hmm, interesting”
I walked away from Abby, leaving her pressing her little face up against the glass again and walked over to Estella.
“Do you know what she’s talking about?”
“No, I have no idea.”
“She said that the chimpanzee was talking to her, what do you think she means?”
“Well, she does talk to the animals but I see the other kids doing it too. I thought it was normal for young kids to do that”
“hmmm. well thanks for your help.”
“No problem I will keep an eye out for the monkey for you.”
“It’s an ape, and thanks.”
I spent the rest of the day in my office calling around to see if anyone had seen the chimp. At night, after closing time I had the zookeepers stay late and help me look. I was really starting to worry. What if she escaped and got eaten by a tiger or a lion. That would be worst the case scenario.
I came to work the next day almost running to my office to check the phone lines. No one called to report a found chimpanzee. This hasn’t happened in a while, since Kayla the gazelle had gone missing a year ago. We found her decaying body in the lions cage. After that, we made sure another gazelle couldn’t get out. I don’t get how the chimp would have escaped, it’s almost impossible. The chimpanzee exhibit is so enclosed. So, if it didn’t escape how is she missing. Would someone really steal an ape?
A few hours later I got an unexpected call from Abby’s mom. Never have I seen or even heard Abby talk about her mom. Estella told that me she worked six days a week from really early in the morning to way after Abby had gone to sleep. With that said, I doubt Abby was close with her mom. I kind of feel bad for her, not having that mother figure every child should have. It’s sad that she knows her nanny more than her own mother.
I picked up the phone.
“Good morning the Baldwin County Zoo this is Mr. Quinn How can I help you?”
“Hi, my name is Sandra Mullen…”
“Oh you must be Abby Mullen’s mom”
“Yeah, that’s me.”
“Oh Abby just loves the zoo, she comes everyday just to spend time with all of the animals.”
“Yeah, thats just what I was calling about, I think she might be spending a little too much time at the zoo.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I came home last night to find Abby’s room with a ropes and nets tied to the ceiling and chunks of grass from our back yard on the ground.”
“That’s strange.” I thought about it for a while a realized why she might have done it. “Ohh no.”
“What?”
“Mrs, Mullen, I think I know why Abby did this. She decorated her room exactly like the chimpanzee exhibit at the zoo. Recently, she has been spending a lot of time with the monkeys.”
“Wait thats not all. I looked into Abby’s bed and saw a big hairy creature laying next to her.”
“Oh my god. Clementine! Mrs Mullen, that hairy creature is our zoo’s missing chimpanzee. Where is it?”
“In our yard, I didn’t know what else to do with it.”
“Ok, when can I pick her up and bring her back to the zoo?”
“Immediately please! I want that thing out my home as soon as possible!”
I hung up the phone still trying to process what she said. I was happy that Clementine was okay but at the same time I was very confused. I didn’t understand why Abby would steal a chimpanzee from the zoo, or even how she did it.
I came by with my van to pick Clementine up. Estella answered the door.
“Oh thank god your here, Mrs Mullen was gonna freak if the ape wasn’t gone by the time she got home! Come in.”
“Thanks”.
“They are both in Abby’s room.”
I walked down the hall and turned right into Abby’s room. I was blown away by how much the room looked like the chimpanzee exhibit. Abby was sitting on her bed playing patty-cake with Clementine.
“Hi Abby.”
Her eyes widened as if she was surprised to see me.
“Mr. Quinn, why are you here?”
“Well, I think you have something here that belongs to me.”
“What do yo mean?”
“I mean, the chimpanzee.”
Abby threw a blanket over Clementine’s head and slid her behind her back.
“Abby.” I sat down on her bed and took the blanket off the apes’ head. “Why is Clementine here?”
“This is her home”
“Abby, her home is at the zoo, she was born there.”
“No, chimpanzees were born in Africa, not the zoo.”
“Yes, I guess that is true, chimpanzees are originally from Africa, and you know what? I think that I got Clementines grandmother and grandfather in Africa. I brought them back to the zoo and and few years later Clementines mom, Matilda was born, then a few years after than Clementine was born. That’s just the way it works.”
“That’s not what Clementine told me. She said that the zoo is not her home.”
“Well I think that she might be wrong Abby. The zoo is her home, she has lived there her whole life.”
“Nooo!”, she whined. “She lives with me now!”
“Abby, your room isn’t Africa. Now tell me the truth, why did you take Clementine from the zoo?”
“I didn’t. She came to me.”
“That’s impossible. Abby, Clementine needs to be fed with special food the zoo provides. She needs to be with the other chimpanzees. She cannot live in you bedroom.”
“Shes fine!” I could tell she was getting mad.
“Abby, I am going to have to take her back to the zoo now. Say goodbye.”
She grabbed the chimp and hugged it as close to her body as she could.
“No! you can’t do that.”
I reached to try to get the chimp.
“Noooo! No no no no no!!” She started to cry. Estella heard her from the other room and came running in. We both tried to get the ape from her. At this point Abby was screaming from the top of her lungs. Estella had to hold her down while I plied it from her arms.
“Go, she’ll be okay.” Estella told me when I had the chimp in my arms.
I ran out of the house and put Clementine in the van. I heard Abby screaming even from inside the car. It hurt me to see her like that.
I put Clementine back in her exhibit. The other chimpsx seemed glad to have her back home.
The next morning at about 7:00 I went on my daily walk around the park, just to check on the animals and the cleanliness of the zoo. The zoo opens at 9:00, just after I finish my daily rounds. Abby usually comes around 10:00, well during the summer that is. During the school year she came to the zoo right after school got out.
A few weeks passed and Abby still hadn’t come to the zoo. I was starting to think she forgot about the zoo and got season passes to water world. A part of me was glad she hadn’t come, but a bigger part of me wanted her back. I missed watching her interact with the animals. She must have been embarrassed. I don’t blame her, she stole an animal from the zoo. I saw her having a tantrum, just another reason not to come back to the zoo.
Pretty soon summer ended, and the number of visitors decreased a great amount compared to the past three months. Usually, the only people who came to the zoo during school hours were stay at home moms with their children or a group of students on a class field trip. The zoo is lot different during the summer.
It was in October around 4:00 pm, Abby came back. I saw her sitting with Estella by the meerkat exhibit. I hesitated to come up to her. I was worried that she wouldn’t want to talk to me. I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable. At the same time I didn’t just not want to talk to her, what if she noticed me? What would I say? I decided to let her be. I started to turn around and walk back to my office. Then I heard,
“Mr Quinn where are you going?”
“Oh hi Abby, I havn’t seen you in a while. How’s school? Did you meet any new friends? ” I tried to pretend nothing happened.
“Okay. The kids think I am weird.”
“Oh yeah, and why is that?”
“I dunno. They think I am different”
“Like what?”
“Well, I don’t know. All the other girls read Junie b. Jones and Magic Tree House for their free read, I read The Encyclopedia of Animals.”
“Oh I see. You know Abby, being different isn’t always a bad thing. When I was your age I was just like you, I absolutely loved animals. And now look at me, I own a zoo.
“Oh, okay. There sure is a lot of them.”
“A lot of what?”
“Meerkats!”
“Oh, yeah there is isn’t there. Hey look Abby, that ones looking at you!”
Abby, Estella and I visited a few more exhibits together. Everything seemed normal again.
Abby started coming regularly again. She came to the zoo right after school until it closed. After about a week or so I started noticing that Abby looked a little sad when first coming to the zoo. Estella told me that she was being bullied at school and the zoo is the only place she could be herself. I didn’t blame her for spending so much time at the zoo.
Pretty soon December came. The weather was getting much colder. That meant that fewer and fewer people came to the zoo. They would much rather be at home sitting by the fire and watching Christmas specials than freezing, looking at shivering animals at the zoo. Business was slow, there was nothing I could do about it.
Abby still came. She wore a big red coat and rain boots to the zoo everyday. Ever since she first started coming to the zoo she almost always had a favorite exhibit. Her opinion changes usually every week or two. This time, it stayed the same for months on end. She loved the meerkats. She spent hours talking and playing with them. She even named all of them. She could tell one another apart, not even my best zoo keeper Pablo could do that. I was starting to think she had forgotten about her love of the chimpanzees.
The best part of winter was winter break. All of the kids were out of school, and that meant that they came to the zoo. For those two weeks the zoo is almost as crowded as it is on a summer day. I always hang up lights everywhere and put up a huge Christmas tree in the center of the zoo. I call it the animal winter wonderland. For me, this was one of the happiest times of the year at the zoo. Everyone was so cheerful.
It snowed the night that school got out. You couldn’t even get in your car to drive to work. I had to put heaters in some of the exhibits. It was the worst weather I had seen in at least twenty years, and to top it off, I got a terrible cold and had to stay home for three days.
I woke up on December 20 still feeling a little under the weather, but I knew I needed to go to work. It was just too busy at the zoo for me to be out another day. So, I put on my warmest jacket and snow boots and walked to the zoo. It sat down in my freezing office, and turned on my little portable heater.
“Feeling better Mr Quinn?” One of my head zookeepers asked from the office across from mine.
“Well, better than yesterday I guess. How were things here at the zoo?”
“Busy, but good. The animals sure aren’t used to this weather.”
“I don’t expect them to be. This hasn’t happened in decades.”
“It really is crazy isn’t it. Ok i’m going to go check on the reptiles, Paul said he saw that one of the cobras looked ill.”
“Oh okay. You know I think i’ll join you.”
We both walked to the reptile area. I made sure that all of their heat lamps were turned up all of way. Then I decided to take a walk around the zoo, I wanted to make sure all the animals were okay after this weather.
It took longer than I expected. The gates were open before I even finished. Besides the flamingos, the meerkat exhibit was the last of the exhibits I visited on my daily checkup on the animals. Today, I never got to visit the flamingos.
I looked at the meerkat exhibit and right away I noticed some of them were missing. At first I thought they were just hiding. I went into the exhibit and looked under every rock and behind every bush. There was supposed to be 22 meerkats, today there was only 10.
“How did 12 of them just randomly disappear. I checked yesterday and they were all there.” Paul asked.
“Abby.”
“What?”
“Abby took the Meerkats while I was gone.”
“The little girl? How could she? Do you know this for sure?”
“I would be very surprised if she didn’t have them.”
I was almost positive that she had them. The only thing I wasn’t sure about was how she took them and got away with it. It made me wonder how strong our security was, if a seven year old could break in, twice and leave with zoo animals.
Then, I realized that I have let her into some of the the exhibits before, and she might have seen where I kept the some of the keys. Great. This was all my fault.
A few hours later Abby showed up. There was no surprise where she was. I walked up to her
“Hi Abby.”
“Hey Mr. Quinn. Were were you this week?”
“I was sick.”
“Oh”
There was an awkward silence for about 30 seconds.
I knew she wouldn’t confess that she had stolen the meerkats, so I decided to do my best to get it out of her.
“Wait I think there were more meerkats before, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yes.”
“This is strange. Do you have any idea of where they went?”
“Maybe they went to someplace warmer. You know, meerkats were not made to live in the snow. They were probably cold.”
“hmmm, where do you think that someplace warmer would be?”
“I don’t know, maybe in a house.”
“Your house?”
She didn’t say anything
“Abby, did you take the meerkats to you house while I was out sick.”
She still said nothing.
“Abby, i’m talking to you.”
“They were cold, they are just babies!”
“What?”
I looked at the meerkats left in the exhibit. She was right, the only ones left were the adults.”
“The babies don’t have enough fur yet to keep them warm in this weather. I learned that in a book about mongeese.”
“So you took them home with you? Abby I like how you care about the animals but you committed a crime. You stole animals from the zoo twice! If I find that you took the meerkats you are going to be in big trouble Abby, and not just with me.”
More silence.
“They cannot stay with you. I’m going to have to take them back to the zoo.”
I left her and walked back into my office. I called her mom as soon as I sat down.
“Hello?”
“Hi Mrs Mullen? This is Mr. Quinn from the Baldwin County Zoo. I’m calling about your daughter, Abby. She has stolen animals from the zoo, again.
“What?”
“Remember that chimpanzee you found in her room? Well, Abby stole it from the zoo and took her home. That time I was nice enough not to press charges. Now she took more than half of the zoos meerkats.
“What are meerkats?”
“They belong in the mongoose family”
“Oh. discusting. You see Mr. Quinn, I just don’t understand how my daughter could have done this. I didn’t see any of these things with her when I came home last night, and anyways, do you really think a seven year old could do such a thing on her own?”
“I know it sounds crazy but I am almost positive it was her. I wouldn’t be surprised if she figured out how to get into the exhibits. Mrs Mulllen, would you mind if I came to your house this after noon just to check if any of the zoos meerkats are there. Its just for the safety of your family and the animals.
“Fine, Abby will open the door for you.
“Thank you Mrs Mullen, I won’t be long.”
At around 5:00 I left work early to get the meerkats. I had cages all ready for them in the back of my van. I walked up to the door and rang the bell. Abby answered the door.
“Whoooo is it?” she asked from inside.
“It’s Mr. Quinn”
She didn’t open it.
“Come on Abby, can you open it?
No answer.
“Abby, can I just talk to Estella then?”
“No, shes not here” she angrily replied.
“Then who is?”
“Nobody.”
“What? Your alone?”
“Yes.”
Who leaves a seven year old home alone? I thought.
“Abby, why aren’t you letting me in? I just wanna talk.”
I heard her sturing and unhooking the locks and chains on the door. She opened the door slightly and peeked though.
“Hi Abby, can I come in now?”
She finally opened the door enough to let me in.
“I know what your here for.”
“Oh yeah, and why is that?
“You want to take away my meerkats.”
“So now they’re your meerkats?”
She had a grumpy look on her face.
“Abby, is it okay if I walk back to your room? Just to take a little peek.”
I didn’t wait for her to answer before I walked in. It looked different from when I saw it before. No more ropes hanging anywhere, or chunks of grass on the floor. It just looked like a normal little girls room. I didn’t see any meerkats anywhere.
“I like your room Abby.”
“Your not gonna find em’.”
“Oh don’t tell me you hid them.”
She sat down on her bad and started to read a book. She acted like I wasn’t there. So, I took it as an opportunity to look around the house. I looked for over 45 minutes, and still no luck. Then I decided to look in the garage. I walked in and found the light switch. They weren’t in there. Then I saw a tiny wooden door in the corner. I opened it slowly, not sure if I was supposed to even be in there. I opened the door and found a small little room that smelled like mildew. In there were about 30 pillows and blankets. I looked closer, I saw a tiny head peek out from underneath the pile. Bingo.
I walked into Abby’s room carrying three of the baby meerkats.
“Found em’”
“She quickly ran to me and took them out of my arms.”
“Oh my gosh are you crazy! They are going to freeze to death poor little things!”
She put them on her bed, under the covers and got three more blankets from the closet to put on them.
“Abby, I think they’re gonna be ok. The weather is a lot warmer now.”
“But they’re just babies!”
“Exactly they need their mothers to take care of them, she will keep them warm and safe. I even put more heaters in their exhibit. You don’t need to worry about them anymore.”
She ignored me and just kept petting them.
“Ok, i’m going to load the rest in my van.”
“NO!”
“Yes. say goodbye.”
She started to cry. Great not this again.
I managed to sneak out and get the nine meerkats left in the pillow room into my van without Abby seeing.
The hardest part was getting the three out of her bed. Once again, I had to hold her down and grab the animals. I literally had to run out of the house and jump into my van. I saw her open the door and chase after me as I drove away. Her face was all red and wet from her tears. Deja vu.
I drove a few blocks and pulled over. I decided to call Mrs. Mullen. I just couldn’t let Abby running down the streets like a crazy person.
“Hello?”
“Hi Mrs. Mullen it’s me, Mr. Quinn again.”
“Whats wrong?”
“Abby hid the meerkats in your garage. I had to pull them away from her. Now she is screaming running down the streets chasing my van. I don’t know what to do.”
“What did you do to her!” Where is the babysitter?
“What babysitter? She was home alone.”
I can’t get off work right now so I guess I’ll call a neighbor and ask to take her home. I’m so sorry for the trouble, I didn’t know she would really steal them. I am really upset with Abby please don’t press charges. I’m going to have a big talk with her tonight. Can I call you back in the morning.
I hung up the phone. I had a migraine the rest of the day. I just didn’t know what to do.
I decided to press charges. I just couldn’t have another animal get taken away from the zoo. I was nice enough the first time, I knew it was the right thing to do.
After I pressed charges we settled in court and they payed a great fine to the zoo. From last I heard, Abby’s mom got offered a job and her and Abby moved to Arizona. I think it was good for the both of them, Abby at a new school and Mrs. Mullen spending more time with her. I just think that she had a vivid imagination, and didn’t know what to do with it.
All of this happened about six or seven years ago. Befriending Abby was just another chapter in my life, it just didn’t end well. I shouldn’t expect everything to have a happy ending.
A few months later as I was taking my morning walk around the zoo I noticed a new little girl around pressing her face up against the glass staring at the chimpanzee exhibit pointing at Clementine. Then I heard, “Look mom look how cute! I wanna take it home with me!” Great.
