Panda-monium (FunJungle) - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Stuart Gibbs is the author of five New York Times bestselling series: Spy School, FunJungle, Moon Base Alpha, Charlie Thorne, and Once Upon a Tim—as well as the new nonfiction series Spy School Secret Files. He has written screenplays, worked on a whole bunch of animated films, developed TV shows, been a newspaper columnist, and researched capybaras. Stuart lives with his family in Los Angeles. You can learn more about what he’s up to at StuartGibbs.com.

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Panda-monium

THE THIEF

I almost missed all the mayhem with the giant panda because a dolphin stole my bathing suit.

The dolphin was a male Atlantic bottlenose named Snickers, and I was swimming in the Dolphin Adventure tank at FunJungle Wild Animal Park. Snickers was known for being extremely playful, but up until that point, he’d never swiped anyone’s clothing before. Fortunately for me, it happened at eight in the morning on a Sunday, an hour before the park opened, so there were only two other people around when I got pantsed. Unfortunately, both of those other people were girls.

One of them was my girlfriend, Summer McCracken, the fourteen-year-old daughter of the owner of FunJungle. The other was Olivia Putney, the dolphin trainer. Olivia was twenty-three, but she behaved in such a youthful, enthusiastic way that I often forgot she was ten years older than me.

Dolphin Adventure was an enormous saltwater tank where tourists could pay to interact with the park’s eight dolphins. Some less reputable dolphin encounters allowed tourists to ride on the animals, but FunJungle only let guests swim close by, feed the dolphins some fish, and pet them gently. Everyone loved it. The sessions were expensive—and that was in addition to the steep price of park admission—but Dolphin Adventure sold out almost every day.

Summer and I had been swimming with the dolphins a lot lately. We had come for the first time a month before, when Summer had surprised me with a private swim for my birthday. Normally, guests swam in groups, but since we did it after official park hours, the two of us and Olivia had the dolphins all to ourselves. It was supposed to be a one-time event, but then Olivia had invited us to come back whenever we wanted—so we had. Usually, we visited after the park closed; even though it was only April, central Texas could still be awfully hot in the evenings and the dolphin tank was refreshingly cool. No one ever charged us, even though Summer could easily afford it. It was one of the perks of being the owner’s daughter. The trainers claimed it wasn’t a big deal; one of them always had to be there before opening and after closing anyhow, and they said the stimulation we provided was good for the dolphins. They even gave us our own employee lockers to store bathing suits and towels, so we didn’t have to lug our stuff home and back each time.

We hadn’t really meant to go swimming that morning. We had really come to FunJungle to see Li Ping. The five-year-old panda’s arrival was a huge deal. Most animals were owned by their zoos, but every panda in the world was owned by the country of China, which only loaned them to a few select zoos around the world. Other animals could attract crowds, but nothing else on earth was as rare, adorable, and beloved as a giant panda. The fact that one was coming to FunJungle had boosted ticket presales for the entire summer.

Li Ping was supposed to be there at 8:00 a.m., but Summer and I had arrived much earlier. That wasn’t a big deal for me, since my family actually lived at FunJungle. (Both of my parents worked for the park—Mom was the head primatologist, while Dad was the official photographer—so we lived in employee housing beyond the back fence.) Summer lived twenty miles away, but she and her father weren’t about to miss something this momentous. Unfortunately, the truck with Li Ping got stuck in a major traffic jam on I-10, delaying the panda’s arrival at least an hour. Even that early in the morning, it was already hot, so Summer had said that, instead of just sitting around, we might as well go see the dolphins.

A few months before, J.J. McCracken would have had a bodyguard tail Summer to the dolphin tank, but Summer had always chafed at this. Having enormous men constantly following her made it difficult to have a normal social life. So she’d begged her father to stop hiring them, pointing out that, so far, the guards had actually caused more problems than they’d solved. (The last one had been complicit in a crime at FunJungle.) J.J. had reluctantly agreed on a trial basis, which had worked out so far.

When Summer and I reached Dolphin Adventure, we found Olivia on duty, feeding the dolphins a breakfast of raw squid and herring. She was wearing her standard Dolphin Adventure bathing suit and her hair was wet, indicating that she’d already been in the tank. Olivia didn’t even bother asking if we wanted to swim. She simply said, “Hop on in, kids! The water’s fine!”

“Sounds good,” Summer replied, then told me, “Last one in is a sea cucumber!” and bolted for her locker. We quickly changed into our bathing suits, grabbed scuba masks, and hit the water. Summer beat me by five seconds. A bit earlier in the year, we might have needed neoprene suits to keep warm, but it was hot enough that day to go in without them.

The dolphin tank was an oval pool twelve feet deep and a quarter mile in circumference. It was divided into two sections: one for the dolphins to interact with guests and a much larger area to be on their own. The interaction area was fronted by a long man-made beach built with sand that had been trucked in from South Padre Island. A floating catwalk separated the two areas on the surface, with a small island in the center of the tank. Under the surface, though, there were no barriers. The dolphins were always free to go wherever they wanted. If they felt like ignoring us—or any guests—they could simply swim away.

Two of them, Snickers and his sister, Twix, raced right over to us, eager to play. Bottlenose dolphins are extremely social and the siblings knew us well. They swam all around us, leaping over our heads and corkscrewing through the water below. Snickers kept rolling onto his back, eager to have his belly rubbed, like a 400-pound aquatic poodle.

“Want to see something cool?” Olivia asked us, after we’d been in long enough for our fingers to start pruning. “I’ve taught Twix a new behavior. Check this out.” She stepped onto the floating catwalk and blew into a small silver whistle she kept on a chain around her neck. Twix zipped over to her.

Dolphins’ personalities are as varied as humans’ are. Twix was much more acrobatic than the others, able to do all sorts of amazing tricks, like double flips with a twist. Snickers was far more impish, always looking for ways to steal fish from the trainers. Their mother, Skittles, had the most vocalizations of any dolphin at FunJungle; in addition to whistles, grunts, clicks, and clacks, she could make an incredible variety of farting noises with her blowhole.

Olivia blew her whistle again.

Twix bobbed upright with her head out of the water.

Olivia then clenched her hand into a fist.

Twix promptly spit a mouthful of water over the wall.

“Cool!” Summer exclaimed. “Can I try it?”

“Sure.” Olivia tossed a handful of squid into Twix’s mouth. “I’d like to see if she’ll do it for other people.” She blew into her whistle once more and pointed toward us.

Twix shot back through the tank to where we were treading water and came to a sudden stop in front of Summer, sticking her head above the surface.

“Okay, Twixie,” Summer said. “When I give you the signal, spit at Teddy.”
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