'Orror
at Ocramber
5.45am. All is peace
and quiet at Ocramber Zoo. Every animal is sound asleep. Then a
little rustle of leaves in the bushes on the north boundary as a
dark, unknown figure moved silently through them. The figures reaches
the other side of the bushes and jumps over the fence of the lion den
which is next to the bushes. The figure then grabs Rumi – Ocramber
Zoo' only lion cub, puts a gag over his mouth and leaps over the west
fence with the gagged cub under one arm. Suddenly the cub awakens.
Realising the position he's in he starts kicking, yowling and
scratching his kidnapper's hands in a desperate attempt to escape.
The kidnapper panics and hits the cub to the head trying to shut him
up. Sudden silence. Rumi has no heartbeat. The kidnapper stumbles
blindly on in the dark, past the zoo attendant house to the Aviary
where the kidnapper opens a door, puts the cub on the floor
underneath a night security blind, closes the door, take the same
route out as when they came in and disappears into the night.
Timala Canger woke up
at 7.00am, stretched, did some warming up exercises, put her fake
orange tiger skin dressing gown on and went downstairs to a delicious
breakfast which 5 of her 6 servants were busy preparing in the
mansion dining room. Timala was a crime detective who spent most of
her spare time teaching dance students in Ocramber gymnasium. This
made her extremely agile when tracking suspects. She had become a
detective when her 4 year old daughter Kynasa was murdered. (This
made her sly and cautious when tracking suspects). Her most prized
possessions were a fake white tiger skin (she detested people who
killed real animals and animal murders were her favourite crime to
investigate) and gleaming tiger's eye amulet set in 22 carat gold.
However, today Timala's boss, Mr. C. Krett, had given her the day off
and a ticket to the local zoo. So after breakfast she put on her
orange and black striped cotton dress, picked up her ticket and went
out to where her orange limousine was waiting.
“The zoo, please,
Buckington.” said Timala to the driver. The car was started up and
driven off.
There was a queue of
about 20 people at the zoo gates when she arrived including her
sister, Jalina, and the zoo-keeper was opening them for the first
guided tour. While he was busy unlocking the padlocks another man
stood on a stand and told that crowd that he was Mr. Karefol, the
bird tender, and the first guide. The mass scurried into the zoo with
Mr. Karefol at the front. They passed gazelles, rams and goats until
they reached the Aviary with the night security blinds still pulled
down. Mr. Karefol bent down and undid the catch which fastened the
blinds to the floor. A sudden blare of light dazzled all the birds as
they stood magnificent on their perches. Then Jalina let out a huge
shriek and pointed to the owl cage. Everyone turned to see what had
frightened her so much. There, half stretched out, half curled round
the base of Trophy the Snowy Owl's perch, was the corpse of a lion
cub. Someone set off the alarm and 2 zoo policemen came running to
the Aviary. They took one look at the cage, one look at Mr. Karefol
and arrested him. As they led him away Timala caught up with them.
“Why have you
arrested him?” she asked, puzzled.
“Didn't you see the
scratches on his hands?” one of the policemen said, “They're
obviously lion claw marks.”
“But those marks were
attained at feeding time.” replied Timala.
“Ha! Is that what he
told you?” said the other policeman, “You can't believe
everything you hear, Miss.” Timala watched them take the poor bird
tender away and then she ran out of the zoo, jumped into her
limousine and said to the driver.
“Back to 15 Avenue de
Pomme.” The car started up and drove off again.
Back at her mansion she
ran up to an unknown bedroom attic where she did her investigating
work. None of her servants knew she was a detective. By one o' clock
Timala still couldn't work out the crime and anyway it was time for
her afternoon gym lesson so she put on her black and orange leotard
and was driven to the gymnasium where about 27 17-19 year olds were
getting changed. Marla Pryne was talking about Ocramber Zoo and how
it was such a shame that the lion cub had been killed.
After a lesson of
forward rolls and hoop work, Timala received a phone call in her
secret bedroom asking her to come and view Rumi's post mortem.
“So much for my day
off!” Timala said, going over to an obviously well-used wardrobe.
A couple of minutes
later Le Tigre stood in her place and a few minutes after that she
was examining the deceased cub's post mortem with two other people
from forensics – one called Sarah and one called Jack.
“We know the place of
death was Ocramber Zoo, we think the time of death was approximately
6.00am; we also know the cause of death was a severe blow on the head
but we don't know who hit Rumi. The newspaper about it will be out
tomorrow asking people with information to come forward.” said
Sarah.
“Tomorrow? That's
weird! One of my stu...er...friends who I know wasn't at the zoo this
morning was talking about the murder and I assumed she had read it in
a newspaper. Also she had scratches on her hands which she said she
got from doing handstands on a wooden floor.” Le Tigre said.
“But that's very,
highly unlikely.” said Jack, “In a recent examination handstands
on wooden floor will rarely cause even splinters and when they are
removed they only leave slight marks which easily heal up!”
“Then Marla must have
killed Rumi!” said Le Tigre, shakily, “But why?”
“We'll find that out
when we arrest her tomorrow,” Sarah said, “Can you follow this
Marla tomorrow afternoon to make sure she goes straight home? The
police will meet her at the door. We'll also make sure Mr. Karefol is
released.”
So after the lesson the
day after, Timala zipped into her detective costume and zipped
outside to keep her eye on Marla.
“Suspect heading
home.” whispered Le Tigre into a walkie-talkie.
“Roger. Over and
out.” came the reply.
Finally they reached
Marla's house and just as Marla put her key in the door about 5
police jumped out and 1 arrested her for Animal Murder (AM) just as
Le Tigre jumped from the lamppost on which she had been perched just
in time to hear Marla's confession.
“I only did what I
did because Yoghurt, my kitten, died and when the zoo told me it
didn't matter I couldn't believe them and when I applied as an
Ocramber Zoo keeper assistant they told me I didn't have a chance and
I didn't mean to kill the cub, I was going to look after him as a new
kitten but it all went wrong.”
“Ah well, that's the
way it goes,” said Le Tigre, “we should let animals keep their
skins, tusks and lives.”
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