Page 57 of Tiger Queen

Rage bubbled up inside of me. One of the signs explaining the new rules and regulations was fastened to the fence right in front of them, and they were blatantly ignoring it.

Before I could storm over there, David suddenly appeared on the other side of them. “Sir, ma’am, I’m sorry but I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

The mom rounded on him. “For what!”

David tapped the sign. “No throwing items into the enclosures. It’s right here on the sign, and you were told the same thing when you bought your ticket.”

“We can’t see the animals,” the dad complained. “How’re we supposed to lure ‘em out if we don’t give ‘em jerky?”

“This is outrageous,” the mom said. “We aren’t going anywhere until my boy sees the wolves. He’s been watching that Game of Thrones and wants to see a darewolf.”

“Direwolf,” the boy insisted. “I want to see the direwolves.”

David pulled his walkie-talkie off his belt. “Curtis? I need security over by the wolf pen. We have some trespassers who need to be escorted from the grounds.”

That got through to them. The mom ushered her boy away, all the while shouting complaints over her shoulder at David.

“Who’s Curtis?” I asked. Both of us were watching the visitors march down to the entrance and out into the parking lot.

“The head of security I made up.”

“He sounds mean.”

“Oh, he is. You totally don’t want to mess with Curtis.”

Both of us grinned.

26

Rachel

Having visitors in the zoo for eight hours a day complicated things. We had to keep a constant eye on everything. There was a lot more trash to clean up at the end of the day, too. People were messy.

But we got into a groove with our respective tasks. I kept feeding the animals in the morning before we opened the zoo. David, Jake, and Brandon took care of most of the animal work throughout the day. Anthony brought his laptop behind the desk at the visitor’s center and did some work when it was slow. Aside from the morning rush of visitors waiting to enter the zoo, I spent most of my time walking the grounds and talking to people. Like a roaming tour guide who chatted people up and asked if they had questions. The visitors liked hearing from an expert, especially when they learned that I was the head veterinarian. The kids had tons of questions.

And the money was fantastic.

“It’s looking great,” David announced at dinner one night. “We made close to ten grand on the first day, and we’ve averaged about five every day since.”

“Does that include gift shop revenue?” I asked.

“Nope. Just ticket sales.” David nodded in acknowledgment. “This will really help bolster our war chest. We’ve bought ourselves a lot of time.”

“It’s not as bad as I expected,” I admitted. “The animals are definitely more skittish around so many humans, but things have gone surprisingly smooth.”

“The two new hires,” Anthony said. “How are they doing?”

We had invited the two of them to have dinner at the house. Brandon came the first night, but had not joined us since then. And Mary Beth politely declined, explaining that after chatting with people all day she needed to be alone in her trailer. I couldn’t blame her.

“Brandon’s a fucking work horse,” Jake said. “Does what he’s told and works hard. No problems at all.”

“I think I smelled weed coming from his trailer last night,” David said with a chuckle. “But I kind of expected that from him the moment we hired him.”

“Mary Beth is fine,” I said. “Learning slowly, but she’s enthusiastic and the visitors love her. The only problem is that I caught her on her cell phone again today when she was supposed to be starting another tour.”

“Probably Googling the difference between panthers and pumas,” Anthony joked.

David reached across the table and put his hand on mine. “Thanks again for being okay with the reopening.”

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