Tiger Town Read Online Free PDF Page A

little while and that snake doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere.”
    “I’ll take care of that.” I reached over and grabbed a broom that was leaning against a post. Turning it around so I was holding it by the bristles, I raised it and gently poked Brent in some of his many ribs. He didn’t move. I pressed harder and he started to squirm. I nudged him again and he began to climb higher into the rafters, away from my prodding. Slowly he moved out of reach. His head was followed by his middle, which was followed by his tail, and he disappeared into the darkness. Out of sight and out of mind.
    “I think you’ll have to hold that broom a little differently if you’re planning on cleaning up,” Nick said as he and Mom returned.
    “It seemed to work pretty well this way,” I said as I flipped it back around and leaned it against the post.
    “You got the food?” I asked.
    “Two chickens,” he said, holding up the bucket to show me.
    “Does he always eat that much?” my mother asked.
    “Sometimes he has different things, but he generally eats the equivalent of four chickens every day,” I said.
    “That’s a lot of chicken. Fourteen hundred chickens in a year!” she said. “That’s a lot of money for Mr. McCurdy.”
    I hadn’t really thought about that. Two tigers would mean twice as many chickens, not to mention what the lions and leopards and bear would eat. This was going to cost a lot of money. Where was Mr. McCurdy going to get that sort of —
    “That was a strange sound,” the acting chief said.
    “What sound?” Nick asked.
    “It was like Buddha just sprung a leak and air was escaping.”
    “Oh, you mean the puffing. It’s a good sound. That’s the sound a tiger makes when it’s happy to see you.”
    “Or happy to see the feed bucket,” I added.
    “Or both,” Nick said. “Do you want to hear the sound a tiger makes when he’s not happy to see you?”
    “Sure,” the acting chief said.
    “Listen carefully.” Nick crouched slightly down and everybody listened. Buddha didn’t make a sound. Then Nick burst into a grin. “Actually a tiger doesn’t make any sound when he’s not happy to see you — he just kills you.” That was an old joke of Mr. McCurdy’s.
    “Nicholas!” my mother scolded him.
    “Since you don’t want to pet him, do you want to feed Buddha?” Nick asked our mother.
    “I think I’ll pass on that, too.”
    “Chief?” Nick asked.
    “I’ll just watch.”
    Nick reached into the bucket and pulled out a chicken. It still had its head and feet and wings and feathers. As Nick strolled down the side of the pen, Buddha watched him intensely, following him with his eyes.
    “You want a chicken, Buddha, old buddy boy?” Nick asked as he pushed the chicken through the bars and dropped it.
    In answer, Buddha pounced, covering the few metres between him and Nick in one leap. Buddha caught the chicken with his teeth. There was a sickening crunch as his powerful jaws crushed the bones of the bird. I shuddered involuntarily. While Buddha’s attention was on the one chicken, I took the second bird out of the bucket and tossed it between the bars and into his pen.
    “How long will it take him to finish breakfast?” my mother asked.
    “The eating part could be just a couple of minutes,” I said, “but first he’ll want to prepare his meal.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “Buddha doesn’t like the feathers. Mr. McCurdy says they tickle on the way down, so Buddha plucks the chicken before he eats it.”
    Buddha was already at work. Holding the bird between his two front paws, he was pulling out feathers with his teeth and dropping them to the side.
    “At camp we used to pluck them for the cats,” I said.
    “And chop off their feet and heads,” Nick added.
    Our mother shuddered.
    “It’s okay, Mom,” Nick said. “They were already dead.”
    “Feeding time’s over,” I said. “You two better get going.”
    “Sarah, if I didn’t know you better, I’d