"So, you think you're prepared enough for a disaster, Detective M?" Tony asked him as they walked through the gate of the Philadelphia Zoo, noticing the suitcases of wipes and other cleaning materials on the two racks the detective was dragging along behind himself.
"One can never come too prepared to a zoo," Adrian stated, "People leave germs everywhere in here. Not to mention the animals aren't very clean."
"Well Mr. Monk, you do know you can't go around cleaning every single cage in here," Natalie reminded him.
"Point out to me the exact spot in the rule book where it says that," Adrian countered. He stopped for a moment to check the topmost suitcase. Sure enough, the radiation suits he'd brought for an emergency was there and accounted for. "All set," he nodded.
"Hey Monk!" came an annoying shout from behind him. Adrian found himself face to face with a bratty-looking kid, who immediately started coughing deliberately at him. Adrian frantically tore open the suitcases containing the cold medicine he'd brought and started tossing tablets wildly at his tormentor, who kept going with sadistic delight. Finally, he was stopped when Julie seized his arm. "Lay off him!" she ordered, raising a fist.
"Oh, I'm really scared of a girl!" he snorted.
"You should be scared!" Benjy added his own fist to the equation, "Now get lost!"
Faced with superior numbers, the boy took off. "Thank, thank you you two," Adrian commended them. His gaze fell upon the large balloon floating in the sky, prompting him to wince. "They, they really have it...high," he commented to no one in particular, apparently not noticing or caring that the balloon was firmly tethered to the ground and not likely to drift off. No one paid any attention to him. "All right guys, you can go off on your own in here; I trust you won't cause any problems," Ralph told his students, "We'll all meet back here in about three hours or so, that should be enough time."
"Or until the next big crisis blows up and you have to go off again," Kevin growled under his breath.
"He, he won't this time, Kevin, it's..." Adrian started to say
"Didn't I say I'm not listening to you?" the boy told him antagonistically, "Now I'm staying right here. The rest of you go on, but I refuse to be with either HIM or HIM."
He pointed at his father and Adrian with thinly veiled contempt that made Adrian feel guiltier than ever that he had brought the case up to Ralph. "Do you want to go with us, Kevin?" Sharona proposed to him.
"I don't care, as long as it's not with them," Kevin said firmly. He started storming off down the path to his left. Sharona gave Adrian a puzzled look before following after the boy. The group started splintering into twos and threes and trotting off down different paths. "We've, we've got to find someone who can get through to him," Adrian remarked slowly, picking up several pieces of trash on the ground with his claw, "Maybe I can get Dr. Kroger to put him down for an appointment."
"What we need is to solve this case soon so can I dump that stupid suit once and for all," Ralph muttered darkly, "It's too much of a hassle now; I'm not losing him for good. Well, I guess it's you and I, Mr. Monk."
Everyone else had left by now. "Guess so," Adrian shrugged, "And you can call me Adrian. I think I like you. First stop, is...small mammal house," he took note of the nearest sign. They trudged over towards it. Adrian dug into the suitcases once they'd approached the door; he could tell the glass was far from clean. To the amazement of onlookers, he sprayed down the glass with window cleaner and wiped it down hard. He then opened the door with his elbow and repeated the procedure on the inner glass. "Oh, they didn't mop the floor in here either!" he lamented, examining it with great scrutiny, "Luckily I came prepared."
He opened another suitcase and began assembling a portable mop. "I've got to have a word with management; they need to make some sweeping changes here," he told Ralph over his shoulder, "They also put seventeen exhibits in here; as the oldest zoo in the country, they should know an even number of cages per building is better."
He sprayed cleaner on the end of the mop and started scrubbing the floor in nice, even lines. Ralph merely nodded and walked over to the nearest cage. "Fruit bats," he commented, watching them flutter around the exhibit, "You ever seen any of these up close, Adrian?"
"Can't say I have," Adrian moved the mop towards the exhibit railing, "Not that I really want to; you know how badly bats end up...going."
"Well bats are a lot more beneficial than people tend to realize," Ralph said, "They're not even remotely as vicious as they're made out to be, and even the vampire bats don't really hurt the animals they bite. And they certainly don't carry rabies."
"I'm, I'm aware of that," Adrian nodded. He looked up at the bats. "Two of them have children," he pointed at the relevant ones, "Their lives are so much simpler; they only need food and space. They don't have to worry about things being out of order, just whatever nature programmed them to think. And they know their mothers will be there for them, especially around here where they have nowhere else to go."
He leaned against the mop and let out a deep sigh. "Tell me, Ralph, is being a parent really worth it?" he had to know.
"Why do you ask?" Ralph inquired.
"Oh, just curious after things I've seen, and personal experiences," Adrian said, staring intently at the young bats, "Sometimes I wonder what kind of a parent I would have made, having gone through the things I have, seing spouses kill spouses or walk away from families."
"Did you and your wife ever think about having kids?" Ralph asked.
"Trudy mentioned it a few times; I kept saying there'd be lots of time," Adrian shook his head sadly, "How I wish I could have that time. But then again, what kind of a parent would I be? I'd, I'd probably drive the kid away after a few years. Or even if I didn't, I'd probably let them down some way or another, and believe me, there's no more painful feeling that having a child think you've failed them as a parent. I've seen it enough."
He stared at the floor. "Well, Adrian, you certainly do have some points," Ralph told him, "Parenting is a tough task no matter what type of person you are. It's a full-time commitment, and you should indeed make sure you're ready for it before you jump into it. But if I could tell you a secret, if you are prepared for it, it's the most rewarding experience you could have. The day Kevin came out of the operating room has always been the happiest of my life. And maybe someday you will be lucky enough to have a child of your own, to share their important moments with them, to watch them grow and mature. And when those moments come, you'll know it was worth it."
"I, I hope so," Adrian said, "But I doubt it. There won't be any besides Trudy for me. I just couldn't marry again; you might, but I can't."
He glanced wishfully at his wedding ring. "Yes, I think about what might have been a lot," he remarked slowly, "Not least of all that I could have been with her that day. She asked me to go with her; I told her no, I wasn't feeling up to it. Then at least we'd be together still. Together forever. Truthfully, Ralph, there are days I would give anything to go back and be in that car with her when the bomb went off. It's horrific going through each day alone."
"I'll bet it is," Ralph nodded, "But don't think that way, not with all the good you've done for others."
"I'm, I'm trying not to think that way more often," Adrian nodded, "But I still can't help thinking about what might have been. I wonder if anyone else does too?"
"Look sir, stray peacock," Disher pointed to one as he and Stottlemeyer walked by the reptile house.
"Yeah, it says in the guide they let them run free here as part of some big breeding program," Stottlemeyer consulted the zoo map, "Monk's going to go nuts when they come up to him."
The captain took a deep breath of air. "I really needed this vacation," he confided in Disher, "Too much of a workload back home and all. The good part is, at least Monk hasn't been giving me as much of a headache as I thought he would. Of course it helps he's off with that blowhard Maxwell a lot."
He laughed to himself. "We have a civic duty as Americans to run rampant everywhere and do whatever we need to to keep the Stars and Stripes waving proudly over this great and noble land of ours, especially since happiness is a warm pistol," he said in a mocking imitation of Maxwell, "I'll tell you, Randy, they don't need to set off fireworks this week. You'd just have to lock that nutball in a room with Karen, and the two of them would set off more fireworks in thrity minutes than this whole country does all year."
Disher nodded as they approached the hippo exhibit and watched the large creatures swim sluggishly through their pool. "Have you heard from her lately, Captain?" he asked, snapping another blinding-flash photo of the hippos that made Stottlemeyer cringe.
"Not her, no, but Max told me on the phone after you'd gone to bed the first night that she was ready to get up on the stand and put Nicolas Hallett away for life," Stottlemeyer informed him, "And that Marshall the Monk-in-law..."
"Monk-in-law, Captain?" Disher asked, confused.
"You've seen the guy, Randy, he might as well be Monk's other brother the way he wants everything cleaned," his superior said, "And given that we're off duty, there's no need to call me Captain at the moment. But anyway, Marshall's been with her the whole time. Before the whole Hallett case I would have derided the two of them as a match, but seeing now that they do care for each other, might as well give them my blessing. It's clear he can give Karen what I can't, and for her to be happy, might as well let go."
He sighed as he leaned over the fence of the enclosure. "Still, you can't help thinking that if one little thing here or there had played out a little differently, we might still be together, even though we'd probably still be hating each other to death twenty-four seven. She drove me mad like you wouldn't believe, but I still saw--still see--the caring woman underneath that should bring some kind of joy to Marshall...unless he believes in the right to bear arms, then he's screwed from day one."
He started walking up the pathway again. "In the meantime, sir, you might end up meeting Cathy before we go back," Disher said, rushing to catch up with him, "Monk said he's got Hinkley's wife working on getting her out on lack of evidence. Did I tell you I think about what may have been if I'd stayed her and married her?"
"Are you going to propose, that why you're asking me?" Stottlemeyer inquired.
"I don't know, sir, Disher admitted, "She is coming off a rather rough divorce, she maybe now wouldn't be the best time to bring up any proposal, but something inside me's saying right now, 'Go get her, you fool, it's the last chance you'll get.'"
"That's one inside battle I'd love to see," the captain said with another chuckle, "But my advice is listen to the guy telling you to go for it, because it's right; you may never get another chance to make ammends."
He gave Disher a solemn look as he gave this advice. Disher nodded firmly. "I will, when I see her next, thanks sir," he said. Then he blurted out, "Sir, do you ever wonder what might have been sometimes?"
"Every day of my life, Randy, every day of my life," Stottlemeyer parked himself in front of the elephants. He shut his eyes as Disher took a photo of him and the elephant right behind him before continuing, "It's summer 1981, I'm still courting Karen, we're staying at the Ten Pines Lodge in the mountains. We had our first real big spat over that I wanted to go hunting, and she gave her patented guns-are-the-devil-incarnate sermon. We split, I stay out on the patio, and this attractive blond waitress comes over and asks if I'd like some company since her shift's ending. We talked for about an hour, I learned she'd liked a lot of stuff I did, and she said if she wanted to know her better, to come up to her room at ten past midnight. I lay wide away in bed for an hour and a half with the dilemma: stay with someone you know and do love but who doesn't seem to appreciate your opinions on anything, or go to someone you basically don't know who seems to care for you, but you can't be sure what their intentions are. A long story short, in the end I rolled over in bed and decided I'd rather stay with Karen and know for sure what I was getting into. Of course, you know that lately, I've been having seconds thoughts on this."
"You haven't heard from her since then?" Disher asked.
"Nope," Stottlemeyer shook his head, "She's long gone from the phonebook of my life. Although then again, who's to say things WOULD have been better with her anyway? Maybe she'd turned to have been a drunk and abusive. That's the one problem with love, you're always shooting in the dark."
There was a trumpeting behind them. "Good shot," Disher scrambled up on the bench to get an unobstructed view of the elephant as it finished drinking from the fountain in the enclosure and raised into trunk high, "All right now, say cheese."
The elephant pointed its trunk straight Disher and squirted him with a blast of water instead. Disher sputtered in shock. "You had it coming, you know," Stottlemeyer leaned over to tell him.
Natalie was laughing hard at the sight of Disher's predicament just up the walkway. "Wasn't that the funniest thing you ev--what's wrong??" she turned to see the usually impregnable Sharona with her hands over her eyes and quivering. "Can we just, just, just go?" she asked hastily, "The elephants, they don't..."
"Oh, right, your thing with the elephants and all that," Natalie remembered being told of this, "Well then, uh, how about the primate reserve?"
Sharona nodded hard and quickly walked away from the elephant's vicinity. Natalie followed, shaking her head (they'd trusted their children enough to let them go out on their own for a while). Apparently the legend of the "Pachyderm Puss" Sharona (Disher's term, not Adrian's) was true indeed.
When she caught up the nurse inside the reserve's main building, with its converted timber mill design, it was a much happier Sharona watching the chimpanzees covert around behind the glass. "I always had a fondness for monkeys," she confided in the one-time bartender, "Did I tell you about the case with Darwin the chimp?"
"Julie may have heard it from Benjy one of the first times they were hooked up," Natalie admitted, "She gave me a few details: the captain made a complete fool of himself, right?"
"Did he ever," Sharona snorted with laughter at the thought of Stottlemeyer running around the interrogation room acting like a three-year-old in an attempt to get Darwin the Chimp to "confess." "You really should have been there for that; it was a moment for the ages."
She stepped back to allow several excited children to mob the glass. The two woman plopped down on a bench. Natalie offered Sharona a drink of soda from one of the bottles of it she'd brought (they were burried under almost fifty of Adrian's emergency Sierra Spring stash). "So, you've asked me how I've been holding up earlier," she told the nurse, "How about you? Will success spoil the Fleming family?"
"I'm trying not to let it," Sharona admitted, "Not least of all keeping sure Benjy only get a small amount for spending each month. As you'd expect, he's not always keen on this agreement, but since this is how I'm getting him into college, that's the way it's going to be, period. In the meantime, it's not too bad being mobbed by people in the streets like you said Adrian is. In fact its good to know I've finally made something for my son in his life to ensure he'd have a good future."
"Or is it the other way around?" Natalie had to point out.
"Could be," the nurse said. She unexpectedly sighed. "But while they love me now, will they forgive me for leaving him?" he asked out loud, sounding very concerned, "It was just the right time for me to get out, it was the best decision I could make under the circumstances. But what if the screaming fans don't see it that way? What if I'm just a traitor for them when that time comes?"
"Well, Sharona, you're not a traitor, not at all," Natalie reassured her, "And for the record, I never could have made it through the first few months with him without your advice. I think that qualifies on continuing to help him, and then being handy for him to cinch the deal on his life story for all of us. I hope."
"Benjy's right; audiences are going to like you," Sharona gave her reassurance back, "The show's not going to crash after I leave, I can tell you that right now."
"Thank you," Natalie smiled, "And how's the hottest new writer in TV doing?"
"He's still way up on cloud nine," Sharona smiled herself, "Luckily it isn't getting to his head; I think he kind of got the sense that working in TV isn't a free pass in itself; you've got to work hard. Coming here to see Mr. Monk in person as a conquering hero for him was all he talked about for the last month. Although, he still wishes that...well, you can guess, other people could have been here as well. As do I."
She hung her head. "They still haven't found the body yet, have they?" she inquired.
"No trace," Natalie shook her head, "The lieutenant says they're throwing in the towel after the next round of searches and pronouncing him dead. I know you probably would have liked a body to make sure, you know, he couldn't come back to try anything else."
She fell silent as well. Neither would ever forgot the showdown with Trevor two Christmases prior when, after breaking out of jail after being convicted of having Sharona kidnapped by the mob to be bumped off, he'd gone on a horrific revenge spree on them in San Francisco, one that had included such abhorrent tactics as blowing up their houses, beating both women to an inch of their lives, and attempting to hurl their children into a watery grave. Only the miraculous intervention of the Monk brothers had saved Julie and Benjy's lives. Trevor had then been shot apparently to death by unknown sources just as he was about to tell Adrian key information on Trudy's murder, and his body lost to the bay...permanently, it now seemed. Or was it...?
"There are nights," Sharona admitted, "I can't sleep, but I don't want to roll over becuase I'm afraid he'll be standing right there, looking hideously insane and ready to kill me. A body would put an end to all these if they could just find it wherever it is." She sighed sadly. "Sometimes, the truth is, I wonder if I just should have stayed with him from the beginning. Sure, he'd keep on cheating, gambling, and everything else that I left him for the first time, but he probably wouldn't have completely snapped like he did."
"Although you can never be too sure; it may still have happened anyway," Natalie pointed out, "How about other regrets? Like moving on?"
"That I don't regret as much," Sharona told him firmly, "Seven years was too long; I was at the end of my rope anyway and needed an out. One came so I took it. And by and large I'm happy I did; Adrian's better as a minimal part of my life. But at the same time," she now looked puzzled, "I do find I miss him a lot. Not to come back to him on a full-time basis, certainly not, but there are times I just simply miss the guy, even tough he drove me to drink half the time. That's why I jumped at the chance to be on this vacation with all of you when his father set it up; I needed just one more touch of the good old days. It's really, really strange."
She took another sip of soda. "Now that you've deconstructed me, let me deconstruct you," she told Natalie, "What do you wish you could have taken back now?"
Natalie thought long and hard. "Mitch was stationed near the city before the orders to head to Kosovo came in," she related slowly, "He asked if we'd come with him, that he'd pull the strings to make it work. I thought it over really hard. My final choice was that I didn't want to uproot Julie at her age and have her spend several months overseas and out of the loop. So the last I saw Mitch, he was standing on the stern of the ship as it pulled out into harbor on its way to the Balkans. Sometimes I wish I'd said yes, so I least I could have...could have been near him, with him when he died. That I could have given the man who meant more to me than anything one last kiss before he flew off to...well, destiny."
"Well at least it wasn't all for vain," Sharona said, looking somewhat upset that she could never have been able to talk about Trevor in similarly heroic terms, "If you've read the papers you'll know they're about to grant Kosovo independence. His work all paid off."
"Yes, it looks like it did," Natalie looked dreamy, "Mitch genuinely cared for the plight of the Kosovoans. His next flight after the one that took him would have been a large-scale humanitarian effort that would have given hundreds of refugees food and toys. He was really looking forward to it, he told me in our last letter."
"Hey Sharona, I need more wipes NOW!!" the bratty kid from earlier had reappeared and was leaning over them. A quick flash of the nurse's fists, however, sent him running in fear. "Should we move on?" she asked Natalie.
"Absolutely," the former bartender said, brushing through the crowd, "For the record, there are times I want to walk away from Mr. Monk as well, but something always keeps me coming back for more. There's just something about him, I don't know what, that can just magnitize you to him for life."
"And up he goes," Jack gestured with his arm as the polar bear behind the glass in the exhibit in front of Dr. Kroger and himself rose to the surface of its pool and dove down again, "I always liked these guys; they put on a great show."
"You said you had been here before?" Dr. Kroger inquired.
"Weekends in the summer when I was young, the train came down from New Hope into the city," Jack told him, "Admission was a quarter. Good days, very good days."
He leaned against the railing and watched the bear swim out of sight. "I took Adrian to the San Fran zoo once when he was six," he informed the psychiatrist, "I was expecting a headache, but he wasn't too bad. The only problems came when there was a huge crowd in the ape house, and we were locked in place for ten minutes. He was starting to hyperventilate, but we got out of there in time."
He took a handful of the popcorn he'd purchased and swallowed it. "So, you never did tell me how long you've been his shrink," he told Dr. Kroger.
"Ten years now," Dr. Kroger said, "It's been, to say the least, an unusual experience for both of us."
"Did he mention me at all, Doc? I just, you know..."
"He brought your name up a few times," Dr. Kroger told the trucker, "Truthfully, it was quite painful for him to mention it openly. I could see the disappointment of being alone in his voice. It has certainly affected him."
"Well, you should know, Doc, that walking away was very tough for me," Jack admitted, "I agonized over whether to do it for weeks. What it all came down to in the end was that I just couldn't live there anymore. If you'd been married to his mother for fourteen years, you might think the same way. It was too much for me between her, him, and Ambrose; I just wasn't happy anymore. Doesn't the Constitution say that we as Americans have the right to seek happiness?"
"It does, yes," Dr. Kroger said, "But I hope you realize, Jack, that everything we as people do has effects on others."
"I'm starting to see things differently now," Jack shook his head, "Maybe I should have stayed and been miserable; then maybe he might have grown out of...what he's got and all. Of course, it's easy to look back when you get closer to death like I am and naturally wonder what could have been. I'll be sixty-nine in two months; who knows how much longer I have left? That's why I wanted both him and Ambrose here, Doc." After a brief pause, he added, "Do you think I"m a failure, Doc?"
"Jack, no man who tries sincerely to change is a failure," Dr. Kroger told him, "You do sincerely want to reconnect with your children, don't you?"
"I certainly do now," the trucker said, "You know, I never did forget about them, though. When I'd be on the road late at night, the memories would come back, especially after Jack Jr. went downhill and stopped caring about life. I started having second thoughts about going away even before last Christmas. That's why I tried to stop by that Halloween, to say that I was still thinking about them. I had to go after fifteen minutes--the boss had me on a tight schedule, I had to be in Phoenix by morning--but it did feel nice to be back for once."
He glanced into the cage. "Well, looks like the bear's had enough," he remarked, "Might as well move on to the giraffes over there." As they walked toward there he had to ask, "Do you have any regrets, Doc?"
"Well, Jack," Dr. Kroger's brow furled, "There was this one time in college, when this opportunity came up to me I wanted to take. You see..."
"...and in here we've got..." Julie glanced into the exhibit at the back of the rare mammal house, "The echidna."
"He's ugly," Benjy commented at the sight of the spiked creature shuffling about its enclosure.
"The western long-beaked echidna, scientific name Zaglossus bruijni, is one of four species of echidnas native to New Guinea," Ambrose stated over the phone, "Specifically, they're found in the moderate highland regions of the country and feed mostly on worms and larvae. Along with the duckbilled platypus, echidnas are the only surviving monotremes on this planet today, laying one to three eggs twenty-two days after impregnation. The young then stay in the mother's pouch until they start growing their spines, at which point they are forcibly ejected into a burrow and fed until they are ready to live on their own."
"That's amazing," Benjy told him, impressed, "But then tell me, how long do they live?"
"Average lifespan is between 45 and 55 years in the wild," the instruction manual writer said.
"It's too bad you don't get out more, because you would have been perfect to bring in for show and tell," the girl commended him. She turned about, "Isn't that amazing, Kevin?"
"Whatever," the younger boy grumbled, not at all interested in the echidna or any other animals in the building. "You know, what do you really hold against your father that's so bad?" she had to ask him, "He seems like a nice man to me."
"You mean apart from the fact he's a liar and cares more about being with Mr. Maxwell than me!?" Kevin snarled, "You tell me, how am I supposed to feel!?"
"Well he was crying last night after he came in to watch the show with us," Julie told him, "He has feelings too, and I think you might have hurt them."
"So what? He's hurt me enough. You just can't trust any grown-ups, simple as that."
"Grown-ups have problems too, Kevin," Benjy pointed out, "You have to realize that. That doesn't always make them less of a person. My Dad," he covered his face, uncomfortable with digging up painful memories, "He had...problems. But I knew he always loved me, even up till the end."
"Wasn't he the guy who...?" Kevin started to say.
"Yes, yes, he was," the older boy cut him off quickly, "But even after that, he wasn't all bad. Nobody's all bad. And I still forgive him. Because I choose to remember him as the man who cared for me through his problems. And that's why you should forgive your father too."
Kevin sighed, clearly conflicted. "But he keeps leaving when I need him!" he moaned.
"That doesn't always means he wants to leave you," Julie pointed out, "I can tell he does love you. You just have to give him a chance. Relationships are two way streets, my Mom always says, and if you can't do your part, how can he do his?"
Kevin had no response to this. "If you live your life hating, Kevin, you'll turn into someone you're not going to like," Benjy added, "I don't think you want that to happen. Now come on, lighten up, he'll always be your father. And would you even be here without him? We're just saying you need to reconsider things. You'll be a lot happier."
"He's absolutely right, Kevin," Ambrose said from the phone, "You have to forgive and move ahead. That's how I've handled it myself for years. Are those naked mole rats over there?"
"I think I missed a spot back there when I was mopping," Adrian fretted. He and Ralph were now standing before the giant tortoises outside the reptile house.
"No, actually, I think you did get the whole floor in there mopped down, Adrian," Ralph reassured him. He glanced at the tortoises lumbering around before them. "It's amazing isn't it, realizing that some of these guys might have been alive when Nicholas II and Emilio Aguinaldo were in office."
"They, they have a pretty charmed life," Adrian agreed, "They get to take everything nice and slow, no worries. Wouldn't want to live around with them though; it's known they tend to leave...oh, wait, sir," he noticed a zookeeper was wheeling some cleaning utensils toward the exhibit, "Don't, don't worry, I can clean it up for you." He dug out a radiation suit and started putting it on.
Suddenly loud screams came from down the pathway. The detective's head jerked around. "Now what?" he had to ask. His question was answered as he saw the front gate on the kangaroos' enclosure nearby explode open as if by magic and its residents hop away. "Karponov," the detective realized, "He must be here planning..."
"Run for your lives!" a man ran by screaming. A gorilla was huffing along behind him, roaring. "It's OK, sir," Ralph called after him, "Gorillas aren't dangerous at all. You just..."
The gorilla stopped in front of them. Picking up the detective and the teacher before they could react, it tossed them among the tortoises. "Unless of course Karponov's powers include probing animals' minds to bring out their base instincts," Ralph finished his sentence.
A sinister laugh could be heard loudly from inside the reptile house. As they turned, the entire side of the building exploded. Adrian grimaced at the mess this made. His attention was diverted from this, though, by the numerous snakes now slithering free among the debris. Shrieking in terror, he leaped over the railing and ran for the nearest tree. "Kill them!" he screamed to the nearest zookeepers as he scrambled up it, "Kill them, kill, kill them!"
He reached a high branch that would probably be out of the snakes' reach for now. A loud growl behind him told him he'd made a mistake, however. He turned very slowly to see a lion standing on the branch behind him. "Nice, nice boy," he said weakly, "Uh, I don't think I'd really do your diet much good."
The lion roared fiercely and advanced across the branch toward him, brandishing its claws. Adrian backed away as best he could, trying not to look down. He could feel the branch sagging under their combined weight. He gripped it for all it was worth. Suddenly the branch broke clean in two, sending him and the lion spiraling to the ground. Luckily Ralph leaped out and caught him. The nearest zookeeper tossed a net over the lion before it could recouperate. "You all right?" the teacher asked him.
"Fine, just fine," Adrian glanced around for snakes, "Boy, I've heard the term 'It's a jungle out there,' but this really puts new..."
A thoughtful expression crossed his face. "It's a jungle out there?" he repeated, "Hang on, that might just make..."
"Watch out!" Ralph cried to a little girl who was unknowingly in the path of a rhinoceros barrelling at top speed up the path. The teacher ran toward her and shoved her out of harm's way...but found himself straight in the rhino's path with no time to get out of the way. And Adrian remembered with a sickening thought that Ralph wasn't wearing the suit. He looked away just before the collission, but couldn't block out the horrific crunching sound, or Ralph's painful scream. The detective leaped out of the rhino's path as it rumbled by him, then rushed with a horrified expression to where Ralph lay crumpled. "Medic!" he cried out to anyone who could help.
