Shabby bit her lip and then nodded her head slowly. “Mmmm, maybe he’s sleeping on the job? I guess you just can’t find the staff these days, can you?” She shut her eyes, while her head continued to bob. “If I close my eyes, I can see him right there, in his little chair, all asleep, having just drank his coffee.” She opened her eyes, and then clamped her tongue in the corner of her mouth.
I just stared at her blankly for a second as I tried to read between the lines of what she was saying. “Wait…what did you do?”
“Well,” she said as she stuffed the keys into the large, deep pocket of her dungarees. She clasped her hands together, before stepping forwards and rolling her eyes towards the darkening sky as the stars were beginning to sprinkle to life. “I’m just saying, maybe there was a little something in his coffee that he wasn’t expecting.”
“Did you spike his drink?” I asked in astonishment. “You can’t do that. That’s…that’s a crime. You could kill him.”
Shabby crossed her fingers, and then placed a hand against the buttoned strap of her dungarees. “Hey, I’m not admitting anything. I’m just saying, if you asked me, I’d say he’s probably not answering because”—she lifted a hand and thumbed over her shoulder—”he’s probably drank something that’s going to knock him out for the rest of the night.” She then put on an innocent expression. “I mean, if you ask me. I’m just guessing of course, but you have all sorts of medications and tranquilisers around this place. You should really keep them locked up better. I mean, it must be so easy for cross-contamination.”
I blinked at her in disbelief. “Are you actually that stupid? Do you know how dangerous that is?” I pressed the button on my walkie-talkie again. “Hank. Do you read me?” I grunted in frustration, then reached in my pocket, before I looked up to the sky and sighed. My phone was in my locker, along with my purse and other personal items. I only ever needed the walkie-talkie while on the job, after all. “Hank?” I asked a final time, while my lips quivered and the trembling of my voice betrayed my growing worry.
“He’s not coming,” Shabby said while chewing her lip.
I crossed my arms and shook my head. “I knew it,” I said. “I knew you only came here to cause us problems again. I should have had you escorted from the premises the moment I set eyes on you.” I unfolded my arms and pointed at her. “Are you proud of yourself? Do you get off on this or something? Coming here and causing us nothing but grief. Do you know how dangerous it is to put something in someone’s drink? You could cause him to overdose—”
Shabby let out an extravagant yawn, and then she made a show of patting her mouth. “Oh, lighten up, will you?” she said with a roll of her eyes. “He’s probably having the best sleep of his life. It’ll be a relief that he doesn’t have you whining in his ear all night.” She then shrugged. “Besides, he assaulted me the last time I was here, so he totally deserves it. It’s literally, like. justice.”
“This isn’t funny,” I said while stamping my foot. “This isn’t a playground for your stupid games. Do you know how dangerous this could have been? These are powerful animals that could tear us to shreds. We have to use strong drugs to sedate them.” I gestured behind me towards the sleeping area. “Do you even understand where you’ve locked me? This is the lion—”
“How do you like it?” she snapped back. “Being locked up in a cage against your will? Maybe once you’ve stayed in here all night, you’ll have a rethink about locking the animals up.”
“I’m not staying in here all night,” I said with a gasp. However, when Shabby just remained standing there, I suddenly felt uneasy. “I mean, you can’t seriously expect to keep me here all night?” I swallowed nervously, while looking around and realising that without the keys there was no other way out of the cage. I’d pestered the owners about installing an emergency release system, but they were concerned that the animals might accidentally trigger it and escape. “Can you?”
Shabby simply shrugged, then she whistled while kicking the toe of her sandal lightly against one of the bars. “I bet you thought you were really clever, huh? Getting me in trouble. Did you think you’d actually won and I was going to give up? I’ve had a good look around here today and your security is useless. That’s so irresponsible. I mean, what kind of place is this? What if one of the children got in a cage and locked themselves in with your wild animals?”
I rolled my eyes. “That would never happen.”
Shabby pursed her lips, before she flicked a fingernail against the lock of the cage door. “Just like this couldn’t possibly happen”—she cocked her head—”right? You’re such an amazing leader, that you couldn’t possibly end up locked in one of your cages. That would never happen.” She then dipped her head to the side, before smiling in such an infuriating way. “Would it?”
I stared at her in silence for a few seconds while I tried to figure out what her endgame was. I even chewed through a chunk of my inner lip as I stewed over exactly what could be going on in that pea-sized brain of hers. “So, what do you want?” I eventually asked.
Shabby shrugged. “To teach you a lesson.” She looked beyond my shoulder, into the open, expansive, though thankfully, currently uninhabited open area of the lion enclosure. “To see how quickly you lose your mind. Maybe then you’ll begin to sympathise with the beautiful creatures you keep locked away.”
“This is so childish,” I muttered. “You’re so immature, and you’re going to get in so much trouble for this. Do you even realise that? You’ve totally crossed the line this time.”
“Are you scared already?” she asked with a glint in her eye. “Do you want me to let you out?”
I rolled my eyes. “Obviously, I want you to let me out.”
Shabby giggled, and then she pointed at the floor. “Well, let’s see. Maybe I don’t want to let you out yet. Maybe I want to see you prove you deserve to be let out.” She tapped a finger against her chin. “Tell you what. If you’re that desperate to get out already, why don’t you get down on your knees, apologise for getting me in trouble and then maybe I’ll let you out.”
“Well, I hope you’ve got all night then,” I said while crossing my arms defiantly. “Because that’s never going to happen.”
“We’ll see.” Shabby shifted her eyes towards the mechanised gate to my side, before she glanced to her side at a red button on an adjoining panelled pillar outside of the cage. She leaned in close, analysing and considering it closely, the same way she’d been doing all afternoon while prancing around the zoo. “What’s this button do?” she asked, while teasingly holding out a finger. She pressed the tip against the centre, before turning and looking at me in shock; a hand held to her mouth. “What does this open?” She flicked her eyes from side to side as if she was all inquisitive. “Obviously it does something. I’m like a cat you see, and I’m so, so curious.”
“It’s…” I darted my eyes towards Shabby, and then my throat became constrained. “Nothing,” I said, while trying to act all nonchalant. “It doesn’t do anything.”
Shabby squinted at me through her dark eyeliner, and then her eyes jumped back to the red button. She placed a fingertip to her chin once more. “Really?” she asked in a long, drawn-out way. “This big red button, on a lion’s cage, doesn’t do anything?” She reached out her other arm, tracing the circumference of the button with her finger. “So, why’s it even here then? Why bother putting a big red button here that”—she smirked while symbolling two speech marks above her head—”doesn’t do anything? That seems like an awful waste.”
“Maybe it used to do something,” I said with a nervous shrug. “But it doesn’t do anything anymore.”
“Right,” she said, unconvinced. “So, you won’t mind if I push it then?”
I shrugged again. “Go for it,” I said, before I swallowed awkwardly. “You’re just wasting your own time.”
“Well, like you said, we have all night while you’re stuck in there. So, I suppose it’s my time to waste in whichever way I please.” She looked to me again, and it was like she was analysing my behaviour, trying to assess whether I was bluffing or not. “If I push this?” she said. “Will it let the lions out? Is that why you’re being all coy? Your usual snotty attitude seems to have disappeared.”
“Like I said: I don’t know.” I then tried to relax my posture, casually kicking a loose rock across the cage. “It hasn’t worked for as long as I’ve been here.”
“Well, nothing to worry about then.” Without even hesitating, Shabby inexplicably pressed the button and I immediately flinched and jumped to the side. I looked at the gate to my left in complete terror, convinced that it was going to malfunction in some way and let the lions out. I mean, I knew it required the key, but still, there was a panicked doubt inside me that considered the impossible. Shabby didn’t know it required a key, and she’d pushed it anyway. Did she actually think it was going to allow the lions into the feeding area…with me, and she’d pushed it all the same? Even though nothing had happened, how the hell could she be so reckless? I stared at her in disbelief, and I felt a real sinking in my stomach as I realised just how dangerous the past few seconds could have been. I wanted to absolutely dress her down, but all that would do is communicate how worried I was about that damn button.
“You seem kind of spooked,” she said through narrowed eyes. “Considering you apparently don’t know what the button does.” She leaned forward, and examined the button a little closer, before her eyes widened and she looked up at me with a grin. “Why’s there a keyhole under it? Do you have to turn a key before pushing the button?” She smirked. “Is that why you were so confident that nothing was going to happen?” She wagged a finger at me. “Have you been holding out on me? That’s so uncool.”
I swallowed apprehensively as a dizziness overwhelmed me. Evidently, Shabby was way more astute than I’d given her credit for. I’d written her off as some hippie that had nothing better to do, but apparently, she was a lot more calculating than I’d first thought. “No,” I said. “I’ve…I’ve never used it before. I don’t know what it does.”
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