Ferbert Flembuzzle's
Most Exotic Zoo
Chapter 9 - Limousine Ride
(Please forgive errors in formatting. Posting on a website has its limitations.)
Sophia stood in the limousine, half dazed, turning in circles with eyes as wide as silver dollars. The interior of the limousine was tall enough to stand up and long enough to do somersaults—as big as Sophia’s bedroom, but much fancier. She was still spinning in circles when Mayor Monev sat by the door.
“If you take a seat, I’ll show you the best part of the limo.” He pointed to the seat by the opposite door. “Do you like soda-pop?”
“You have soda-pop?” Sophia asked as her tiny body sank into the soft, leather seat.
“Darling, I don’t just have soda-pop; I have a whole soda-pop machine!” the mayor opened a console between their seats.
Inside were glass cups, ice, and a short hose with a funny-looking nozzle on the end. He scooped ice into the cup and filled it with soda-pop by pressing a button on the back of the nozzle, then he dropped a straw into the fizzing drink and handed it to Sophia.
“Thank you.” She sipped from the glass as the limousine began to move. “I’ve never seen anything this fancy before.”
“Well, I take good care of this town, so they take care of me.” Mayor Monev closed the console. “The people here are hard-working and trusting. In fact, they will trust just about anyone—sometimes even those they shouldn’t.” As if he were reading her thoughts, he then said, “You probably don’t believe me, because no one has treated you very well today. Am I right?”
She nodded and took another sip of her soda-pop.
“Well, you have to understand something. The worst thing someone can do to good, trusting people is to betray that trust—to take advantage of their kindness. When someone betrays trust, it’s hard for the victim to trust the next person who comes along. That doesn’t make the victim bad; it’s just human nature. The person who betrays trust, on the other hand—that’s a different story.” Mayor Monev stared out the window as he spoke, “Everyone at that school is a good person, but they are also victims. They don’t trust you because of a man who betrayed them all three years ago.”
Sophia remained suspicious of the mayor. In her mind, there was zero reason for anyone to treat her so poorly. “I don’t understand why they would be mean to me if it was someone else that hurt them,” she said.
Mayor Monev rolled down her window and motioned for her to look outside. She saw empty houses, empty restaurants, empty schools, empty hotels, and empty businesses. Most of the windows and doors were boarded up, and tall weeds covered the yards and grew through every crack in the sidewalks, driveways, and parking lots. Spider webs and dust covered the entrances, and the only sign of life were the rats scurrying into the shadows as the limousine passed.
“Why are they empty?” Sophia asked. “Why are you showing this to me?”
“Excellent questions. It is because of that man I mentioned. When he moved to Vedner he told us he was building the most exotic zoo in the world. He told me and everyone here that people would come from all around the world to see his zoo, and he demanded we quadruple the size of our town.”
A feeling in Sophia’s gut told her something was not right about the mayor’s story, but she was anxious to hear the rest and ignored that feeling.
“I thought it was a bad idea,” he continued, “but the people of Vedner trusted that man and spent almost all of their money building what you see. They even threw a big party in the man’s honor, but he refused to come! On the day he opened his zoo, he made us give him the last of our money before we learned it was all a lie.”
“That’s terrible,” Sophia responded.
The limousine zigged and zagged up a windy road before coming to a stop, and Mayor Monev motioned for her to look out the window again. They were parked in front of a towering gate—the same gate that Sophia could see from the maple tree. She had no memory of being up close like this before; it was a spectacular sight.
“Do you recognize this gate?” the mayor asked.
“Yes, sir. I can see it from the maple tree my dad and I climb,” Sophia said.
“Of course you can—it can be seen from every part of Vedner. Do you remember the day you went through the gate?”
“My dad told me I went inside once, but I don’t remember.”
“Sophia, the day you went inside was the day I met you,” Mayor Monev explained. “Are you sure you don’t remember that? Your father didn’t tell you what happened that day?”
“Honest, sir, I don’t remember anything,” she answered. “I asked my dad about it this summer, but he didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Can’t say I’m surprised.” Dunger and the mayor exchanged sly looks that tried to hide their excitement at Sophia’s answer. “If I were him, I wouldn’t want my daughter to know, either.” She gave the mayor a curious glare as he continued, “It was an awful day when we learned the truth about the man and the zoo. You see, when we went through this gate, we discovered there were no animals inside. A zoo without a single animal—can you imagine? Well, I kindly asked the man for an explanation, and he told us we were blind fools and then cast some kind of spell on the children to make them think they were seeing animals that weren’t there, turning the children against their parents and trying to split families apart.”
Mayor Monev put his hands on his chest in a big show. “It broke my heart, but I had to protect our families. I had no choice but to lock the gate and forbid anyone from going into that place ever again. You were one of the children there that day—you were one of the children I had to protect.” He paused for a moment. “Of course, the people here never forgot the awful things that man did. But I can’t blame them, especially after how long they had to wait for the man’s spells to wear off. It was only recently that your classmates were able to see the truth. That man,” Mayor Monev said with a dramatic sigh, “is the reason everyone treats you so terribly.”
“Mr. Mayor, I don’t understand,” Sophia said. “What does this awful man have to do with me?”
“It pains me to tell you this, but that… what did you call him? An awful man? Well, that awful man is your father, Mr. Ferbert Flembuzzle.”
Sophia threw her hands over her mouth. She couldn’t believe that her father would do such a thing, and she couldn’t believe she had called her father an awful man! “You’re lying!” she screamed. “My dad would never trick anyone or do any of those things! My dad is the best man in the whole world!”
Mayor Monev faked a sympathetic smile. “Sophia, I understand why you don’t want to believe me. No one wants to believe their father can do bad things, but you said it yourself; you don’t remember. Surely, you are not suggesting that you know more than the hundreds of people that do remember. I’m sorry you had to learn the truth this way. I’m sorry that your father kept this hidden from you.”
Sophia didn’t know what to say. She wanted to tell the mayor he and everyone else was wrong, but the words wouldn’t come. She had no way to prove it; all she knew was that she didn’t want to hear any more.
She scrunched her eyes together, tightened her lips, and sat in silence until they returned to school. As they drove, a horrible thought that made her stomach turn entered Sophia’s mind. She winced and tried to push it out of her head, but the thought remained. What if Mayor Monev was telling the truth? What if that was the reason Ferbert didn’t tell her about the zoo?
When the limousine pulled up to the school, she threw open the door and jumped out before the vehicle came to a stop.
“I don’t think she believed me,” Mayor Monev told Dunger when she was gone.
“I didn’t expect her to,” he responded. “At least, not today.”
“Really? Then remind me why you think it’s such a great idea to be kind to that rotten, little twerp.”
“It’s easy to distrust someone unkind but quite difficult to remain suspicious of those who are nice. Now, every time someone is cruel to her, she will think about how kind you were to tell her the things that not even her own father would. Pesky thoughts like that rolling around that lonely girl’s head for long enough and even she won’t trust her father.”