The Pigman by Paul Zindel Read Free Book Online

Pigman was grinning. “He likes you. Ha, ha.”
    The third omen that this was going to be a bad day was when we went into the nocturnal room of the Mammal Building. The whole room is pretty dark so you can see these animals that only come out at night, like owls and pottos and cute little vampire bats. I had never seen this nocturnal room before, and I almost went into shock when I got a look at the vampire bats. They had some explanatory pictures next to their glass cage that showed a couple of bats sucking the blood out of a horse’s neck while the horse was sleeping.
    But that wasn’t the part that was the third omen. I mean, that exhibit would have been there on any day. It was this child that I thought was an omen—a little kid about ten years old who was sitting right up on the railing and leaning against the glass of the bat cage. Only he wasn’t looking at the bats. He was looking at
you
when you came to look at the bats. And when I came up to the cage to see these ugly blood-sucking creatures, I had to look right into this little kid’s face that had a smirk on it. He made me feel as though I was a bat in a cage and he was on the outside looking in at me. It all made me very nervous.
    But Mr. Pignati just loved the nocturnal room, and the only one who loved it more was John. John likes things like king vultures and alligators. He was even excited in the snake house. As far as snakes go, I think once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. So I let him and the Pigman go on running around while I took this snake quiz that was on a lighted sign. They had ten statements and you had to pick out which ones were false.
    1)
  All poisonous snakes have triangular-shaped heads.
2)
  Some snakes have stingers in their tails.
3)
  You can tell a rattlesnake’s age by the number of rattles it has.
4)
  Milk snakes will milk a farmer’s cow.
5)
  Large snakes can live for more than a year without food.
6)
  Snakes cannot close their eyes.
7)
  Coachwhip snakes will whip people.
8)
  Some snakes can roll like a hoop to overtake their victim.
9)
  A horsehair rope will keep snakes away from a campfire.
10)
Snakes can hypnotize their prey.
     
    I mean, it was not exactly a depth quiz. I was right on every one of them. Just in case you’re trying to take it, I won’t put down which of the statements are false until the end of this chapter.
    Anyway, after seeing Galapagos tortoises, reticulated pythons, and puff adders, the Pigman dragged us over to the Primate Building, more popularly known as the monkey house.
    “I want you to meet Bobo.”
    “Bobo?” Even John’s eyes widened.
    “My best friend,” Mr. Pignati explained.
    We stopped in front of a cage with bars, only about three feet from where we stood. Let me tell you, Bobo could have used a good spray deodorant. A little door was open at the back of the cage, and apparently Bobo was in the inner part where they get fed.
    “Bobo?” the Pigman called out sweetly.
    John looked at me and I looked at him and he rolled his eyes up into his head.
    “Bobo? Come out and say hello!”
    At last Bobo decided to make an appearance. He was the ugliest, most vicious-looking baboon I’ve ever seen in my life. I mean a real baboon. And there’s the Pigman, the smiling Pigman, leaning all the way over the guardrail, tossing peanuts to this mean baboon. Mr. Pignati would take a peanut, hold it up in the air, and say, “Bobo want a peanut?” And Bobo would show these monstrous teeth that looked like dentures when they don’t quite fit, and the beast would grunt and swoon and move its head from side to side.
“Uggga. Uggga!”
    Mr. Pignati was throwing peanuts right and left. About every third one would hit the bars and fall where the baboon couldn’t reach it. Sometimes Bobo would catch the peanut like a baseball. And the expressions on both their faces got to be upsetting. John had gotten bored with Bobo and moved down to the next cage that had a