Today i want to tell you an extremely long story.

After successfully hunting down some criminals and solving a major crime case in Zuzumbu Village (that involved the most notorious Dook Mafia), Henrietta the Hunter now has another case on her hands. If you still remember her that is.

Ze brainy blonde French lass who can pop coins out of her head.

It was reported that innocent animals were dying in this place called Shanghaizoo, a village across the Atlantic Pacific in Greenland, not to be confused with ze city in China.

So she traveled all the way to Shanghaizoo, holding two photographs which she had been given. These were her only clues.

She traveled with her sidekick NiuNai, who goes slightly deranged when hungry.

Liddat.

It was a beautiful village.

However Henrietta soon felt something was not right. There was a grim vibe in the air. She could smell it. She decided it was time to stop wasting precious time and start her investigation.

Henrietta was furious when she discovered that animal labour was so prevalent in the village.

Shanghaizoo is a helluva confusing village. It had signboards pointing everywhere, so much that she didn’t know which way to head down to hunt.

Suddenly she noticed there were two Zebras in front of the sign. On closer inspection, Henrietta realized that it was actually a two headed Zebra, with… six legs or something (she can’t be bothered to count). This village is bloody creepy, thought Henrietta.

She then saw a little lamb who was so lame and meh. She kesian ze little fella a lot and attempted to feed it dried leaves. But the two headed Zebra demanded that she stopped immediately and explained that whatever she was doing now was illegal.

Meanwhile, NiuNai started having a fit of hunger. Apparently, there is this policy in Shanghaizoo that punishment equals love. All animals are not to be fed and are left to starve to a skinny death. When deprived of food though, NiuNai starts giggling like frenzied, rabid Hyena.

It scared Henrietta, so she sent NiuNai to the clinic.

She was told to come back to check on her sidekick after 20 minutes. If by then Niu Nai wasn’t vomitting white milky bubbles, he would be released from the ward.

While NiuNai was in the ward, Henrietta summoned all her energy and went hunting down one of the paths with the only clue in her hand–photo of Ze Panda.

Fortunately the path she headed down turned out to be a right one (as far as she could tell), she spotted the Panda, and went over to talk to him.

Ze Panda told her that they were abused inhumanely by this ferocious creature, every night after sun down. They were ambushed, stepped on and beaten up. Sometimes this savage beast would shove bamboos down their throats, subsequently killing many of his brethren.

Henrietta was overwhelmed with grief and fumed with rage, almost verging on madness. She asked if ze Panda knew what their attacker looked like.

Ze Panda said they couldn’t see properly because they hadn’t been sleeping for years since the onslaught had started, and their severe dark eye circles had prevented them from seeing anything clearly. However, they described that the beast was really fast in action.

Hmm. Fast.

So Hentietta went for the obvious. The family of the fastest animals.

While hunting down ze Cheetah, she saw something grim.

A dead Malay Sunbear.

And a dead Lion.

AND THEN.

The horror.

THE CHEETAHS WERE DEAD!

That couldn’t be. Most of the fierciest animals had died. Who did it, then? Henrietta sat down, feeling defeated.

It was then that she was startled by a group of filthy creatures.

At first it did cross her mind that these seemingly innocent piglets could be the culprit for the massive death in the village. In Shanghaizoo, the pigs has a flying ability.

She heard about them causing trouble whenever they fly.” OMG THE SWINE FLEW!!!”, people were always frightened. Henrietta had no idea why everyone was so scared of some pigs flying, but that must be why there were now locked up in a cage, Henrietta thought.

Since they can’t fly now, the shouldn’t be the suspect. Then this little piglet, who was constantly sniffling and coughing told Henrietta that they had seen the beast. It was the darkest, most enormous monstrosity they had ever seen in their entire filthy lives.

Hmmm. dark and enormous.

Henrietta immediately thought of ze Gorilla. He must be the one.

Just when Henrietta was about to arrest him, she realized that ze Gorilla, who apparently, turned out to be a she, was sad. She let out what sounded like a wail of bereavement and moved her gigantic butt over a corner.

Henrietta’s sight followed her movement, and it was then she saw something so tragic that tears rolled down her cheeks uncontrollably.

A dead baby Gorilla.

Ze mother couldn’t have been the killer, she thought. Where got mother kill own children one? Siao ah? (Unless she was really siao, but Henrietta’s hunch told her ze Gorilla is perfectly sane.) Not wanting to cause further trauma to the heartbroken mother, Henrietta walked away.

She suddenly remembered she had to go back to the clinic and check on NiuNai.

Off she went back to the ward, full of hope.

But upon arrival, the nurse told Henrietta that NiuNai cheesappeared. Henrietta panicked, she asked how it happened. The nurse just shrugged and said, these things happened every minute, and they couldn’t do anything about it.

Henrietta was shocked. The first thought was that Niu Nai was cheesenapped by the Mysterious Beast!!!! A pang of guilt hit her hard and she started crying. What if he was being eaten alive. Or.. or… what if the Monster has a penchant for grilled bird or…! It pained her to imagine any further.

She looked for Niu Nai everywhere. She had a feeling that he was still alive (sidekick instinct). But she didn’t know where to look for him.

Then she had an idea.

She spoke to ze wise Swan. They both speak the bird language, so it was easier for them to locate NiuNai. Ze Swan suggested she find help from fellow NiuNai species.

So off she marched, to the north pool.

Henrietta saw NiuNais everywhere. It was like a comet of hope had just entered from the milky way.

She explained the situation and asked for help.

So they went on a frantic NiuNai search.

They were working real hard.

Then…

Someone spotted something that resembled the monochromatic bird.

Oh. It really was him.

They rescued NiuNai and returned him back to Henrietta.

She was grateful. Worried that NiuNai would go insane without food, she went to buy Fish & Chips and coke (coke like, the soft drink. NiuNai’s condition was not that serious yet.) from the nearest market. She asked NiuNai to stay here and the other birds to look after him.

After 10 or so minutes, she came back with a bag of Fish and Chips and coke, however there was no NiuNai in sight. The birds told her that NiuNai had cheesappeared (again. What turf?). Apparently he was so out of his mind that he thought he was in Bali (this is Greenland, you idiot!!!).

“WHAT TURF? AGAIN!?!? Didn’t i ask you guys to look after him?!??!!” Furiously, Henrietta demanded.

The birds just shrugged, and told her that these things happened every second in Shanghaizoo . There’s nothing they could do. (Oh, and it rhymes, Ha.ha. Very funny, Henrietta thought.)

She threw the bag of Fish & Chips and bag of coke (they don’t use bottle or can, very eco one) in the pool in anger and stomped her way out.

Since ze Swan had been helpful, she went to it again. But ze swan was gone. She met ze Dook instead. Aiya, they are both swimmign birds, should be of same intellectual level, thought Henrietta.

So she spoke to ze Dook.

But Henrietta didn’t understand a single word it said.

BLOODY FRENCH DOOK.

(I know what you are thinking. Henrietta is French, right? The thing is, she grew up in Zuzumbu village where she only spoke English and Zuzumbian from young–with a thick French accent nontheless, but she couldn’t speak the language, no.)

Anyway, that is not the point (sorry if i had to point out the obvious). The point is, at this point, she was very sure that NiuNai fell prey to Ze Monster.

She went across the river and jungle, it was there that she met ze White Pommie. Ze White Pommie told her what she knew. She had seen the beast before, and according to her description…

Henrietta decided to hunt the Giraffe down.

She thanked ze White Pommie and traveled to the Safari. She was thirsty and sweating profusely and majorly stressed out. She hoped she hadn’t thrown the coke away. (On second thought she hope she had other kind of coke).

And then she found ze Giraffe. When she was ready to arrest the Giraffe, a Dear stopped her.

“I beg your pardon?” For a moment Henrietta thought ze Dear was gonna give her some shopping coupon, her shopaholic alterego was brightly lit up for just a brief moment.

Then Henrietta was confused. Then ze Dear told her that he knew what is going on in the village. Doomsday is near because of this cruel beast going around and killing everyone.

Then ze Dear provided her with detailed and useful information about ze Monster.

According to ze Dear, this beast was very very huge. Taller than ze Giraffe.

“And it haz veli veli sharp claws, and it can has fly,” said ze Dear.

“It has flies?! You mean like, it’s dirty, or… muddy…like… a Hippo?” Henrietta asked, in shock.

“Nono, fly, wingz, fly, whoosh!!!” Ze Dear replied, doing a wave movement in the air with its front legs, grinning wide, revealing a set of crooked teeth which made it look more like Crazy Frog.

“Whoosh.” Henrietta nod, repeating after flatly, giving a forced smile.

Hmm. Tall. Fly. Claws. Henrietta decided that it had to be it.

Didn’t ze Dear say Vaucher? Vulture!!! Maybe it’s the crooked teeth that prevents ze Dear from pronouncing properly, but i got it!!! Thought Henrietta with immense smugness.

THAT MUST BE IT!!!

She arrested the vulture, took him by the neck and shook him violently (until all his feathers fell off, the scene looked like they were in some sort of pillow fight. Or… like a snowy Christmas day), and screamed “WHY DID YOU KILL THEM!! YOU COLD HEARTED BEAST!”

The vulture was in shock and was rather shaken up (obviously! Henrietta had never channelled so much energy into shaking someone before!) and it shocked Henrietta in return, because she now realized he was very, very, very senile,  one punch and she could send him to hell.

And he muttered something to Henrietta with a faint, croaked voice.

Red Herring? What turf? Is he hungry? Does he want food?

Before Henrietta could ask anything else, ze Vulture died.

WTF? Thought Henrietta. I just killed the killer of the entire Shanghaizoo massacre… with my bare hands. Now what?

NOW WHAT?

Hmm, good question. Henrietta was lost in her thoughts. She suddenly felt utterly clueless and powerless.

But… wait a minute. Somehow it didn’t feel right. Henrietta smelled something fishy. Perhaps it could be the herring. Perhaps she was just tired.

She sat down next to the aquarium. Perhaps she should have eaten the damn Fish & Chips. She was seriously starving now.

She thought and thought and thought.

And then, magically, as if the aquarium is like ze Bodhi tree, she saw it. An image popped up in hear head like a bubble blown out by ze fish, insightlful and enlightening. Whoosh, like a wave. (She almost raised her arms and did the wide-grin wave thing.) She saw everything. She finally understood everything. She understood ze Vulture. It became clear to her. She now knew who the killer was.

NiuNai was cheesenapped. By ze killer.

This is what Henrietta saw.

The killer’s name was Vulture. He was as tall as a crane (like ze lifting machine at construction site la not the bird la.)

Ze mystery is finally solved.

Henrietta was going to arrest Vulture, and teleport him via email (like how she did with the Dook Mafia) back to the jail in Zuzumbu.

However, she was so engrossed in her own thoughts, she was completely oblivious to ze surroundings.

She fell into a trap set by Vulture.

Did Henrietta die? Vulture is still at large killing innocent lives (NiuNai is in danger!!!)

What’s gonna happen? Stay cheesed for part 2.