Her father leaned in. “He’s not hiring trainers or handlers. He’s hiring a bookkeeper .” He tapped his temple. “Numbers, Hope. My other language. If I get this job, we can pay off Kevin’s vet bills. Fix the roof. Buy more bananas. Corporate bananas. ”
“Hear me out! Mr. Gibbons is a legend. He’s got orangutans that play poker. A mandrill who does taxes. Taxes , Hope.” hope harper daddy's monkey business
“What’s Phase Four?” she asked.
The first week was fine. Her father buried himself in ledgers – actual paper ledgers, because Gibbons distrusted computers almost as much as he distrusted the mandrill who did taxes – and Hope helped where she could. She organized receipts, catalogued feed expenses, and learned the alarming truth: Mr. Gibbons’ Traveling Primate Paradise was a tax shelter. Not for money. For monkeys. Her father leaned in
“Daddy, no.”
“Daddy. What is this?”
The trouble began on a Tuesday. Hope came home from her shift at the local library – shelving books, breathing air that smelled like paper instead of monkey musk – and found her father sitting at the kitchen table, grinning like a chimpanzee who’d discovered a termite mound. “Numbers, Hope