Bo Shang hired Luobo to feed the tiger and gave him the key

Beauchamp hires Rob to feed the tiger he keeps on his property, gives him the keys to the cage, and instructs him to keep their arrangement secret. The offer makes Rob the tiger’s daily caretaker while placing in his hands the means of opening its cage; as soon as he returns, he tells Sistine that he has the keys, and she urges him to let the tiger go.

The Offer and Its Circumstances

The arrangement begins while Rob is sweeping the cement walkway in front of the Kentucky Star Motel rooms. Beauchamp pulls up in his red jeep, sees Rob at work, and jokes about whether the motel has put him on its payroll. Rob says he is sick, and Beauchamp connects his absence from school with the freedom of having no mother to set rules for him. He then turns that remark into a pitch: he has several deals underway and wonders whether a smart boy might want to earn extra spending money.

Beauchamp asks whether Rob likes animals, then says that he has a wild animal on his property with plans for it, though it needs daily care in the meantime. Rob recognizes where the offer is leading before Beauchamp names the animal. The job is presented as paid work, but Beauchamp’s indirect approach and private invitation make it clear that the tiger is not an ordinary, openly advertised responsibility.

The Tiger, the Pay, and the Keys

At the tiger’s cage, Beauchamp explains that he is still considering what to do with the animal. He might put the tiger in front of the Kentucky Star Motel to attract business; he might instead kill it, skin it, and make a coat. He has not decided, he says, because keeping the tiger requires substantial work. It needs meat twice a day, and he offers Rob two dollars each time he feeds it.

The payment is only one part of the offer. Beauchamp takes a set of keys from his pocket and gives it to Rob, distinguishing the small key for the food door from the larger keys that open the cage locks. He warns that the larger keys must not be used: if the tiger gets out, it will eat Rob. Beauchamp emphasizes that Rob is not a fool and expects him not to open the cage, even as he hands over the complete set.

He demonstrates the feeding procedure himself. The small door is at the bottom of the cage; Rob is to unlock it and toss the meat through a piece at a time. Beauchamp takes meat from a grocery bag and feeds the tiger through that opening. The tiger leaps toward the food, and Beauchamp steps back before finishing the demonstration. The scene makes the practical distinction between the safe, restricted food door and the dangerous cage locks concrete: Rob is entrusted with access to both.

Responsibility and Secrecy

After the demonstration, Beauchamp points Rob out to the tiger as the person who will provide its food, telling the animal that Rob has the keys now. He casts the transfer as a change in responsibility: the tiger is to recognize Rob, not Beauchamp, as its caretaker. Rob’s role therefore becomes more than carrying out a feeding task. He is made the visible link between the captive animal and the person who controls its access to food.

On the ride back, Beauchamp defines the job as a private business deal. Rob must hide the bag of meat, and Beauchamp will bring him more the next day; in the meantime, Rob is to tell nobody. The secrecy makes the employment arrangement a concealed responsibility within Rob’s ordinary life. It also ensures that the keys and the tiger’s care are no longer solely in Beauchamp’s hands, even though Beauchamp expects Rob to follow his instructions.

The Immediate Consequence

The transfer changes what Rob can tell Sistine and what the two children might do. During the ride back, he realizes that the fierce look in the tiger’s eyes reminds him of Sistine, and he anticipates that she will insist they release the animal once she learns that he has the keys. The key handover thus has an immediate consequence beyond feeding: it gives Rob the capacity to act on a possibility he already associates with Sistine’s response.

When Sistine runs toward him after the school bus arrives, Rob tells her that he has the keys to the cage. He explains that Beauchamp hired him to feed the tiger and gave him the keys. Sistine responds by proposing that they open the locks and let the tiger go. Rob says no. The moment establishes both the opportunity created by Beauchamp’s decision and the difference between having the means to free the tiger and choosing to use them: the job sets a later conflict in motion, but Rob does not accept Sistine’s proposal at once.