My Zombie Hamster (17 page)

Mission Breakdown for Rescuing Charlie and Saving the Day

10:00 a.m
. I headed out to the park without Mom and Dad. They were both working with Charlie’s mom to come up with a way to get Charlie out of jail, but I knew it was a lost cause. Sometimes grown-ups talk and talk when what is really needed is action.

The park outside city hall was already filled with people. These events have always been popular in the past, but this year’s was the biggest ever. Music played over the loudspeakers. Kids were running around, then falling over and crying. The snow had been shoveled away from the park, but at the bottom of the rise was a frozen lake where people were skating. I could smell roasted chestnuts in the air.

Luckily, it hadn’t snowed in a week. The sky was blue, so it was a pretty good day for it, despite the cold.

I was happy with the turnout. Crowds were
good for us. It meant we wouldn’t be noticed.

I met up with Calvin and Aren on the steps of city hall. It was about ten thirty, so we were ahead of schedule. Calvin was eating a hot dog with one hand and sticking his face into a bag of popcorn in between bites. Aren was very carefully testing the wind with a piece of ribbon tied to a fishing rod.

“You guys get the mission breakdown?” I asked.

Aren pulled the fishing line down. “It was a bit vague.”

I shrugged. “Better to stay loose.”

“I think Charlie would call it making it up as you go along.”

He was right. She would.

11:00 a.m
. The waiting is killing me. My stomach feels like I’m about to take every single test and exam I’ve ever had. All in one go. And the longer we stand around, the more I start to realize that what we’re doing is incredibly dangerous.

But I don’t know what else to do. Charlie’s our friend. We have to get her out of there. Otherwise, who knows what will happen to her?

At least the crowds are getting heavier. A few minutes ago, five policemen and three policewomen left the station. I saw them wandering around and keeping an eye on the festival. That meant fewer of them inside.

11:30 a.m
. The chairs around the runway and stage are filling up with people taking their positions for the highlight of the day. I take a deep breath and check on the others. Calvin was taking huge gulps from a Slush Puppy, and Aren was attaching a Velcro exercise strap around his head. It was holding his iPhone, facing outward.

“What’s that for?”

“I’m filming the breakout.”

“You’re
what
?”

“Come on. You don’t think we’re going to want to look back on this day? It’s going to be chaos in there. At least this way we’ll have a record of how it went. Think about it. We can sell it to television networks.”

Hmm. It was a good point. I wish I’d thought of it. I could use the footage for when I write the movie.

“Equal shares in the footage?” I said.

“I suppose,” said Aren. Then he put his ear-buds in.

I pulled them out of his ears. “What are you doing now?”

“Music. For the breakout. I saw it in a movie once. My own private soundtrack.”

“Aren, I very rarely get a chance to correct you about, like,
anything
, so forgive me if I make the most of this. But are you out of your ever-living mind?”

“What?”

“You’re supposed to be the smart one! If you’re pumping music into your ears, how are you going to hear what’s going on around you? Someone could be sneaking up right behind you and you wouldn’t know. Calvin and I could be trying to talk to you and you wouldn’t hear us.”

I felt a bit bad. Aren looked a little depressed about the whole thing. “But I saw it in a movie.”

“What movie?”

“One of the
Blade
films, I think.”

I rested a hand on his shoulder. “Need I say more?”

12:00 noon
Showtime. (I’ve always wanted to say that. Oh, and “Wait’ll they get a load of me.” But you take what you can get.) I turned around and clapped my hands together once to get the others’ attention.

“Showtime.”

Aren looked frankly ridiculous, with his iPhone strapped to his head. And Calvin was surrounded by a pile of junk-food wrappers. He looked a bit sheepish.

“Sorry. I overeat when I’m nervous.”

Not the most professional crew for a breakout, but I suppose I had to make the most of what we had.

“First, pick up that litter.”

We waited while Calvin took his trash to the closest bin. As he was doing this an emcee skipped up onto the stage and was warming the crowd up. I think it was Brad Johnson’s dad, the local used-car salesman.

“Hi there, you beautiful people. You really are a stunning crowd. Really, I mean that. Especially you,” he said, pointing and grinning at a young
lady in the crowd. Someone threw an apple at his head. I stood on tiptoes and saw that it was Brad Johnson’s mom.

“Ow. Okay. Well, yes. We have a lovely show for you today, we really do. Some amazing specimens, and some really weird ones—and they’ve brought their pets along!” He paused, waiting for applause that didn’t come. “Okay, yeah, cool. Moving on. Our first contestant is a Pekingese poodle called Genghis Khan. Really?” he said to someone offstage. “Yes, Genghis Khan. Okay then. Khan the Pekingese poodle.”

Calvin came back, and we hurried across to city hall and snuck inside. (It was deserted. It was a public holiday, after all. And it was a weekend. And if anything Dad says about politicians is true, then that was two more reasons than they needed not to come into work.) Each of us took a fire extinguisher from a wall. (There was one on each floor.) Then we headed back outside, skirted around the edge of the park, and headed toward the rear of the police station. The Dumpster was still where it had been. (I know you’re thinking,
Why wouldn’t it be?
But I’d had nightmares about this. That someone would come and move it or something.)

We retrieved the milk crate I’d found yesterday, then closed the Dumpster lid. We climbed up onto the Dumpster, tossed the three fire extinguishers onto the roof, and used the crate to boost ourselves up. We kept low and moved to the three skylights we had spotted when reviewing our footage yesterday. I glanced along the line. Calvin was grinning at me. Aren was serious but ready.

I nodded, and we pulled the skylights open. We got our wire ready, pulled the pins on the extinguishers, pushed the handles down, and quickly wrapped the wire around them to keep them open.

White smoky powder exploded from each extinguisher as we dropped them into the police station.

We scrambled down off the roof and around to the front of the station. I pulled three pairs of safety goggles and three mouth masks from my backpack, the kind painters use. I picked them up from the hardware store on the way to the carnival. We put them on, then waited for the first police officer to run outside and slipped in behind him.

The smoky powder was thick. Aren switched on the LED light on his phone, and we hurried
down the corridor, avoiding the coughing and spluttering police who were staggering around.

We knew the layout well enough. We’d been here a few times in our lives. Not for breaking the law, but for school trips, that kind of thing.

We made our way to the rear of the building and into the jail. It was deserted. We hurried along the corridor, looking into each of the cells.

We reached the end and turned around in confusion.

They were all empty.

“Where’s Charlie?” whispered Aren.

Very good question. Where was she?

There was a noise behind us. We whirled around. A faint whirring sound was drawing closer and closer. We watched in alarm as a white, glowing light materialized, illuminating tiny whirlwinds in the smoky powder. The light grew brighter, the noise louder, the smoke turning in twisting spirals around us.

We shrank back against the bars of the cell behind us.

A tall shadow materialized in the smoke. The minitornadoes gusted away to the sides, and the
shadow moved forward to reveal—one of those little portable hand fans.

And Kilgore Dallas.

“Well, well, well. What do we have here?”

I opened my mouth. Then closed it again. Because, really, what could I say? The one thing we hadn’t come up with was an excuse if we got caught.

“Um … we got lost?” said Aren.

“Sure you did. You got lost and accidentally ended up back here. Where your friend was being held.”

“Where is she?” I asked.

Dallas was silent for a moment. “She really is different, isn’t she?”

“I told you! I
said
she was.”

“Keep your hair on, kid. What was I supposed to do? Surrounded by the mayor’s Zombie Squad?”

“So where is she?” I asked again.

“Thing is, the mayor decided to move her. Seems your town always has one or two incidents during this … festival. Whatever it is. Seems your police have to lock a few rowdy souls up overnight. The mayor didn’t want any of them seeing your friend.”

I took a step forward. “What has he done with Charlie?”

Dallas held up a hand. “Hey, chill.” He stared at me. “You dig?”

I stopped moving. “I dig.”