The Secret Zoo (4 page)

“Yeah,” Noah said. “And I'll bet you anything he knows who my sister is, too.”

They ran toward the zoo exit. Noah reached into his pocket to make sure the paper Blizzard had given him was still there. It was. That meant the scouts had more reading to do.

A
fter school the next day, the scouts raced down Walkers Boulevard toward the zoo. Once inside, they ran toward the back, dodging benches and cutting through buildings as they headed for an exhibit called Creepy Critters. Creepy Critters had over three hundred aquariums of different sizes, shapes, and purposes. Each aquarium held things that were slimy or scaly or hairy or generally creepy in some regard—things like snakes, lizards, spiders, fish, and even cockroaches as big and thick as adult thumbs.

In no time, the scouts crossed the zoo and entered the
exhibit. Creepy Critters had a bizarre design. The building seemed to be a hapless collection of zigzagging hallways. Aquariums were set in every wall, and it felt as if the building was made of giant glass bricks. The concrete spots between the aquariums were covered in fake slime, mold, webs, and cocoons. Plastic vines and goopy gunk dangled from the ceiling.

Children raced alongside the aquariums, pausing at each one just long enough to peer inside and leave finger-prints on the glass. Their parents strolled behind them with bundles of jackets slung over their arms. Sounds rebounded from the hard glass walls like noises in a cave.

The scouts found a spot on an open bench. The aquarium in front of them was filled with tiny bright pink frogs resting on branches and mossy rocks—splotches of color on a green canvas.

“Okay, Noah,” Richie said. “Let's see that note from Blizzard again.”

Noah pulled the crinkled note from his pocket and smoothed it against his knee. He read aloud.

“Finally,” Richie said as he tapped his finger on the page. “A person who knows genius when she sees it.”

“Quiet, Richie,” Ella said. “This is important.”

Noah turned the page over.

The page ended. Noah stuffed the note back into his pocket.

“Well,” he said, “what do you guys make of that?”

“Something important is obviously in that exhibit,” Ella said.

“But what?” Richie asked.

“There's one way to find out,” Noah said, rising to his feet.

He was a single step down the hall when he stopped and fixed his eyes on the aquarium that housed the pink frogs.

“Guys, look!” he said.

Lined up along the window, side by shiny pink side, the frogs were crowding the front of the aquarium. A few remained perched along the branches, but even those were staring directly at the scouts.

Ella gasped and inched to the window, sliding the flats of her feet along the floor. Noah and Richie moved in behind her, each boy peering over one of her shoulders. The frogs began to hop. They sprang forward off their back legs and slid down the glass aquarium wall, exposing their bright pink underbellies and twiggy, outstretched legs. Their white eyes, like round Christmas tree bulbs, were locked on the scouts.

“I don't believe this,” Noah said. But deep inside, he did believe this. In fact, after everything he'd been through, he almost expected this.

“They see us,” Richie said.

“No,” Ella said. “They
know
us.”

Ella was right. The animals—from Marlo to Mr. Tall Tail to Blizzard to the pink frogs trapped in this tank—recognized Noah, Ella, and Richie. Noah didn't understand why or how, but he was certain that it had something to do with Megan.

Ella reached out and touched the glass. The frogs leaped toward her fingertips. They seemed drawn to her hand the way scraps of steel are drawn to a magnet. She slid her fingertips along the glass, and the frogs hopped toward them, climbing, rolling, and springing off one another.

“No way,” Noah said.

The scene reminded him of a plasma ball—an extraordinary clear ball in which threads of lightning streaked toward the glass the second your fingertips touched the surface. Ella seemed to control the frogs just as a person could control those tiny strands of lightning.

She yanked her hand off the glass and backed away.

“What?” Richie asked. “What's wrong?”

“We'd better not draw any attention to ourselves,” Ella warned.

“You're right,” Noah said. “We don't need any attention—especially from creepy zoo workers.”

Richie nodded, and they walked deeper into the exhibit. A few minutes later, Ella pointed to a small room. It protruded out into the space of the hall, its one side flush with the wall of aquariums. The room had a single purpose: to provide a dark viewing area for the aquarium along its wall. The room looked out of place juxtaposed with the aquariums set in the walls.

“There!” she said. “That's the Chamber of Lights.”

Richie and Noah nodded; the scouts knew the exhibit from previous visits. They turned, walked a third of the way down the hall, and stopped abruptly. Their eyes swelled. Richie's lips quivered. All the animals were staring at them from the tanks on either side. Snakes slithered near the fronts of their enclosures, their flickering tongues lapping the air. Tree frogs balanced on branches, their still, bulbous eyes fixed outward. Fish idled along the front boundary of their tanks, their sides turned as each stared out with one eye. Lizards leaned against the glass, their gazes pointed at the scouts.

“C'mon,” Noah said. “Ignore it. Just keep moving.”

They rushed down the hall. Even without looking at the animals, Noah knew that a hundred beady eyes were fixed on him and his friends. He could feel them.

They reached the Chamber of Lights. A black velvet curtain with gold rings hung over its entrance.

“Let's check it out,” Noah said.

Ella took a deep breath, and Richie shook the nervousness out of his body. Together the scouts pushed the curtain aside and entered the small room. An aquarium was set inside the wall facing the entrance. The room was small—the size of a large closet. Richie closed the curtain behind them, and the room was enveloped in darkness. The flashlight fish started to blink, and Noah was reminded of a magical night sky filled with winking stars.
He tried to move around and realized how utterly dark the room was.

“Richie,” he said, “open the curtain.”

Richie threw back the curtain, and the darkness huddled in a long shadow on the far side of the room.

“Look around,” Noah said. “See if you see anything.”

The walls and ceiling were draped in more black velvet fabric. Other than that, the room was simple, and there was nothing unusual about the tank.

“I don't see anything,” Ella said.

Noah slid his palms along the walls. “Something in here grabbed Megan's attention,” he said.

“But what?” Richie asked. “Nothing is in here but fish.”

“Wait a minute,” Ella said. The expression on her face changed several times as she rummaged through her thoughts. “I wonder if we're looking in the wrong place.”

“What?” Noah asked. “Megan specifically said—”

“Maybe she saw whatever she saw from outside this place,” Ella said.

Noah and Richie were quiet as they tried to grasp what she was getting at.

“C'mon,” Ella said. “Follow me.”

And that was exactly what Noah and Richie did.

“H
ere comes one now!”

Noah had spotted a security guard strolling down the corridor. It was the same one he'd seen at the langur exhibit—the one with red hair and fat lips. He held a set of keys tied to a long string, and as he walked, he swung them in a big circle.

“This is the guy who talked to me when I met Mr. Tall Tail. He's weird.”

“Keep your eye on him,” Ella said.

The scouts were sitting on a bench in a theater that was less than thirty feet from the Chamber of Lights. The
theater was a small room with fifteen seats packed tightly together. The entrance to the theater was from the hallway leading to the Chamber of Lights. The wall that the room shared with the hallway was barely a wall; only four feet high, it merely sectioned off the room. In the front of the theater was a big television that played the same ten-minute video again and again. On the screen, a pair of cartoon frogs kept explaining how “…some tree frogs are…
rrr-ribit
!…poisonous, and
vvveeerrryyy…rrr-ribit
!…deadly.” The Action Scouts weren't interested in poisonous tree frogs. They were sitting in the tiny theater because it kept them out of sight while offering a clear view of the Chamber of Lights.

“What do you think he's gonna do?” said Richie.

“I don't know,” Ella said. “Just watch.”

The worker patrolled the length of the hall and turned back without glancing at the Chamber of Lights. He ambled past the theater and disappeared.

“Well,” Richie whispered, “he didn't even look at the chamber.”

“Just hold on,” Ella said as she checked her watch. “The zoo doesn't close for almost an hour, and we know how weird things get at closing time.”

The scouts waited. Hiding behind the short wall, they spied on people moving up and down the hallway. They waited. They watched. They listened to the goofy
cartoon frogs spout on and on about the “different…
rrr-ribit
!…kinds of frogs.” At one point, a child entered the theater, took a seat, and hurried off quickly after growing bored with the video. A little later, a lady's voice projected through a loudspeaker. She announced in a rushed voice that the zoo would be closing in ten minutes, “…so please make your way to the exits, thank you very much, have a nice day, please drive safely.” Creepy Critters promptly emptied. The building fell silent except for the soft gurgle of bubbles and the occasional reptilian croak or hiss or rattle.

“We'd better go,” Richie said, “before the zoo closes and we get locked in.”

“No!” Ella said, disagreeing. “We stay.”

“We what?”

“I have this feeling that we need to be here when the zoo's closed and the employees think everyone's gone.”

“That's crazy!” Richie said. “Stay
past
closing time? We could get in serious trouble, and I don't want—”

“She's right,” Noah said. “We'll hide here for an hour. If nothing happens, we'll sneak out. It can't be too hard to get out of the zoo, right?”

“Are you guys nuts? Our parents will be home by then! Have you lost your—”

“Richie,” Noah said, “it might mean finding my sister.”

Richie considered this. “Okay,” he said at last. “We stay.”

The three children sat in silence. A half hour passed. Nothing happened. Richie was about to say something when Ella stuck out her hand and pinched his lips shut with her fingers.

“Shh! Quiet!” She leaned her ear toward the corridor. “Someone's coming!”

The scouts heard a strange shuffling sound down the hallway. Peering over the short theater wall, they couldn't see who—or what—was approaching. It made scratching sounds against the floor.
Sssheeettt! Sssheeettt! Sssheeettt!
The children rolled off the bench and huddled on the carpet.

Noah whispered, “Are we hiding because we're afraid or because we hope we won't get caught?”

“I don't know,” Ella answered. “Both, I guess.”

Sssheeettt! Sssheeettt!

They crouched and peered over the wall. A moment later, they discovered the source of the sound: a zoo worker with more hair on his face than his head. He was strolling down the corridor, pausing occasionally to tap on the tanks playfully.

“Hello, Justice,” he said to a creature inside a tank. “Good evening, Starlight,” he said to another. “Glad to see you both back tonight.”

“Back?” Noah whispered. “Back from where?”

The worker casually looked toward the theater, and
the scouts dropped like turtles ducking into their shells. They waited. When the sound of his footsteps faded, they poked their heads up again and stared down the hallway.

“What's he doing?” Richie asked.

“I don't know,” Noah said. “Just standing next to the Chamber of Lights.”

“He's getting ready,” Ella said firmly.

“Getting ready for what?” Richie said.

The man checked over his shoulder and slipped into the Chamber of Lights. He put on a pair of sunglasses and flung the curtain closed.

“Sunglasses?” Noah asked. “For what?”

“I have this feeling we should get down,” Ella said.

Noah was about to ask why when a soundless flash of light—as sudden as a camera flash and a hundred times more powerful—sprayed out from the gaps in the curtain covering the entrance to the Chamber of Lights. The scouts fell backward and covered their faces. After a few seconds, they sat up.

Rubbing his eyes, Noah said, “What happened?”

Ella stepped out of the theater and headed toward the chamber.

“Ella!” Richie screamed under his breath. “Don't be stupid!”

Richie and Noah ran after her.

“Ella—
don't
!” Richie warned again.

But Ella would not be persuaded. She marched to the Chamber of Lights, threw back the curtain, and walked inside. Terrified, Richie and Noah stopped in their tracks and held their breath. Noah glanced at Richie—his friend was so helplessly frozen in place that he looked like a strange, misplaced lawn ornament. A moment later, Ella strolled out, and the boys sighed with relief.

“He's gone,” she stated.

“But how?” Noah asked.

“It's as if all that light evaporated him,” Richie whispered. “Or took him away.”

“Away where?”

“I don't know. Someplace else.”

Behind them, an angry voice cut the air. “What the heck!”

They spun around. Walking down the hall was the gangly security guard with red hair and fat lips.

“You kids need to beat it,” the guard yelled as he marched up to them. “And I mean NOW!”

His breath gushed with the last word, and Noah could smell what he'd eaten for lunch—something with enough garlic to gag a dinosaur. The scouts were too scared to say anything. Whoever this man was, he'd just seen what had happened, and that made him a part of whatever was going on.

“Uh…sure, mister,” Noah blurted.

“C'mon!” the guard barked. The scouts couldn't move. The worker leaned toward them and yelled, “I said MOOOVE!” He sounded like a cow and even looked like one with his big lips quivering.

The scouts hurried up the hallway. The guard marched behind them, swinging his keys in a circle. Now the swing seemed menacing.

“What's best at this point,” he said calmly, “is for you kids to forget what you just saw. Remembering is only gonna do a lot of people a whole lot of harm—and you don't wanna be responsible for that now, do ya?”

As the children walked along the corridor, Noah noticed that the creatures in the aquariums were watching them. In the front of the tanks, fish darted restlessly in the water, snakes slithered anxiously, and frogs jumped in all directions. Then they started to croak, hiss, and snort. The noises built up until the exhibit sounded like an overactive swamp.

“Don't worry about those creatures,” the redheaded guard said, raising his voice to be heard over the animal sounds.

“Mister?” Noah said.

“Shut up, kid!”

“How do the animals know who we are?”

“Shut up—and I mean it!” The man's spit sprayed Noah's neck. “You kids have no idea what you're getting into! This is none of your business!”

Noah suddenly felt certain that the man behind him knew something about Megan and her disappearance. From the peculiar guard at the Polar Pool, to Megan's distrust of the zoo workers, to the behavior of the animals, to the guard who had just disappeared in the Chamber of Lights, too much implicated the zoo and its staff with the disappearance of his sister.

Noah exploded with anger. He spun around and shouted, “Where's Megan?”

“Where's
who
?”

“My sister! You know
exactly
who she is, and you know
exactly
how I can find her!” He became more furious with every word. “Take me to her! Take me to her right NOW!”

The guard's face turned white, probably more from shock than anything else. He grabbed a fistful of Noah's shirt and hissed, “Listen, brat! It's time for you and your—”

“Let me go!” Noah struggled to break free but only managed to entangle himself in his own shirt. “Let me go, I said!”

“Let go of him, you big jerk!” Ella yelled. She kicked the guard in the shin.

“Ooowww! Stupid kids!” With his free hand, the guard snatched a walkie-talkie off his hip. “Tank! Come in! Tank! I got a code red on the Megan Situation in Creepy Critters! Requesting backup!”

“The Megan Situation?” Noah said. “You have a
name
for it?”

“Quiet, kid!”

“Let…GO!” Noah shrieked.

Ella booted the man in the ankle, and Richie grabbed hold of his shirt.

“Ooowww! Stinkin' brats!”

Creepy Critters' double doors burst open. Standing just outside was a large, beefy man. When he walked through the door frame, he filled it completely. His hands were as large as oven mitts, and his head was so bald and shiny that it glowed. His brown skin was deep and rich and oddly perfect—without a single blemish.

“Tank!” the redheaded guard called out. “Give me a hand with this slippery punk!”

Tank trudged down the corridor and stopped in front of Noah. He crossed his massive arms over his massive body, nearly splitting the seams of his shirt. He was gigantic—the biggest man Noah had ever seen.

“Funny,” Noah panted as he struggled to get loose. “You certainly don't look like—let me go!—any security guard I've ever seen…around here!”

“Quit squirming, kid,” the redheaded guard barked.

“Time to go, little man,” said Tank in a deep, throaty voice.

“Where's my sister?”

“She's gone, kid,” the guard said. He released Noah and added, “You're just gonna have to get used to that. Tank, get this pesky Action Scout outta my face!”

“Hey!” Ella cried. “How do you know who we are?”

“Kid,” the guard said, “
everyone
knows who you are.”

“What? Wait! What's going on?”

“Where's my sister!” Noah yelled. “I wanna—”

But before he could finish his sentence, Tank scooped him up and slung him over his shoulder like a beach towel.

“Let him down!” Ella demanded.

She tried to pack a punch, but Tank reached out his enormous arm, seized her wrist, and proceeded to drag her behind him. He hauled his two captives out of the exhibit and down a path that led to a private exit behind the otter exhibit. Richie chased after them. When Tank reached the gates, he kicked one open and dropped Noah on the ground like a sack of laundry. Then, with a clean jerk of his arm, he flung Ella on top of Noah.

Richie squatted beside his friends and yelled, “Hey! You can't do that!”

“Quiet!” Tank bellowed.

“I'm gonna report—”

“QUIET!” The booming thunder of the man's voice made the scouts pull back as if they were dodging a punch.

Tank lowered his voice to a whisper. “Is Charlie Red still behind me?”

“Who?” Ella asked.

“Charlie Red. The other guard.”

Confused, Ella said, “N-n-no.”

“Good. Listen! I gotta make this quick.” He glanced over his shoulder and added, “It looks like you kids are in this now. If the rumors are true, I guess we have Marlo and Blizzard and Mr. Tall Tail to thank for that.”

“What are you talking about?” said Ella.

“Be quiet and listen. Megan's Inside. She's in trouble. Some of us on the Inside want to help. Some are too afraid of—” Tank looked around nervously. “I shouldn't even be saying this. He could be anywhere. He lives in the shadows. Heck, he
is
the shadows.”

“Who?” Noah said. “Who are you talking about?”

“No time for questions. This has gotta be crazy for you guys, but there's too much to explain. I'll just say this: Do not draw attention to yourselves the way you did today! That was a big mistake. The more people that know about this, the more dangerous things will get.”

“Know about what?” Richie asked. “Who's in danger?”

“Everyone,” Tank said. “The whole world.”

“What? You're not making any sense!” Ella said.

“That's it. I can't talk anymore. Charlie's watching, and he…well, he ain't rooting for you, if you know what I'm saying.” Tank stepped backward. “Tell nobody. And I mean
nobody
! We'll work through this, I promise you.
I'll see that you guys make it to the Inside.”

“The inside of what?” Noah demanded.

“The
Inside
.” Tank paused as if he was considering something. He turned to walk off and suddenly swung back around. “Listen, they're really gonna try to stop you now, so we need to speed this up. Noah, I need you to do something for me.”