The Secret Zoo (7 page)

N
oah walked alongside the glass wall of the aquarium in Penguin Palace. He could only think of one thing—going inside. Inside to the
Inside
. He wasn't sure what that meant or how to do it, but he knew it started with getting into the aquarium.

On the other side of the glass wall, the penguins followed him. Most looked ordinary, but some had messy thickets of orange feathers. Each one waddled along the edge of the icy island, flapping its flippers. They kept bumping into one another, and occasionally one slipped on the ice and splashed into the water.

“If I worked here,” Noah said to himself, “how would I get inside this exhibit? How would I—”

Thap! Thap! Thap! Thap!

He sucked back his breath. Someone was on the other side of the aquarium, near the back of the building. By the sound of it, that
someone
was coming toward him.

The penguins crowded the edge of the ice and bobbed in the water.

The person kept making the strange noise.
Thap! Thap! Thap! Thap!
It sounded like a baseball card caught in the spoke of a bicycle wheel.
Thap! Thap! Thap! Thap!
It didn't miss a beat—and it was just around the corner.

Noah was about to turn and run when he saw not a person, but a penguin. The bird was black-and-white and had a yellow patch below his neck. He stood a couple of feet high, and his flippers looked remarkably like long, slender pancakes. He waddled forward as fast as he could go, so his flat feet slapped the concrete—
Thap! Thap! Thap! Thap!
He was headed straight for Noah.

Behind him, a second penguin turned the corner. Then a third, a fourth, a fifth—more and more until a crowd of penguins was rushing toward him. They kept bumping into and falling over one another. Within seconds, Noah was surrounded by the strange birds. He felt the cold rising from their bodies. It was amazing how different they looked outside the aquarium. Their bodies—glossy with
ice water—were more colorful and full dimensional. For the first time, the penguins seemed real.

“I need to get inside your aquarium,” Noah said. “Can you guys show me how?”

A couple of penguins bumped into his legs, urging him to walk in the direction that they'd come from.

“Okay,” Noah said. “Lead the way.”

The penguins did exactly that.

E
lla and Richie sat in a quiet spot outside Metr-APE-olis under a lamppost, trying to figure out where Noah might have gone.

“Arctic Town,” Richie said. “All that stuff that happened with Blizzard—I'm sure he picked Arctic Town.”

“What about the Forest of Flight?” Ella asked. “Or maybe he went to see that monkey with the long tail.”

“I don't know.”

“Me neither.”

Ella stared up at the sky—a blank canvas for the portrait of her thoughts. For a moment, neither of them spoke.

Then Richie said in a weak voice, “Uh…Ella?”

“Not now, Richie. I'm thinking.”

“You're gonna want to see this,” he insisted.

Ella looked at him. His face was white. His expression was blank, as if he felt no emotion—or as if he felt so many emotions that they canceled one another out like the variables in Mrs. Bluss's mind-bending algebra equations. Ella's eyes followed his gaze, and she gasped with fright.

Finally Richie spoke very quietly. “What…are…they?”

Ella had no words. Not for this.

T
he penguins led Noah to a door in the wall opposite the aquarium. The sign read,
EMPLOYEES ONLY
. Three penguins jumped at the door and thrust it open.

Inside was a narrow hallway with a steep wooden floor. The penguins led Noah up the ramp. A few feet ahead, the passageway swung around a sharp turn. One penguin lost its balance and rolled down the ramp, knocking over penguins like bowling pins. Looking dazed but no less determined, the fallen penguins jumped to their feet and started their climb again.

The hallway straightened out and headed toward
the aquarium. Moments later, Noah felt cold air rising through the floor; the aquarium was directly beneath them. They reached an open doorway framed with ice. One by one, the penguins leaped through it and dropped out of sight. Noah leaned through the doorway to take a peek and slipped on the snow-covered ramp. He tumbled down and landed flat on the icy shore. The penguins following behind him trampled across his back in single file. Each time Noah tried to yell, “Stop!” a webbed foot landed on his head and pressed his face into the snow.

Finally, when all the penguins had crossed over him, he worked his way to his feet and looked around. The inside of the aquarium was covered in snow, frost, and ice. Penguins were everywhere, and the black eyes of each suited bird were pinned on him.

Noah dusted the snow off his jacket. His breath rose from his mouth like steam. He didn't know what the birds expected from him, so he simply stated his purpose.

“I'm looking for a penguin named Podgy.”

E
lla stared in disbelief.

“What are they?” Richie asked again.

Fifty yards away, hundreds of little animals were charging toward them. They covered a long stretch of the sidewalk and spilled onto the grass. Standing just higher than someone's ankles, they were packed so tightly together that they looked like the rushing mass of an avalanche—an avalanche of fur.

“Richie,” Ella said slowly, “those things look like rats.”

“I was hoping you wouldn't say that,” Richie said. “Rats are friendly, right? I mean, that stuff in the movies about
rats being mean—they just say that to freak you out, right?”

“I don't know,” Ella said. “You're the one with the big brain.”

As the animals approached, they grew noisier. Their pin-sized claws scratched the sidewalk and made a high-pitched
cchhiiitt! cchhiiitt!
sound. The animals were barking, but their barks were quiet and squeaky:
Yip! Yip! Yip!

“Hold on,” Ella said. “Those aren't rats. They're gophers.”

The closer they came, the easier they were to see. They had short legs; squat, chubby bodies; and heads that looked like furry tennis balls. When they reached the scouts, they surrounded them and sat up on their hind legs, exposing their fat, fuzzy underbellies. They watched Ella and Richie as if they were expecting the children to do something. Now that they were so close, their yipping sounds were louder than ever.

“These are prairie dogs,” Richie said. “Not gophers.”

Ella leaned toward Richie and said, “Whatever they are, I'm guessing they know who we are.”

Richie turned around in circles, eyeing the prairie dogs suspiciously. “I'm guessing you're right.”

“You know what else I'm guessing?”

“What?”

“I'm guessing they know Megan. And not only that,
but they know where she is. And that's where Noah's headed.”

“If we can't trust Tank,” said Richie, “how do you know we can trust these guys?”

“I don't. All I know is we gotta help Noah.”

Richie nodded.

Ella looked down at the animals and said, “Okay, fur-balls. Show us what you want to show us.”

The mass of prairie dogs turned and headed back in the direction they'd come from, escorting the scouts through the dark, cold night.

A
huge penguin rounded the block of ice. He was as tall as Noah, and he looked like he weighed close to sixty pounds. As he waddled forward, the blubber on his belly rolled from side to side. He stopped in front of the scout, tipped back his head, and casually aimed his bill upward, the way penguins do.

“Podgy?” Noah said. “You are Podgy, right?”

The penguin didn't reply.

“Tank told me to meet you.” Noah paused for a second. “Can you understand what I'm saying?”

Still no response.

“Tank said—”

Without warning, the penguin dropped his bill and lunged into Noah. Penguin and boy crashed downward, hit the ice, and rolled into the water. Noah sank. On one side was the icy island; on the other was the long glass wall of the aquarium. He heard muffled splashes, one after another; penguins were diving in around him. They started to swim up and down the channel, churning the water.

Noah panicked and gulped freezing water. His rear end struck something—the bottom of the tank. Looking up, he could see only the white undersides of swimming penguins. He pushed up from the floor of the tank, but a penguin struck him down. Dazed, he sank a second time.

Around him, the icy water churned. He felt faint. He was exhausted. He never should have trusted Tank. Tank had said the fate of the world depended on keeping the secrets of the zoo safe. Noah's life was an easy trade.

Another penguin crashed into him. Noah gulped more water. He knew he was seconds from drowning.

T
he prairie dogs darted between Ella's legs and across her feet. Every minute or so, one of them yipped so loudly that Ella feared that she'd stepped on it. She checked the bottom of her shoe each time, freaked out by the thought of finding the animal's remains stuck in her treads like a horrible mass of furry gum.

The prairie dogs led the scouts past the zebras and camels to the prairie dog exhibit. Called Little Dogs of the Prairie, it was set in the ground and looked like a long, shallow pool filled with sandy dirt, patches of grass, and tiny mounded hills. The walls along its perimeters were
steep and high; they were meant to keep the prairie dogs from getting out. Little Dogs of the Prairie resembled a miniature desert. Across it, the animals had made at least fifty holes—holes that led to a complex maze of underground tunnels.

The animals leaped over the perimeter wall and raced around, raising clouds of dust. Some dived into holes and immediately poked their heads back up to look around; they appeared to Ella to be reassuring themselves that their night operation was progressing smoothly. A few didn't return to the sandy pit; instead, they bit into Ella's and Richie's jeans and pulled them along a narrow sidewalk toward the rear of their habitat.

“Hey!” Ella said.

“My guess,” Richie said, as his foot was dragged forward, “is they want us to go
this
way.”

Ella knew where they were being taken. At the back of the exhibit, stairs led down to five artificially constructed tunnels, an attraction for young visitors. The tunnels ran beneath the sandy terrain. Children were able to crawl into the tunnels and pop their heads up through special holes on the prairie dog hillsides. Their heads were protected by plastic bubbles that covered the holes and prevented the animals from chewing off their noses. This part of the zoo attraction was affectionately named Little Kids of the Prairie.

The prairie dogs dragged Ella and Richie down the stairs. Then they scattered, leaving the children alone. The scouts dropped to their hands and knees and crawled into the main tunnel. Traces of moonlight illumined the way.

“Now would be a good time to use that penlight you donated to the rhino exhibit,” Ella said.

Richie said nothing; he was familiar with Ella's sharp tongue.

The main tunnel split into five secondary tunnels, which led in different directions. At the end of each one was an open space big enough for a kid to stand up in. Ella crawled along the first tunnel. She stood at the end, poked her head up through the hole, and peered through the plastic bubble. Prairie dogs were scurrying everywhere and diving in and out of holes. One of them saw her and dashed up to the bubble. It pressed its snout against the plastic and yipped once, as if to say hello. Ella yipped once in return, ducked into the tunnel, and crawled back to Richie.

“Did you find anything?” he asked.

“No.”

A large prairie dog charged into the tunnel, brushed past them, and headed for another tunnel. At the entrance, he turned around, stood on his hind legs, looked straight at Ella, and yipped repeatedly. Then he ran back, passed them, and fled outside.

“I think he just pointed us to that tunnel,” Richie said.

“C'mon! Let's check it out.”

The scouts crawled along the passageway, and again Ella poked her head up into the plastic bubble at the end.

“Do you see anything?” Richie said. “Anything unusual?”

Ella glanced back and forth. Everything seemed normal.

“No, not at all.”

Suddenly a group of prairie dogs on the sandy ground charged at the bubble. They crowded the plastic and blocked almost all the light of the moon. Ella lowered her head and stared at Richie.

“The prairie dogs surrounded the bubble.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I don't know what to do.”

“Me neither. Look again.”

She stood up and poked her head into the little plastic dome. The same crowd of prairie dogs suddenly stood on their hind legs and leaped up to the top of the bubble. Each time an animal jumped, it landed on the plastic surface and slid down the side until its paws were either back on the ground or planted on top of another prairie dog. Ella flinched as she watched the animals strike the bubble and claw it, leaving long, thin scratches on the sides.

“What are they doing?” Richie asked.

“I don't know.”

The prairie dogs were yipping so loudly that the bubble couldn't keep out their sounds. Leaping and climbing over one another, they began to cover the bubble from the ground up, their fuzzy undersides pressed against the plastic. They were making themselves into a prairie dog ladder the way cheerleaders make a human pyramid. In less than a minute, the last small prairie dog reached the top of the bubble and fell across the only open spot left on the plastic, covering it completely. The animals stopped climbing, scratching, and yipping. Without the light of the moon and stars, the tunnel was utterly dark. The silence was eerie.

“Richie?”

“Yeah?”

“I don't—”

Crrraaackkk!
The plastic bubble shifted.
Crrraaackkk!
All of a sudden, it dropped, and an alarming sound of metal against metal erupted. The walls rumbled, the floor shifted, and large clumps of dirt and sand tumbled down in a torrent. The scouts jumped into each other's arms.

“What's going on?” Richie squealed. “What are they doing?”

“A switch!” Ella said. “The bubble must have fallen against a switch!”

The floor was spinning.

“Ella! What's happening?”

The sound of grinding metal intensified as the whirling floor gained speed. Around and around it went. Ella looked up. The bubble was spinning and flinging prairie dogs into the air.

“Elll-aaa! Whaaa—? Whaaa—? Whaaat's haaappeniiinggg?”

Ella looked down. A circular section of the floor was unthreading like a screw or a soda cap.

“Riiichiiieee!”
Ella screamed.

“Whhaaattt?”

“Hooolllddd ooonnn!”

Richie squeezed her tightly. Not a second later, the floor fell out from under them. The scouts plummeted into the unknown reaches of dark earth.