Ms. Yardley clears her throat loudly. “Perhaps you two would like to join the rest of the class in listening to Jason’s report,” she says. “Unless you’d enjoy another recess detention.”
Here’s another one who seems to have no perspective of the grand design. Ms. Yardley does not recognize a Meeting of the Minds in session right under her nose. She should be proud that we have chosen her classroom to put together our plan to infiltrate the zoo. Historic far-reaching events are unfolding before her and she is missing out.
Would she have scolded Abraham Lincoln for writing the Declaration of Independence during Jason Kramer’s oral report?
Would she have stopped Christopher Columbus from discovering Antarctica if he happened to be doing it in her classroom?
Would she have lectured Willy Wonka for inventing the Evershrinking Blobgobber just because it interfered with her lesson plan?
Sadly, the answer is probably a resounding yes. Ms. Yardley appreciates the heck out of a good fraction, but, sadly, she has no respect for cosmic contributions to history.
I sigh and give my attention to the pointless report coming from Jason Kramer’s face. I feel a momentary pang of jealousy for Abraham Lincoln, Christopher Columbus, and Willy Wonka. They had no idea of the hardships with which I grapple on a daily basis.
31
“Get your knee out of my nose,” says Darvish.
Spending three hours crammed into the bottom of a snow cone stand is never pleasant. It is doubly so when you are crammed in there with your best friend and a dead chicken, a dead rhino, a dead gorilla, a dead shark, a dead elephant, and a dead panda.
That’s a whole lot of dead in a very small space. But it is for the greater good, so I endure.
“Count yourself lucky,” I tell Darvish. “At least you don’t have a big fat rhino knee in your face.”
“You better watch it with that fat talk,” she says. “I move my horn three inches to the right and you’re walking bowlegged for the next ten years.”
“They’re in here with us?” Darvish asks. “I don’t feel them.”
“Apparently, it’s just another one of the joys of being me,” I tell him.
“Why didn’t you have them wait outside?” he says. “Nobody can see them or feel them except you!”
It is a valid point. It would have been nice if he had brought it up earlier. But the zoo has been closed for three hours now, so I deem it safe to emerge from our hiding place. I open the latch to the snow cone stand and we tumble out in a heap of legs, arms, trunks, horns, and beaks.
I attempt to free myself from the fray, but my foot catches on the snow cone banner. The enormous banner rips free from the stand and entangles us in its canvas clutches.
We are one smooth operation, let me tell you.
At this less than opportune moment, I hear footsteps. Everyone freezes.
“It’s the gnome guard!” hisses Darvish.
“Hobbit guard,” I correct him. “Gnomes are a totally different thing.” How he could mix up his mythological creatures at a critical moment such as this is beyond me.
“Whatever!” he whispers. “The guard is coming! Nobody move!”
We freeze in a huddled heap. Through the trees I see the shadows of the guard. My portly friend rolls along, flashlight in hand.
The beam of his flashlight shines toward the roped-off rhino enclosure and pauses for a moment. Then the guard turns and heads in our direction.
I can see the whites of the guard’s greedy little eyes as he leads his lackeys our way. I suspect he has his sights set on the possibility of free snow cones contained in our snow cone stand.
Suddenly, there are footfalls and low voices from the opposite side of us. Over by the Reptile House, I see it. More flashlights.
Sweet kiwi-lime snow cones! More guards! Through the darkness, I spy at least four figures, the beams of their lights scanning the grounds methodically. The zoo has clearly beefed up security in the wake of recent events.
I feel panic grip my chest. Either that or it’s Darvish tightly hugging me. Either way, it’s a horrific and helpless feeling.
Their paths will lead them to converge on our snow cone stand. And here we are, gift-wrapped and waiting for beardless Santa and his elves to deliver us to the zoo-trespassing authorities.
Here we are, rolled up like some weird Shire-made burrito, awaiting their hobbity appetites.
Here we are, swaddled like an exotic sushi roll of doom.
It’s only a matter of seconds before their lights will fall directly on our pathetic bundle.
CRASH!
The sound shatters the quiet night. The moment I hear it, I assume it is my heart exploding in terror. But it’s not. Something loud and metallic has smashed on the other side of the zoo, back near the entrance.
The guards have heard it, too. Their flashlights jerk away from us, toward the sound. The new guards see this opportunity to show their great worth, and they dash toward the zoo entrance with gusto, leaving my roly-poly nemesis eating their dust. The round one curses and starts toddling toward the entrance as quickly as his little legs will carry him.
We stay frozen.
We wait.
We listen.
And that’s when Drumstick walks right up to me. He starts pulling at the banner with his beak, trying to untangle me.
“Where did you come from?” I ask him. “I thought you were wrapped up in here with us.”
“I was,” he clucks. “But when the guards started heading this way, I thought I’d better wiggle out and make a distraction.”
I am nearly speechless. “You did that?”
He nods his head. “Trash can,” he says.
I can’t believe it. It is nothing short of brilliant. I have clearly underestimated the brainpower of chickens. “I could kiss you!” I say.
“Rain check,” he says. “You guys need to get unwrapped before they come back.”
He’s right. After several minutes of struggle, which includes much cursing (that gorilla has a mouth on him) and the chicken running around screaming “BAKED POTATOES!” (don’t ask me why; clearly his moment of brilliance has passed), we are free and ready for action.
“What’s the plan?” asks Darvish.
“Kou Kou is Haughtry Vain’s next target,” I remind him. “So that’s where we should be. Let’s get over to the panda paddock and lie in wait.”
“Are you sure they don’t have security cameras?” he asks nervously.
“Are you kidding?” I ask. “If they hire Haughtry Vain and her band of thugs to renovate the zoo enclosures, it will cost them millions. They’re saving their pennies.”
“I hope you’re right,” Darvish says, creeping anxiously into the open. “Otherwise this whole plan is in the toilet.”
“Have you ever known me not to be right?” I ask.
“I’m not going to answer that.”
There is no sign of the guards. The zoo seems empty as we make our way to the Far East Pavilion. Exhibits and signs that are cheerful during the day cast long and creepy shadows in the darkness, like arms reaching out to snatch us. The occasional rumble or growl from the animal cages breaks the silence.
But when we arrive at Kou Kou’s paddock, another problem rears its ugly head. The enclosure is a good twenty-five feet below the viewing rail where we stand. There’s no way in.
“Now what?” says Darvish.
“There is a zookeeper entrance down below,” says Mei Mei. “They use it to feed us. That is where the killer came in.”
“The zookeeper entrance will be locked,” I say. “And we don’t have a key.”
“That’s true,” says Darvish. He points. “Do you think we could shinny down those tall bamboo stalks?” I follow his gaze. There are tons of bamboo plants growing in the panda enclosure. Some of the stalks almost reach the top of the enclosure.
“Nope. Nope,” Peanut says. “That bamboo looks splintery. There’s no way I’m getting on that. Not for all the peanut
s in China.”
“Me neither,” agrees Tater Tot.
I don’t try to talk them into it. The bamboo is flimsy stuff. “I don’t think it will hold our weight,” I say.
“BAKED POTATOES!” squawks the chicken.
“Not helpful,” I tell him.
“Yes, it is!” he says. “Follow me!” Drumstick takes off back the way we came.
I slap my palm to my forehead in frustration.
“Stay here,” I tell Darvish. And, goodness knows why, I take off after the chicken. Perhaps his flash of ingenuity was a one-off, but I can’t help feeling that he’s got something up his flattened feathery sleeve.
But when I finally catch up with him, he’s just standing and staring.
“BAKED POTATOES!” he screams again.
I look. There in front of us is a baked potato stand. It’s a lot like the snow cone stand where we hid earlier, but much bigger. Which is not helpful. But then I take a closer look.
“My lightning reflexes and quick thinking are clearly rubbing off on you,” I tell the bird.
“Okay,” he says.
When I run back to Darvish, I’m dragging a long yellow canvas.
“What’s that?” asks Darvish.
I tie the end of the canvas to the railing and throw the rest down into the panda paddock. It falls all the way to the bottom. But as the thirty-foot banner falls, it unfurls, showing everyone what is written on it.
“BAKED POTATOES!” Drumstick and I squawk together.
32
Sometimes accomplishing lofty deeds just takes the right tool for the right job.
Sherlock Holmes’s tool was a magnifying glass. It helped him solve crime.
Benjamin Franklin had that kite. It helped him invent lightning.
Dora the Explorer had a singing backpack. It helped her entertain small children in an annoying way.
In my case, the right tool happens to be an enormous baked potato sign. And the right job is getting into an enclosure containing a giant endangered panda.
Which is where Darvish and I are now.
If you ever find yourself needing to slide down a baked potato banner into a panda enclosure at the zoo, there are three things that you need to know.
1. Sliding down a baked potato banner into a panda enclosure is a cinch. Any numbskull can do it.
2. Climbing up a baked potato banner out of a panda enclosure is not quite as easy.
3. One of the side effects of climbing into a panda enclosure with no way out is that you find yourself trapped face-to-face with an angry panda.
Which is where we are now. Kou Kou is large. He is wide. He is lonely. And he looks very cranky to find us here.
“What now, Mr. Wing-It?” asks Darvish, grabbing on to me.
“Mei Mei?” I look around. But the panda, elephant, gorilla, and rhino are nowhere to be found. Even the chicken is gone.
Great. Just like a ghost to get ashes all over your beanbag chair, get nail polish all over your pillow, and then split when things get real.
“Nice Kou Kou,” I say, backing away. I really hope I’m pronouncing his name right. The only thing that could make this situation worse is an offended panda.
“Pandas don’t eat people, right?” asks Darvish, as he hides behind me. “I thought they only ate plants. Like bamboo and stuff.”
“I can’t be expected to know everything, Darvish!” I say, backing up still farther. “You’re the one who reads, remember?”
I feel the wall of bamboo plants against my back and know we’ve run out of room. And that’s when I feel something grab my foot.
“AAAHHH!” I scream. It’s worth noting that my scream is not the terrified scream of a little child lost in a bamboo forest being set upon by a black-and-white creature from the Far East. It is simply the surprised scream of a man of the world finding that something has had the chutzpah to grab his manly foot.
“AAAHHH!” Darvish screams, too. His scream is the little lost child scream I was talking about earlier. It lacks any form of chutzpah.
I look down and see that the hand on my foot is not really a hand. It is a paw. A black-and-white paw. With the fur standing up on end.
It is Mei Mei. Tater Tot and the others lurk in the bamboo behind her.
She is pointing to some type of weird flower pod in the brush.
“Lantern blossom pod,” she says softly.
“That’s not going to fill him up!” I yell. “He’ll still have plenty of room left to eat Darvish.”
“What?!” screams Darvish, panic-stricken. “Who’s eating me?”
But Mei Mei ignores me as she emerges from the bamboo, toward Kou Kou. And she begins doing something she’s never done before.
Mei Mei glows.
Not her normal glimmer of green vapor. She is shining with a radiant golden light. And the strange thing is… Kou Kou seems to see her.
“Lantern blossom pods are quite rare,” she whispers. “Together, we have found them here on two other occasions. Give it to Kou Kou. He knows I am here with you.”
This flower-power plan sounds very untrustworthy to me. But I am out of options. So even though I’m convinced that Darvish and I are about to be panda chow, I take the strange pod. It is round and springy, about the size and weight of a soccer ball. I reach out and lay it at the feet of the advancing Kou Kou.
Kou Kou stops. He looks at the lantern blossom pod. He looks back toward Mei Mei. A new expression comes over his face.
Less grumpy. More sad.
Less angry. More lonely.
He sniffs the lantern blossom. He gently nudges it back toward Mei Mei, like some sort of offering. Then he slowly lumbers toward the back of his paddock.
I breathe a sigh of relief. Possibly my first breath in several minutes.
I look at Darvish. “Why didn’t you think of that?”
33
There’s not even time for Darvish to make a witty comeback. Because suddenly we hear a metallic click and a creak coming from the back wall of the enclosure.
“That’s the cage being opened,” says Mei Mei.
“Yep. Yep.” Peanut nods his head. “That’s just what it sounded like. That’s definitely the sound of the cage door.”
“Oh, yeah. I definitely remember that sound,” says Tater Tot. “It still sends a shiver up my spine.”
“You think that’s a scary sound?” says Sea-Monkey. “That’s nothing! One time I accidentally ate a whole pile of ghost-gas fungus. Every time I went to the bathroom, it sounded like my butt was haunted. That was a scary sound!”
I turn to Darvish. “That’s the cage being opened,” I tell him.
“How do you know?” he asks.
“I just know things,” I say. “It’s best not to question my intuition.”
Peanut covers his face. “Oh gosh. I hope there are no peanuts this time. I’m just not myself when peanuts are involved.”
We dive into the bamboo and hide, which is a tight squeeze for two kids, four large zoo mammals, a shark, and a chicken. But we manage.
Now that my eyes have adjusted to the dark, I see there is a door along the back wall, painted to blend in to the bamboo. But right now, it stands open. There is a light coming from it.
The beam of a flashlight.
“This is what happened before,” says Mei Mei. “But last time I wandered out the door and the human was waiting for me.”
“Then we need to make sure Kou Kou doesn’t do that,” I say.
“Leave that to me,” she says and shambles back to Kou Kou. I watch as her glowing form dissolves into some sort of mist. The glowing gold cloud floats toward Kou Kou and surrounds his head. He closes his eyes and seems to breathe it in through his nose. A look of peace covers his face.
I have witnessed something very special.
I have witnessed something very momentous.
I have witnessed something very disgusting. I had no idea that these guys could turn into some sort of snot-mist and go inside my breathy ho
les. I’m just thankful none of them have tried it on me.
But I can see that Kou Kou isn’t going to wander out the door. Which means Haughtry Vain will have to come inside for him.
I whisper to Darvish. “We need to set some kind of trap to capture Haughtry Vain when she comes in.”
“No time,” he says, trembling beside me. “Here she comes.”
He’s right. A figure enters through the door.
It is the sinister Haughtry Vain. She shines the sinister flashlight in her sinister hand around the paddock. It hits the wall. The floor. The bamboo. And then lands right on my face.
If you ever find yourself hiding in a panda paddock, don’t use the bamboo as a hiding place. It may be too thin to successfully hide behind. More research is warranted.
But from the spill of the flashlight, I can see her features. And realize a couple other important details.
Haughtry Vain is taller than I expected.
She is younger than I expected.
She has much dreamier eyes than I expected.
And she looks exactly like Talon Smithfield.
34
My powers of deductive reasoning have somehow failed me. My intuitive perception has, inexplicably, led me astray. My nimble mind has, against all odds, tripped on its own feet.
I don’t know how, but I suspect Darvish is to blame.
“Hey!” says Talon Smithfield. “You’re the little kid from the PUPAE meeting! What are you doing here?”
Little kid? This guy’s villainy knows no bounds.
“That’s the knucklehead who opened my cage,” whispers Sea-Monkey. “I recognize his aftershave. Smells like sandalwood and something else.”
“Death,” says Peanut.
“Yep. That’s it,” confirms Tater Tot. “Sandalwood and death.”
Darvish grabs me by the shirt and shakes me. “I thought Mei Mei said it was Haughtry Vain!” he whispers tersely.
“I’m a victim of false testimony,” I mutter back. “She pointed right at Haughtry’s picture.”
“Was Talon Smithfield holding the picture at the time?”
“I don’t remember, on the grounds that it might incriminate me.”
The Incredibly Dead Pets of Rex Dexter Page 10