Secrets and Shadows

by Bryan Chick

  Somewhere, a door creaked. Noah stopped and peered out through the bushes and trees. Not far off, a family of five had just entered the building. Three young kids were jumping around excitedly, pointing at butterflies. They were headed down the visitor path in Noah’s general direction.

  A wave of panic washed over Noah. He hunkered lower than ever and hurried on. He reached the rock formation, which sat several feet away from an outside wall. The rock reached into the glassy heights, a waterfall splashing noisily down its front side. Butterflies were perched along it, warming in the sunlight. On the ground in the near-private space between the rock and the wall, a flight of stairs led into the dark earth. Here, the paw prints ended. Were the Grottoes at the end of the stairs? More than a dozen butterflies flew out of the dark ground and scattered into the air.

  Somewhere in the exhibit, one of the children shrieked excitedly. Fear jolted Noah. He shouldn’t be doing this. Tameron had warned against entering the Grottoes. He’d said the scouts could get hurt, lost, or worse.

  But Noah needed to learn the full truth about the Secret Zoo. From the Descenders to the Grottoes, too much was being kept secret. If everyone Noah cared about was in danger, he needed to fully understand what they were dealing with.

  He shut off his thoughts and took a single step down. Then another, and another. The cool air sank into his flesh and a musty odor filled his head. He traded the light of the exhibit for the darkness of the underground. At the bottom of the stairs, a gloomy opening was at his right. It was perhaps six feet tall and four feet across. Noah peered into the opening but couldn’t see much. But when he stepped into the corridor, it suddenly illuminated. In the walls, a few light bulbs were set; Noah’s movements must have triggered them to go on.

  Wide-eyed, Noah stared around. The short tunnel headed straight for ten feet and then stopped at two branches, one left and one right. He walked down and stared into both branches. Each was perhaps fifty feet long, and each had five or six new branches—mouths to new tunnels. All the entrances were covered with velvet curtains.

  The Grottoes. Did the tunnels go to the Secret Zoo or somewhere else?

  He took two cautious steps down the left branch. Old bricks formed the walls and arched ceiling. As he walked, he swept his fingertips along the wall. The bricks touched him back with their damp coolness. Flecks of mortar broke away and peppered the ground.

  His thoughts rose like a voice in his head: Get out. Down here . . . it’s too dangerous. Tameron . . . he told you so.

  But was it possible that the Descenders were trying to keep something from the scouts? Could it be that the Grottoes weren’t dangerous at all, and the Secret Society just wanted Noah and his friends to stay out of them?

  Above the mouths of the new branches were thin metal plates with words engraved upon them. From where he stood, Noah couldn’t quite read them. Did the letters spell out the places the tunnels led to?

  For a better look, Noah walked on. But before he could reach the first tunnel, he halted. A cloud of something had burst through a distant branch; inside it, colors churned. Noah peered closely and realized what the cloud consisted of. Butterflies. Hundreds of them. Packed tightly together, they were pouring into the tunnel and streaming toward him.

  Noah didn’t have time to react. Almost at once the butterflies swarmed around him. Their soft wing tips brushed his skin, and Noah became engulfed in their movement. He turned back. Blinded by butterflies, he walked with his arms stretched out in front of him, feeling his way for the short passage that led to the stairs.

  He thought again of Tameron. The Descender had warned him to stay out of the Grottoes. Was Noah about to pay a price for ignoring him?

  He shook his arms in front of his face, batting away butterflies. It didn’t help; he still couldn’t see a thing. Panic filled him, and Noah blindly ran forward, sweeping his hand along the wall, feeling for his way out. Had he already passed it? He worried he might slip into the wrong tunnel and end up in some other place—a bad place, like the Dark Lands.

  His hand suddenly dove off the bricks and floated in space. A passage. Noah turned to it but saw nothing through the stream of butterflies. He did his best to close out his fear and stepped forward. After only a few steps, the butterflies disappeared around him, and he saw the staircase that he’d climbed down. He glanced back: the butterfly swarm was stretching across the two branches that he’d originally seen.

  He didn’t know where the butterflies were going, and he didn’t care. He just wanted to be out of the Grottoes. He hurried up the steps and stared out from behind the rock. The elderly couple was nowhere in sight. He hurried through the trees and slipped through the railing back into the clearing. He gasped. The family of five was standing with their backs to him at the opposite edge of the open space. Noah had forgotten about them.

  One of the children swung around. The boy was no more than four years old, and his lips were encrusted in dry chocolate. He smiled broadly and pointed at Noah. “Look, Mommy!” he said.

  The mother turned and her face opened with surprise. She touched her fingertips to her lips, then tugged on her husband’s sleeve. “Uhhh . . . Dale?”

  The father faced Noah and took a step back, wide-eyed with shock. “Oh my gosh! What happened to you?”

  Noah stood there, unsure what was wrong. “Huh?”

  “How did . . .” The father’s voice trailed off and he pointed to Noah—his torso, his legs, his feet.

  Noah scanned his body and almost fainted by what he saw. Butterflies were clinging to every inch of him. He wore them like clothes.

  He felt his cheeks flush. “I . . . I don’t know,” he managed to say. He began to sweep his hands across his stomach and chest, as if dusting off dirt after a headfirst slide. Butterflies flitted into the air.

  The parents stared on, slack jawed. Before they could ask another question—perhaps about who he was—Noah turned and ran, brushing butterflies off his clothes as he went. At the exit, he slammed through the door and fled across the landscape of the increasingly peculiar and mystifying zoo.

  Chapter 16

  Wide Walt

  The next day the scouts had lunch at their usual spot on a long bench in the school cafeteria. As normal, all students had checked their manners at the door. Kids squealed and laughed and crunched potato chips. Crumbs spread like dust. The day’s meal consisted of a rubbery slip of meat, a mound of clumpy mashed potatoes, and a choice of vegetable: string beans or half-cooked corn, the latter being the popular choice, as it supplied ammunition for the catapults the kids made out of their plastic sporks. None of the scouts cared about eating. Richie rummaged through his meal, digging with his spork for something to inspire his appetite.

  As the scouts quietly discussed the incident at Butterfly Nets, three kids approached their table: Walter White and his two cronies, Dave and Doug. Walt’s reputation was legendary. He was regarded as the meanest kid not only at Clarksville Elementary but in the entire district. Where most bullies were tall, Walt was wide—startlingly so. His shoulders projected out twice as far as a normal kid’s, making his head seem puny in comparison. When he walked, he swung his immense shoulders. Over his five years at Clarksville Elementary, those shoulders had swaggered past countless students, earning him the nickname Wide Walt.

  The scouts fell silent. Experience had taught them that it was best to deal with Walt by pretending invisibility. Eyeing the scouts, Walt jerked a thumb in their direction and said to his buddies, “Check it out—the Action Dorks.”

  On cue, his cronies started to snort and snicker. Doug tossed a string bean that bounced off Richie’s head and slipped through the small opening of his milk carton. Dave and Doug high-fived at the accomplishment.

  The scouts said nothing, prompting Wide Walt to remark, “That’s what I thought.” This was Walt’s tagline, and few of his conversations ended without it. Most days, Wide Walt could be heard roaming the halls, terrorizing students while parroting, “That’s what I tho
ught. . . . That’s what I thought.” Sometimes Noah wondered if Walt was less interested in picking on kids than in convincing others that his minuscule head was, indeed, capable of thought.

  Walt ambled away, swinging his shoulders. Nodding at the crowd, his goons marched behind him, each holding a lunch tray pinched between a thumb and a finger, a display of strength for all to behold.

  “Oh—real nice,” Richie commented as he peered into his milk carton. “Just great. Now I have a . . .” His voice trailed off as he searched the cloud of his disbelief for the right words. “A stupid string bean in my milk.”

  Ella slid her milk carton across the table. “Here. You can have mine.”

  Richie pushed it back. “I don’t want yours.” He stared into the milky waters of his carton—a tiny lake where a green canoe floated. “I want mine, only with no string bean.”

  Just then, someone sitting at the far end of the table started to shriek. It was Joey Reiser, the smallest, weakest kid in the history of fourth grade. Wide Walt was stuffing mashed potatoes down the front of Joey’s shirt. Noah looked around. There wasn’t a lunch attendant in sight. No surprise: Walt knew how to pick his moments.

  Walt scooped up another handful of mashed potatoes—this time from the plate of a fifth grader sitting nearby—and stuffed it down the back of Joey’s shirt. Walt’s cronies laughed their approval.

  “Why is this guy such an idiot?” Megan grumbled.

  Ella said, “He’s mad because his head’s the size of a raisin.”

  “Should we do something?” Megan asked.

  “Yeah,” said Richie as he stared at his plate. “Pretend we don’t see anything. I don’t need Walt coming back to fill my shirt with today’s menu. I’m in no mood to spend the day with mashed potatoes cooling in my belly button.”

  Noah heard himself say, “Walt! Why don’t you get a life!” before he could stop.

  Walt swung his meaty face in the direction of the insult. He locked eyes with Noah. With the better part of his arm still buried in Joey’s shirt, he muttered, “What . . . did . . . you . . . say?” leaving a pause between each word for effect.

  All across the cafeteria, heads spun. Students gasped, and sporks dropped from shaky fingertips. No one could believe it—someone had just stood up to Wide Walt.

  “Uhhh . . . Noah?” Richie whimpered. “You might want to rethink your strategy here.”

  Maybe Richie was right. No one in his right mind challenged Wide Walt. Noah turned away and stared at his tray.

  Walt smirked. Then he grunted and said, “That’s what I thought.”

  Hearing Walt’s tagline filled Noah with rage. He pushed himself up from the bench. He’d been through too much lately to back away from a fifth grade bully. In the past few weeks, Noah had battled sasquatches, flown on the back of a penguin, ridden on a polar bear, slept in an igloo, outrun hundreds of lunatic monkeys, and ventured alone into forbidden territory in a secret kingdom. Compared to all this, Wide Walt was nothing.

  Noah strode down the length of the table and stood directly before Walt, who still had his hand in Joey’s shirt. Quietly, he said, “I’d love to pop that pimple you call a head.”

  Walt’s face went pale with shock. Absolute silence claimed the cafeteria.

  Behind him, Noah heard Richie whisper to Megan and Ella, “Well, girls. Today’s the day we die, I guess.”

  An adult voice rang out. “Boys!”

  Standing at the cafeteria entrance was Mr. Kershen, the mustached gym teacher. Seeing him, Walt lifted his arm from Joey’s shirt and struck his best I’m-not-doing-nothing pose.

  Mr. Kershen took one look at Joey’s potato-covered collar and yelled, “White! What in the world’s going on here?” He quickly assessed the situation. “Get down to the principal’s office—now!”

  Wide Walt groaned. As he trudged past Noah, he sneered, “You’re going to pay for this, dork. Oh, you’re going to pay.”

  Noah slid his foot out, tripping Walt. The biggest bully in the school stumbled forward, arms flailing. He crashed into an empty chair and banged against the table. A carton of chocolate milk spilled down his pants.

  “White!” Mr. Kershen yelled. “Quit clowning around and get going!”

  His face red with rage and embarrassment, Wide Walt headed across the cafeteria, his hulking shoulders slumped.

  The cafeteria kept silent. All eyes were on Noah, who walked back down the long bench and dropped into his seat.

  Ella leaned across the table and whispered, “That was totally, totally, and totally the most awesome thing I’ve ever seen in my life!”

  Noah slurped his milk and glanced at his friends. The other scouts sat there in silent awe, still entranced by the first act of rebellion against Wide Walter White.

  Ella grinned and went on, “Noah—don’t you get how incredible that was? You almost toppled the Great Tower of Walt.”

  Noah couldn’t restrain a smile. “Yeah, well, he’s no bigger than a sasquatch.”

  Richie said, “But he smells just as bad.”

  Together, the scouts laughed. At one end of the cafeteria, Mr. Kershen was dragging the bully to the principal’s office. It may have seemed to some that the confrontation was over, but Noah was smarter than that.

  The confrontation had just begun.

  Chapter 17

  An Instant Marlo

  Later that day at recess, while the other kids were dangling upside down from jungle gyms and spinning at dangerous speeds on the merry-go-round, the scouts sat in a quiet corner of the schoolyard discussing the Wide Walt incident. Just as Richie wondered when their next crosstraining might be, a tiny bright blue bird shot down from the sky and settled on Noah’s shoulder. Marlo.

  “Marlo?” said Megan. “What . . . what are you doing here?”

  Marlo cast his eyes in all directions, surveying the playground to make sure he hadn’t been spotted. Noah glanced around as well. The kingfisher was too small to be seen by anyone more than a few feet away.

  Marlo opened his beak and let a folded slip of paper tumble into Noah’s lap. A note. Chirping, the kingfisher shot his gaze at Noah, then at the paper. Noah scooped it up and unfolded it.

  “Is it from Mr. Darby?” Megan asked.

  Noah nodded, his eyes locked on the page.

  “Read it,” urged Ella.

  “Now?”

  “Yeah, why not? No one can hear you.”

  Noah considered. He glanced back over each shoulder—no one was near. Very softly, he read the letter:

  My Dear Scouts,

  Tank would like to resume your crosstraining next week. Let us know if Monday after school is possible. We will only need ninety minutes. Send your answer on this letter back with Marlo. If you can come, please report to the Wotter Park exhibit at 3:45. And kindly bring a change of clothes.

  With warm regards,

  Mr. Darby

  * * *

  “That’s it?” Richie asked.

  “Yeah.” Noah stared at his friends. Still on Noah’s shoulder, Marlo ruffled his feathers. “You guys think our parents will be cool with Monday?”

  The three scouts nodded.

  “Okay.” Noah reached out and slipped his fingers into Richie’s open jacket, snatching a pencil from his friend’s pocket of nerd gear.

  Ella said, “It’s sort of nice having a human convenience store following you around all day, isn’t it?”

  Smiling, Noah scribbled, WE’LL BE THERE and signed the note. He folded the paper and held it up to Marlo, who used his beak to pluck it from Noah’s grasp like a minnow from shallow waters. Then the kingfisher sprang off Noah’s shoulder and zipped across the playground—over the monkey bars, through the jungle gym, and out of sight.

  “Not a bad way to communicate,” Ella mused as she stared across the Marlo-less sky. “Kind of like an Instant Message.”

  “Yeah,” Megan joked, “an Instant Marlo.”

  Noah steered the conversation back to the matter at hand. “Looks like
we have a second crosstraining coming up.”

  The four of them shared a grave look.

  Richie said, “The Wotter Park. A change of clothes. Why do I have this feeling we’re going to be getting wet?”

  With that, the school bell rang, calling them back to class.

  Chapter 18

  The Wotter Park

  When the school bell sounded at 3:30 on Monday, the scouts used the bathrooms to change into their ridiculous uniforms and then headed for the zoo, their backpacks slung over their shoulders. They walked down Jenkins Street and took a side entrance into the zoo.

  A cold wind swept across the landscape. Within five minutes, they reached the Wotter Park, a square, windowless building standing over twenty feet high. Though a sign marked the exhibit CLOSED FOR CONSTRUCTION!, the scouts knew better. After glancing over their shoulders to ensure no one was around, Noah used his magic key to unlock the entrance, and the four of them slipped through the big double doors.

  The Wotter Park’s main attraction was a glass aquarium. About half the size of a tennis court, it had high walls but no ceiling. It contained an island that was separated from the aquarium’s glass walls by a channel of water. The island had steep hills with smooth slides for the otters to play upon. The slides emptied into a winding pool with a few tunnels that led to the outer channel of water.

  “It’s hot in here,” Richie said.

  “Totally,” Ella agreed.

  The scouts dropped their backpacks to the floor and stripped off their gloves. Caps soon followed, except for Richie’s—he kept his on. They took off their jackets, revealing their embarrassingly ugly Clarksville Zoo uniforms. Noah glanced at Megan. The pointy tips of her oversized collar touched beyond her shoulders, and her stitched-on name tag screamed MEGAN in the curviest cursive font Noah had ever seen.

  Ella said, “We’re being punished with these shirts, right? I mean, I don’t see any other reason.”