Riddles and Danger

by Bryan Chick

  A kangaroo jumped up to Noah and became curious about one of the earflaps on his hat. The animal touched it with a stiff forelimb, nervously pulled back its head, then hopped away.

  “Okay,” Ella said to Tameron. “Lead the way, I guess.”

  “Just do like I do,” Tameron said. “And try to keep up.”

  The Descender charged forward, straight into the sprawl of tents and kangaroos. He dodged left and right, avoiding the things in his path.

  “Hey!” Megan called. “Wait up!”

  As the scouts followed him, kangaroos jumped out of the way, their dark eyes wide with fright and their pointy ears twitching toward different sounds.

  “Mooovvve!” Ella called out to the kangaroos.

  Tameron found a tent of interest and disappeared through the portal. As the velvet door swept across Noah, magic surged through his body, and he instantaneously crossed space to exit another tent deeper in the sector. Startled by his sudden appearance, a nearby crowd of kangaroos scattered, their powerful hind legs thrusting against the earth. Noah tripped on a tail and almost stumbled to the ground.

  Noah sensed something running beside him and turned to see Punchy. The kangaroo met his gaze in how-you-doing? fashion, then casually looked away.

  Tameron quickly led the scouts through another tent entrance, and the Crossers portaled to a new spot. Noah glanced back to see they were already halfway across the Secret Kangaroo Kampground.

  As the scouts followed Tameron to a new gateway, a frightened kangaroo darted across their path and crashed into Ella. Right before Noah portaled, he saw his friend lose her balance, then stumble through the velvet curtain of a neighboring tent, unintentionally portaling to a new spot, far away from the group.

  Chapter 3

  Ella Gets Punchy with Punchy

  Ella crashed onto her rear end in a herd of kangaroos that immediately took off in all directions. She stood, adjusted her earmuffs, and scanned the grounds. Tents were everywhere, their velvet flap doors hanging down. The scouts were nowhere in sight, and she couldn’t see the flashing light that marked the city gateway. She had no idea where she was in relation to where she’d been.

  “Great . . .” she moaned. She cupped her hands to her mouth. “Megan!”

  No answer. A kangaroo hopped up to her and jabbed its long snout toward her face. Its nose twitched as it sniffed the air.

  “Beat it, Mr. Bounces,” Ella said. “I’m in no mood.”

  The kangaroo swung around and hopped away, looking insulted, its eyes half closed, its ears pulled back.

  Ella dusted off her pants and said, “Well, I’ll have to do this myself, I guess.”

  She started jogging, her ponytail swinging behind her. Seconds later, she pushed through the velvet door of a tent and portaled to a new spot, where she crashed into a magical scientist.

  “Sorry!” she spat out.

  Eyes wide behind beady glasses, the scientist straightened his lab coat and propped his fists on his hips. “You know, you shouldn’t be . . . Megan?”

  Ella shook her head. “No, the other one.”

  “Ella?”

  “Bingo.” Ella was used to being recognized. After finding their way into the Secret Zoo, the scouts were near-celebrities, adored by most, despised by a few.

  “Are you crosstraining?” the scientist asked. “Where are—”

  “What’s the best way to the city gateway? Through the portals, I mean.”

  The scientist shrugged his shoulders. “I haven’t the foggiest idea. The Crossers are the ones always in such a hurry. Me . . . I see no foul in taking my time. I find a casual stroll often clears my head and allows for good—”

  “Thanks,” Ella cut in as she took off running again.

  She weaved around a few tents and then spotted the city gateway. Off to her left, the flashing light was still a great distance away. She chose a new portal at random and dove through, ending up this time on the left of the flashing light, farther away than before.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she groaned.

  She ran through a new mob of kangaroos, found a magic tent, and portaled again, this time ending up farther than ever. Disgusted, she ran to a new tent, then another, then another, each time portaling to completely random parts of the Secret Kangaroo Kampground, startling the kangaroos into a frenzy.

  A few jumps later, she wound up somewhere near the middle of the campground. In the distance she could faintly detect the blinking light. Tameron and the scouts were standing beneath it. Tameron had his arms held out to his sides in a what-the-heck-are-you-doing? way.

  “How did you get over there!” Ella hollered.

  She sensed someone standing behind her and swung around. Standing there was Punchy. He reached out and thumped Ella’s chest.

  “Oww!” Ella barked. She cocked a fist and punched the shoulder of his forelimb. “How do you like it, you big lug!”

  She heard her name being called and turned back around. Beyond the far-reaching cluster of tents, Noah had his hands cupped to his mouth and was screaming something.

  “What?” Ella called out.

  A faint reply came: “Hurry up!”

  “I am hurrying up!” Ella yelled. To herself, she added, “I’m just hurrying in all the wrong places.”

  Something suddenly slammed into her backside and jerked her forward, and Ella was swept into the air. She came back down only to spring forward again, the ground whizzing past her feet. When she saw furry limbs protruding out from under her arms, she realized what was happening. Punchy had picked her up and was carrying her. Ella had enough experience with the Secret Zoo to know he intended to take her to her friends.

  “Easy!” Ella said as she was bounced around. “Be careful!”

  Punchy dodged a series of tents and leaped across fireless fire pits. Each time he touched down, Ella’s shins struck the ground and pain spiked across her knees. The crown of her head was pressed against the kangaroo’s long jaw, and Punchy’s whiskers repeatedly brushed across her face.

  “Slow down!” Ella commanded. “You’re scrambling my brains!”

  The kangaroo ignored her and continued to cross the forested landscape in massive bounds. Each time he jumped, he reached higher than five feet and sailed forward more than ten yards.

  As Punchy rounded a batch of trees, he came upon a large herd of his companions huddled around a sprawling tent. Rather than go around the obstacles, he jumped onto a picnic table and then soared upward with a thrust of his hind legs. Ella let loose a scream as her dangling toes skipped off the canvas crest of the roof, and a second later the duo touched down on the opposite side of the tent, away from the herd.

  “Are you nuts!” Ella yelled. “You are not a bird!”

  Punchy continued on. He steered around tents and trees, dodged signs, and plowed through kangaroos, his powerful legs hammering the ground. The blinking light came into full view, and a minute later they reached the end of the sector, where Tameron and the other scouts stood by. Instead of stopping to let Ella off, Punchy plunged into the final portal and delivered the two of them across the magical divide into the City of Species.

  Chapter 4

  Tarsier Terrace

  In the City of Species, buildings loomed above the streets. Made of stone, marble, steel, and glass, they seemed a potpourri of architectural designs. Water spilled down their fronts, and trees limbs braced their walls. Animals clung to their façades and dangled from their decorative eaves. Sidewalks reached from their entrances and carved passages to new spots. Noah spotted the octagon-shaped Library of the Secret Society, the vast glass walls of the Wotter Tower, and the bulky mass of the Secret Metr-APE-olis. He smiled, thinking of earlier adventures. In just a few weeks, he’d experienced so much in the magical world a few steps beyond his own backyard.

  Animals crowded the streets. Lions rolled their heads and sent waves through their sensuous manes. Running cheetahs blurred their spots, and elephants heaved their pillarlike legs. Bir
ds punched through treetops and streaked color across a boundless canopy of leaves. Fish churned the water in fountains and concrete riverbeds.

  “It’s good to be back,” Megan said as she scanned the treetops, her pigtails resting on her shoulders.

  An elephant walked over to the scouts, lifted its trunk, and poked Ella in her stomach.

  Ella swatted the strange appendage away, saying, “Hey! Go stick that thing somewhere else! I’m not a jumbo peanut, you know!”

  The elephant blinked its eyes, clomped a foot, and trumpeted. It reluctantly stepped back, its ears flapping like two sails of a boat.

  The scouts’ animal friends appeared from the crowded streets and gathered around them: Blizzard, Little Bighorn, Podgy, and P-Dog and his rowdy coterie of prairie dogs. Blizzard sniffed Noah’s extended palm—a greeting the two of them had taken on—and lowered his body to the ground. Noah climbed onto the big polar bear, and Richie took the seat behind him. Ella and Megan mounted Little Bighorn, Ella in the forward spot of their rhinoceros ride. A malachite kingfisher swept down from the crowded treetops and perched on Noah’s shoulder. Marlo.

  “What’s up, buddy?” Noah asked, his head cocked to one side to stare at the tiny blue bird.

  Marlo snapped his orange bill toward Noah, chirped once, then looked away.

  To the animals, Tameron said, “All right, guys, let’s head for Tarsier Terrace. Darby’s waiting for us there.”

  “Tarsier Terrace?” Ella said as Little Bighorn followed the Descender into the street. “Let me guess. A terrace where two hundred gazillion tarsiers hang out.”

  Tameron ducked beneath the stomach of a giraffe and said, “Yep. Cool little spot, actually. It’s where the tarsiers train.”

  “For perimeter patrol?” Noah asked.

  “You guys are catching on.”

  Tameron led the animals down the street. They passed one side of the Sector of Descent, the place the Descenders lived, and headed down a narrow alley. Here the walls were covered with frogs, bright colors warning of their poison. Blue, red, orange, and yellow, they dotted the stone heights like the splatterings of paint balls. The Crossers emerged at the end of the alley and entered a building. Inside, people bustled about, their attention on clipboards and one another. This seemed to be the place they worked. They couldn’t have cared less that a bunch of kids were riding animals through the workplace. Another ordinary sight, here in the Secret Zoo.

  “Who are they?” Richie asked Tameron.

  “Scientists and research specialists. They develop food.”

  “Food?”

  “Synthetic food. For the predatory animals. We can’t have animals eating one another. It sort of defeats our whole purpose of conservation.”

  “So the animals are protected?” Megan asked.

  “Most. But plants and insects, some fish—they’re pretty much fair game, as long as they’re not threatened in your world.”

  At the far side of the building, Tameron led the group through two big doors onto an outdoor terrace. Made of decorative stone, the terrace stretched out in both directions and followed the turns of the outside wall. Blizzard and Little Bighorn plodded up to a stone railing, and the scouts stared out over a steep hillside that overlooked a city street at least fifty yards below. Trees grew from the grassy slope and reached far above, their leafy branches stretching across the terrace.

  Dozens of tables and chairs were neatly arranged around them. People sat sipping from cups and reading papers. At one table were two men. The first had rocky arms, mountainous shoulders, and a gleaming bald head. The other had a bushy beard, bushy eyebrows, and long gray hair pulled back in a ponytail. Tank and Mr. Darby. Tank wore a tight leather jacket; Mr. Darby, a long velvet trench coat. Tank had one hand buried in a bag of unshelled peanuts.

  “Scouts!” Mr. Darby said as he rose to his feet. He gestured to the open chairs at the table. “Please, please.”

  The scouts slid down their animal rides and took seats at the table. Tank greeted them in his normal way: a light fist bump with his big ball of knuckles. Podgy waddled up to the table, and Blizzard dropped to his rear end between Ella and Megan. Richie lifted P-Dog onto his lap. Tameron dropped his backpack, leaned against the stone rail, and stared down at the group from the shadow of his hat’s short, crooked brim.

  Richie, forever hungry as Richie was, leaned across the table and eyed Tank’s snack. “What are you eating?”

  Tank smiled. Taking the hint, he dumped a pile of peanuts in the middle of the table. “Help yourselves, kiddos.”

  Richie sang in a high note, “Sweeeetttt!” and then swept up a handful.

  A warm grin spread across Mr. Darby’s face. He adjusted his sunglasses and said, “I suppose Tameron has told you why I’m here to talk to you.”

  “Something about you guys needing to rent out our tree fort,” Ella said.

  “Indeed,” the old man said. “It’s vital that we keep a more watchful eye on the east side of the zoo, where Tank discovered the sasquatch tracks. To do so, we’d like to move a Descender to Fort Scout, which has a prominent view over the grounds. It’s a perfect spot, so dark that there’s virtually no risk of a Descender being seen.”

  The scouts traded glances, unsure of this.

  “Consider the sasquatches,” Mr. Darby said. “One has found its way into the Grottoes. Think of what it might do to your neighborhood if we permit it to escape. Think of the lives we’d put at risk. This is bigger than the safety of the Secret Zoo—this is the immediate safety of your world, your mothers and fathers.”

  The scouts had no response to this. They all knew Mr. Darby was right.

  “Can we help?” Noah asked. “In the tree fort?”

  Tameron stepped up. “Hold up! Let’s not get—”

  The old man held his hand up to Tameron. “I don’t suppose it would hurt for the scouts to check in once and again.”

  Tameron backed away, clearly a bit miffed.

  Everyone stayed silent. Richie crushed a shell in his hand and tossed a nut into his mouth. Seeing this, P-Dog jumped onto the tabletop, scampered across it, and sniffed the pile of peanuts. He grabbed a shell, sat up on his haunches, and held it to his nose.

  “It’s a nut,” Richie explained. “It’s something you can eat.” He grabbed another shell and demonstrated.

  P-Dog studied Richie. Then he sniffed the shell again, bit into its corner, and chewed.

  Mr. Darby said, “We’d also like to post an animal.”

  Noah said, “You’re joking, right?”

  Mr. Darby shook his head. “A smaller one. And one that can move quickly to the Clarksville Zoo. We think it prudent to keep an animal as a backup to communications. What if a Descender’s headset should fail? Or what if a Descender should become injured?”

  “But animals . . . how would you get them into Fort Scout?”

  “Simple. A branch from the tunnels that run beneath your neighborhood. Or the Grottoes. We’ve already prepared for this.”

  The scouts stayed silent again. After a bit, Noah said, “Man . . . we are going to have to be sooo careful.”

  “Indeed,” Mr. Darby said. “Fortunately, we have experience in this area. Think of how long we’ve been secretly watching your neighborhood.”

  Noah could say nothing to this.

  Smiling, the old man added, “Just like we’re secretly watching you—right at this moment.”

  Richie jolted and snapped a peanut shell into several pieces. “Huh?”

  “You’re being watched this very instant, in the full light of day, and you’ve had no idea.”

  The scouts shared a half-nervous glance, then looked around, high and low.

  “The trees,” Tank said. He crammed a wad of unshelled peanuts into his mouth and quickly crunched them to pieces. “Look real close in the trees.”

  The scouts peered out. The branches reached across the long concrete balcony, dangling their colorful leaves above chairs and tables. Noah didn’t see a single an
imal in them.

  “I don’t see anything,” Noah said.

  “Me either,” said Megan.

  Tank winked at Mr. Darby and crammed a few more peanuts into his mouth.

  “Keep looking,” Mr. Darby said. “But more carefully.”

  Noah spotted something in a tree. Two round eyes staring out. An animal. It was very small—Noah could have cupped it in his hands—and furry. It had upturned ears and eyes that were huge in proportion to its body. Like a miniature koala, it clung to a branch with all four of its feet. It was so perfectly still that it looked like a bump along the branch.

  “I see it,” Noah said as he pointed.

  The other scouts searched the area beyond the tip of his finger and found it.

  “There are more,” Mr. Darby said. “Keep looking.”

  Noah saw a second one. A third. Then more and more, one right after another. They were everywhere in the trees, their bulbous eyes fixed on the scouts.

  “Are they tarsiers?” Megan asked.

  “Yes,” Mr. Darby said. “They’re the animals that stake out your neighborhood.”

  Seeing how small and still the animals were, Noah understood why. In the dark trees of his neighborhood, they were surely at no risk of being seen.

  “What are they?” Megan asked. “I’ve never seen them in the Clarksville Zoo.”

  It was Richie who answered. “They’re from the Philippines, where they risk extinction. They’re nocturnal animals with incredible eyesight. And they’re arboreal. Sticky pads on their fingers allow them to cling to things. Their hind legs are waaay powerful—they can jump like five feet high and twenty feet long. They’re like a cross between kangaroos and frogs.”

  “Amazing,” Ella said as she looked at Richie. “Your brain . . . it’s like the world’s smallest database.”

  Richie shrugged. “Knowledge is what I do.”

  Tank said, “My little man’s right. Tarsiers can see a long way at night. And they can hear just about everything. They’re perfect for our patrols.”

  Ella said, “I can’t decide if they’re cute or creepy.”

  Noah turned back to one of the tarsiers. With its big round eyes and dotlike pupils, it looked cute and kind and terrified, all at the same time. It had its stare locked on the scouts.