by Bryan Chick
They headed around a turn and were met by a sight that caused them to stop in their tracks. Just off the path, Tank was standing among the trees. He was surrounded by a group of animals—a polar bear, an emperor penguin, and no fewer than fifty prairie dogs, which were running around the feet of the other animals in a frenzy, stirring the fallen leaves. The scouts recognized the animals immediately as Blizzard, Podgy, and P-Dog and his pals. Also with Tank were the Descenders—Sam, Hannah, Tameron, and Solana. Solana wore her soft blue leather jacket and fingerless gloves—clothes that twelve-inch quills could spring from. Her long, smooth hair looped around her ears and dropped down her back. She was beautiful.
“Oh my gosh!” Megan said as she glanced over her shoulders in a nervous way. “What’s everyone doing here?”
Ella was more direct in sharing her surprise: “Are you guys out of your minds?”
Tank reached out one of his meaty arms and scratched Blizzard behind the ear. “Don’t sweat it—we aren’t staying.”
Ella said, “But what are—”
“After what happened last week, Mr. D and the Secret Council have made a change of plans.”
“How so?” Noah asked. Marlo suddenly shot out of the treetops and took a spot on his shoulder, landing with a chirp.
Tank rubbed his jawline, saying, “We’re going to beef up patrol in the Grottoes. The Gifteds—we’re sending in some of them.”
The scouts knew that the Gifteds were animals that had adapted in the Secret Zoo. They had greater awareness and communication skills, and some Secret Cityzens believed the magic of the Secret Zoo had changed them. The animals in front of them—Blizzard, Podgy, and P-Dog—all were Gifteds.
Blizzard rolled his snout and growled, and Podgy raised his flippers a bit.
“Where’s Little Big?” Richie asked.
“He’s waiting for us just inside the Grottoes. We tried to squeeze him up the staircase, but it didn’t happen.”
Blizzard growled, as if to acknowledge the struggle.
Noah turned to the Descenders and said, “What are you guys doing here?”
“Yeah,” Ella said. “Don’t you guys ever sleep?”
“Now and then,” Solana replied.
Tameron said, “Lately a lot less ‘now’ and a lot more ‘then.’”
Sam took a step toward the scouts. “We’re going to show the Gifteds around the Grottoes today. And show you guys how to use these. . . .”
Sam nodded to Tank, who reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a fistful of stuff, and one by one tossed something to each of the scouts. After Noah snatched his out of the air, he took a look at it. Noah could tell that the small plastic piece full of electronics was supposed to fit in his ear.
“A radio,” Tank said. “The same kind me and the Descenders wear. You turn it on, plug it into your head, and let the technology of your world do its thing.”
The mention of technology excited Richie, and he immediately set his in. “Sweet! How does it work?”
When Tank touched his ear, Noah realized the big man could now hear Richie’s voice through his speaker. “Bone mics to talk. A switch controls voice activation, if that’s your game. The signal’s scrambled, so no one but us can hear.” Tank moved his stare off the scouts and said, “Red, you there?”
Richie pulled his head to one side, as if surprised by what was surely Charlie Red’s voice in his ear. “I hear him!” Richie said.
Tank nodded. “And he hears you.”
As the other scouts plugged their headsets into their ears, Noah heard their voices.
Ella said, “But how can we hear one another when we don’t have microphones?”
“We do,” Richie said. “Bone mics work from bone conduction. When you talk, vibrations carry through your skull. Bone mics pick up those vibrations and translate them to your voice.”
“Way cool!” Ella said. “Meg—can you hear me?”
“Roger,” said Megan with a turn of her head. “How about me?”
“Roger, roger.” Ella spoke in her best battle droid voice. She turned to Tank. “Can other people in the Secret Zoo hear us now?”
“Not a bit,” Tank said. “The radio signals can’t pass through the portals between the two worlds.”
“So they only work in one world or the other?”
Tank nodded.
“Roger, roger.” Ella joked again. She dropped her smile and turned a confused look to her friends. “By the way—why do radio people always say ‘roger’?”
Richie said, “‘Roger’ used to be the phonetic designation for the letter R, which stands for ‘received.’”
“Wow,” Ella said. “So not only do I know that . . . but I also got to hear ‘phonetic’ in a sentence.” She turned to Tank and said, “All this knowledge . . . if you hang with Richie long enough, you’ll seriously feel your brain swell.”
“Roger that,” Richie said into the air—and his bone mic.
The scouts shared a quick laugh; then Tank said, “C’mon, let’s go for a walk.”
Noah led the way off the path and walked past Blizzard, saying, “C’mon, Bliz. Follow us.”
The other Crossers—humans and animals—followed Tank across the wooded terrain, their paws and feet crunching fallen leaves and splashing through streams. They walked behind the large rock formation to where the familiar flight of stairs led to the Grottoes. Then, one by one, the Descenders, the scouts, the Gifteds, and Tank stepped into the magic system of tunnels beneath the Clarksville Zoo.
Chapter 20
Gifteds in the Grottoes
“You guys see anything?” Noah asked into his bone mic, referring to sasquatch tracks. He was walking with Blizzard and Sam in the NSE end of the Grottoes. After entering the tunnels beneath Butterfly Nets, the Crossers had met up with Little Bighorn, and Tank had divided them into groups: Noah with Blizzard and Sam; Ella with Little Bighorn and Solana; Megan with Podgy and Hannah; and Richie with P-Dog, the prairie dogs, and Tameron. Then Tank had walked off to investigate on his own.
“Nuh-uh,” said a girl’s voice into his ear. Ella.
“Nothing here,” said Megan
“Negative,” said Richie.
“Just me and the walls,” said a fifth voice that Noah recognized as Tank’s.
As the airwaves fell silent, Noah concentrated on the tunnel around him. Lined with old bricks, the walls reached several feet over his head to support an arched ceiling. The dirt floor was pitted with shallow holes. A few fluorescent bulbs were set in the walls, and shadows pooled just beyond their dim throws of light. Occasional velvet curtains marked portals to new spots. Noah passed a gateway to Arctic Town, the Secret Rhinorama, and the south end of the Grottoes.
“Bliz,” Noah said to the mighty polar bear beside him. “Remember what you need to do if we see a sasquatch.”
Blizzard directed his dark-eyed stare at Noah, then tipped his head and growled.
“That’s right, buddy,” Noah answered. “You chew off its head.”
A voice rose in Noah’s ear: “Sounds great for you, Noah . . . but who’s supposed to help me?”
“You got P-Dog, don’t you?” Noah said.
Richie stared down at P-Dog, who was scurrying beside his feet, and shook his head. “A prairie dog. You get a polar bear, Ella gets a rhino, and I get a prairie dog.”
“Not just one prairie dog,” said a voice that Richie recognized as Ella’s. “A whole bunch!”
“Is this your usual sarcasm?” Richie asked as he, Tameron, and the large coterie of prairie dogs rounded a bend in the tunnel by a curtain marked “Ostrich Island.” “I can’t really tell without seeing your face. Or has sarcasm become such a part of your personality that you forget when you’re using it.”
Ella just laughed, the bone mic carrying her cackle into the airwaves and the ears of the other Crossers.
Richie cursed Ella under his breath.
“I heard that,” Ella said.
“What?” Richie said. “How?”
Richie heard Tank laughing, then the big man’s voice rose in his head. “Don’t forget . . . the bone mic picks up the vibrations in your skull, not the volume of your voice.”
“Oops,” Richie said. “Good thing it can’t read my thoughts.”
Tameron looked down at Richie. “Don’t worry, kid. The Descenders—we got your back. That’s one of the reasons we’re here.”
Richie nodded, and a wave of appreciation rolled over him. After what the scouts had gone through in the Secret Polliwog Bog, he was relieved to be walking beside a brawny teenager—especially one that could sprout a huge, crushing tail.
As the airwaves became silent, Richie turned his attention to the prairie dogs around him again. They were scampering about, sniffing at clumps of dirt and half-buried rocks, their short, pointy tails whipping the air just above their wide rumps. Using their front paws, some climbed short ways up the walls to dab their moist snouts at interesting spots along the bricks. Richie was certain they were trying to pick up the scent of a sasquatch.
“Megan,” Richie said, “how are you guys doing?”
Megan glanced at Hannah, then looked down at Podgy to find his beady black eyes in the dim tunnel light. The penguin seemed uninterested and unconcerned in his normal way. “We’re somewhere in the west territory of the Grottoes, I think. No sign that sasquatches have been through here.”
Tank’s voice boomed in her ear. “Don’t forget to look for tufts of hair—they’re always falling out.” After a few seconds, he added, “You guys getting the hang of the headsets?”
Megan nodded, realized Tank couldn’t see her, then said, “Roger.”
Ella said, “Roger, charlie, bravo, delta—prepare for takeoff” in what Megan thought was a perfect imitation of a male pilot. Megan smiled. Only her best friend could be making jokes at a time like this.
“Girl,” Tank said, “you’re about as goofy as they come.”
“You know me and phonetic designation, Tank—I can barely help myself.”
They continued on in silence for a bit. Megan, Podgy, and Hannah walked through a portal to an adjoining area of the Grottoes and appeared in a dark passage lined with gray cinder blocks. Water dripped from a few cracks in the flat ceiling, and mold grew in recessed spots. Bugs crawled along the walls, and the dank air seemed to press down on them.
From around a bend came three grizzly bears with heads as round as beach balls. Megan immediately realized they were Gifteds on patrol. As they moved past Megan, Podgy, and Hannah, the bears paid them little mind. One unintentionally swung its wide rump into Podgy, who teetered on one webbed foot and, with flailing flippers, barely avoided toppling over. Not long after the bears were gone, two lions pushed out from a curtain and padded down the tunnel. More Gifteds, Megan guessed.
As they walked by a thin stream of water falling from a ceiling crack, Megan reached up her palm and let water splash down on her fingers. Into her bone mic, she said, “It’s pretty wet over here. Tank—you sure these tunnels are safe?”
“Safe as they’ve ever been,” Tank answered. “You’re probably near a bunch of portals to places with water. Sometimes water saturates the ground near the gateways. We’re not sure why it happens, but it’s nothing to worry about.”
Megan shook her head in amazement and swept her stare along the walls. All these tunnels that connected the Clarksville Zoo to the Secret Zoo . . . it still felt like something from a dream.
As the three Crossers rounded a new corner, Ella’s voice rose in her ear: “Well, well . . .”
“. . . well . . . Look who it is.”
Richie spoke up: “I hope you’re not looking at a sasquatch.”
“Negative, Charlie Brown Bravo. I’m staring at our new pal, Punchy.”
Hopping straight toward Ella were six kangaroos. As their hind legs heaved forward and back, the tips of their ears nearly swiped the ceiling. One of the kangaroos had an ear that was bent over sideways. Punchy.
Little Bighorn let out a snort and, to allow room for the kangaroos, stepped to one side of the tunnel, bumping into Ella, who brushed against his leathery skin and almost fell sideways. The rhino lowered his head and pointed his horn at the kangaroos in a protective, get-too-close-and-I’ll-skewer-you way. As the kangaroos hopped past, they kept nervous stares locked on the horn. Punchy, the last to go by, cocked back one of his short forelimbs and then bopped the side of the rhino’s head. In anger, Little Bighorn swung his snout around, his horn just missing the kangaroo’s tailed rump.
“Yikes,” Ella said.
“What’s wrong?” Noah asked into the airwaves.
“Little Big . . . he almost made a shish kebab out of Punchy.”
Ella swung her head around and watched the kangaroos disappear behind a bend in the tunnel.
Some time passed, and the airwaves stayed silent. Ella, Little Bighorn, and Solana passed a portal to Grottoes EW and another to Bear with Us! As Little Bighorn sniffed the ground, bursts of air shot through his nostrils and stirred clouds of dirt. Ella and Solana walked beside the big rhino and looked around for footprints or tufts of hair.
After an hour of searching, Tank called everyone back to the Grottoes beneath Butterfly Nets, the place they’d started. Richie was the last to return, and as he rounded a bend in the tunnel, the prairie dogs ran circles around his feet, nipping playfully at one another.
“Nobody saw nothing?” Tank asked once the full group of Crossers had gathered.
“Nope,” Ella said. “Not a thing.”
Megan and Noah shook their heads.
“Okay,” Tank said. “Time to get you guys home. The rest of us will take it from here for now. You guys keep the headsets; just don’t hide them in your underwear drawers so your parents find them when they’re putting away laundry.”
The scouts nodded. They said quick good-byes to their animal friends with pats of their hands, then walked to the tunnel branch that led to Butterfly Nets. At the base of the stairs, Noah stopped and turned back.
“Tank?” Noah said.
“Yeah?”
“The sasquatches . . . are they . . .” As Noah’s voice trailed off, his stare shifted back and forth on the ground, as if he’d dropped his words and were trying to find them.
“What’s up?” Tank spoke into Noah’s awkward silence.
Noah lifted his gaze. “The outside world—our world—how much danger are we really in?”
The way Tank looked away from Noah made him nervous. He rubbed a spot on his bald head and said, “Sasquatches in the Grottoes . . . we’ve never seen anything like this. They’ve never gone this far.”
Though Tank had done his best to avoid Noah’s question, he’d answered it perfectly.
Noah nodded, turned again, and then led his friends up the stairs back into his neighborhood, a place that was under assault.
Chapter 21
Girls’ Night Out
“What about Derek Johnson?”
“What about Derek Johnson?”
“You think he’s cute?”
Ella thumbed through the photo book of her mind and stopped on a picture of Derek Johnson, a new fifth grader at Clarksville Elementary, then looked him over for a second.
“Nope.” She fell silent and reconsidered. “A little bit, maybe. He’s got those green eyes. And that hair. But are you asking me if he’s Hollywood hot? Not a chance.”
Megan smiled, but said nothing.
The two girls were lounging in Fort Scout, Megan in the beanbag, Ella lying on her back on the floor, her legs propped up on a chair. They were bundled up to protect themselves from the cold, and as they talked, their cloudy breath rose like steam. Noah was inside watching television, and Richie was at home. It was almost eight o’clock on Tuesday, just a day after the scouts had explored the Grottoes and practiced using their headsets. For the past hour, most of their conversation had been about the Secret Zoo—the sasquatches, the tarsiers, the Descenders. But their thoughts and words had finally drifted to l
ighter topics: life, school, and now a rare topic between the two of them—boys.
“What about Ryan?” Megan asked.
“Ryan Whalen?” Ella grunted. “Are you kidding me! He always has a little booger in his nose—have you noticed that?”
Ella could tell by the reach of Megan’s smile that she had.
“Why he doesn’t pick that thing . . . I have no idea. He’s had that boog since, like, third grade.”
The two of them broke out laughing, Megan so hard that she nearly rolled out the beanbag.
Megan threw out another name: “Jake?”
“Jake Peterson?”
Megan nodded, her pigtails wagging.
“I don’t know,” Ella said. “What about you?”
In a flash of the Christmas tree lights, Ella could see that Megan was blushing. Her friend, braver than anyone Ella knew, was shy about her feelings toward boys. Just the topic made her squirm.
Megan shrugged and nervously adjusted her glasses.
“Yes or no,” Ella said. “I’m not letting you pass with a shrug this time.”
Megan shifted in the beanbag. “Not really,” she said at last.
Ella smiled. “‘Not really’ is a lot like ‘a little bit.’”
Megan pulled her shoulders up to her ears.
“Not accepting shrugs,” Ella reminded.
“Okay . . .” Megan blurted out. “A little bit, I guess.”
Ella thought to tease her friend, then decided against it.
Megan asked, “What about Richie?”