“I can’t believe that peacock betrayed us,” Kit grumbled.
“I can,” said Eeni. “The only animal folk I trust are the ones from Ankle Snap Alley . . . and even them I don’t trust more than a whisker’s worth.”
Kit gave a grunt. He liked trusting other animals. He didn’t want to spend his whole life being suspicious of every creature he met. He and Eeni had totally different ideas about who was who and what was what in the world, but that was what made them such good friends. By seeing things differently, they each saw more than they would have on their own.
“Preston didn’t care about helping us. He just wanted to get rid of the Urban Wild creatures. When you changed your plans, he changed his, and now we’ve got to find the monkeys on our own.” Kit paused, then clarified. ”All baboons are monkeys, but not all monkeys are baboons.”
“Okay . . .” Eeni said, unsure why it mattered.
“They might be more likely to help us if we’re respectful of who they are and how they see themselves,” he explained.
“How do we know they’ll want to help, whatever we call them?” Eeni asked.
“I’ll have to convince them if they don’t,” said Kit. “Because I need more animals with thumbs.” Kit looked around at the fenced-in areas along the path through the zoo. It looked like everyone who might tell him where the baboons lived was asleep. “The zoo People don’t keep a lot of us night animals around, do they?”
“Guess the People want animals who will be awake when they’re here so they can watch them go about their business,” Eeni figured. “Although I haven’t seen one place where an animal could go about their actual business! There’s no businesses of any kind! And not one creature is wearing a stitch of clothes! It’s like everyone here’s playing at being animal folk even though they actually are animal folk!”
“Well, we have to find one of them to ask,” Kit said. “We don’t have time to sniff out every cage in the zoo.”
He marched right over to the nearest animal area, a fenced-in meadow where two giant birds with long legs were asleep with their heads tucked under their wings. Kit had never seen anything like these birds before, but he cleared his throat and tried to wake them up anyway.
“Ahem.” He coughed.
They didn’t wake up.
“Ahem.” He tried again.
Still nothing.
“Hey feather faces! Wake up!” Eeni shouted, and the birds’ long necks bolted upright, towering high with tiny little bald heads on top. Kit and Eeni jumped back with fright.
“Ack! Who’s yelling?” one of the birds yelled.
“Ack! You are!” yelled the other, then ran to the far edge of the fenced-in field and buried his head in a hole.
The other bird swiveled her head around and looked down at Kit and Eeni. “Sorry about my brother,” she said. “He’s frightened of everything. It gives the rest of us ostriches a bad reputation. We ostriches are actually a very brave sort, but my brother’d be scared of a church mouse.”
“Actually, ma’am, church mice can be quite terrifying,” Kit said. “I’ve gone into battle with church mice and I wouldn’t want to be on their bad side. I’d be likely to stick my head in a hole too.”
The ostrich—for that is what the large bird was—laughed. “Very funny, lad,” she said. She cocked her head and blinked the long lashes over her eyes. “You must be the famous Kit everyone is talking about. Leader of the Moonlight Brigade, is it?”
“Uh-huh,” Kit said. “And this is my right-hand rat, Eeni.”
“Oh, we know all about Eeni,” said the Ostrich. “Smarter than a sheep sheared in summer, they say, but as sneaky as a wolf wearing wool.”
Eeni smiled. She liked having a reputation, especially one that came with a clever saying.
“My name is Camille and my brother is Clement,” the ostrich said. “And you’re looking for the Monkey House?”
“Wow, how’d you know that?” Kit marveled.
“Nothing stays secret in the zoo for long,” said Camille. “Gossip flies faster than . . . well . . . flies.”
“So can you tell us where it is?” Kit said.
“We’ve been warned not to help you, Kit,” said Camille. “Preston made it very clear that there would be trouble for all of us if we tried to break out with you. He told us the world is quite frightening outside of these zoo gates.”
“But ostriches are brave, right?” said Eeni. “So you’re not afraid?”
Camille smiled. “Indeed not.” She raised a long leg and used it to point down the path. “The Monkey House is the third building on your left. Promise us that when you figure out how to open these gates you’ll let us out too.”
“WHAT? WHAT WAS THAT?” Clement shouted from inside his hole.
“I promise,” said Kit. “Will your brother be okay to run free?”
“He’ll be fine,” said Camille. “He’s scared, but he’s fast. As for you . . . you should move fast too. The last I saw, Preston was plotting something terrible in case you escaped the snakes. And he had help.”
“What was he plotting?” Eeni asked. “Who was helping him?”
“He was with a little gray—,” Camille began, but then her head shot up high and she yelped. Faster than a lizard licks its lips, she turned and ran to the back of the meadow and shoved her head into a hole in the dirt.
“Dog.” Preston finished her sentence for her from behind them. “A little gray dog,” he said.
“Hello, children,” said Titus, standing beside the peacock. “What an interesting place this zoo is. What an interesting place for you to die.”
And then the peacock and the leader of the Flealess sprang their trap.
Chapter Fifteen
SPRINGING INTO ACTION
THEY literally sprang their trap at Kit and Eeni with a spring.
BOING!
Preston used his foot to pull back a heavy spring that was mounted on a broken roller skate and then he let the spring go, catapulting a flying copper disk at Kit, the kind of metal disk that People used for money.
The small coin flew so fast it nearly shaved off the whiskers on the side of Kit’s face. It shot into the side of a trash can with a loud clang.
“Moonlight Brigade!” Eeni shouted, switching instantly into her command-rat voice. “We need backup! Defensive formation!”
At her command, from all their hidey-holes along the path, the Moonlight Brigade appeared.
Fergus hopped from behind a tree, while Guster and Guster Two instantly burst from the dirt. Hazel hopped over Fergus’s head and bounded across the path, taking cover behind a light post, and Matteo, the brave little mouse, didn’t hesitate. He charged down the path at the bird and the dog.
“Matteo, no! Take cover!” Kit yelled, but the ferocity of a mouse couldn’t be held back with shouting, as anyone who has ever shouted at a mouse knows.
Matteo gritted his teeth, squeaked out a barbaric squeak drawn from the depths of his tiny soul, and leaped at the peacock’s long blue neck.
Preston hissed and spread his massive tail, opening the bright plumed feathers like a shield, and he spun, twirling the massive wall of color at the little airborne mouse and knocking him clear across the zoo.
Kit rushed from his spot to go after Matteo and help him, but he hadn’t made it three paw lengths before he heard the terrible BOING of the catapult firing again.
Another copper disk sliced at him, and he was forced to dive back for cover behind the trash can, where Eeni had shielded herself as well.
The coin sparked on the pavement where Kit had just been standing and skipped like a stone across a lake.
“I have more than enough of these little disks to last till sunrise,” Preston said, reloading the spring. “People cannot resist throwing them into every pool of water they see, and I pay the crows handsomely to collect them.
I could put more holes in you than a dog has fleas.”
“Watch it, feather face,” Titus grumbled at the peacock. “I haven’t got any fleas and you know it.”
“Apologies, Titus,” said the peacock. “Of course, I meant other dogs . . . not you. You are one of the good ones.”
“Thank you,” said Titus.
“What are you doing here?” Kit called out to the dog. “This has nothing to do with you!”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Kit,” Titus replied. “The moment you started asking about the zoo, I knew it meant trouble. I knew if you broke the animals out of here, I’d have more and more Wild Ones invading my neighborhood every day. I couldn’t bear the thought! I also know that a zoo is a dangerous place for vermin like you . . . so I slipped from my home and made my way here to offer my assistance in destroying you and your wretched family the moment you free them from the cage.”
“Preston?” Kit said. “You mean you were going to turn us over to the Flealess all along?”
“Don’t be so shocked, Kit,” the peacock answered him. “My loyalty is to my own kind, not to yours.”
“But we’re All of One Paw!” Kit howled, which made Titus and the peacock laugh.
“No, Kit,” said Titus. “Some animals are simply better than others. And it is our right to do as we please with the rest of you. Now, Preston.” He turned to the bright bird. “Let’s finish this. Kill them all so I can go home and get some sleep! This nighttime skulking around is exhausting and I want to be home before my People wake up.”
“Of course, Titus,” said Preston. “My pleasure.”
BOING!
A disk flew into the tree where Fergus the frog was hiding, cutting the bark as easily as a claw cuts a cucumber.
BOING!
A disk whistled at the light post where Hazel hid, clanging against it so loudly it woke the sleeping ducks in the pond. It nearly cut off the tops of Hazel’s ears too.
“Hey, Preston! Keep down the noise!” the mama duck quacked at him. “Some of us are trying to sleep.”
“Pardon me for attacking our enemies and defending the zoo from bandits,” Preston replied. “I’m sorry my defense of our territory is interrupting your slumber.”
The duck grunted at the peacock, then went back to sleep, without so much as looking at Kit or his friends scattered about the zoo’s walking path. Sweet as they looked, ducks cared only for ducks, Kit knew, and he wouldn’t get any help from them.
Kit peered around the edge of the trash can, but had to pull his head back quickly at the sound of another BOING!
The metal disk sparked off the trash can above him, then rolled along the path, coming to rest in a pool of light below a lamppost, the image of a Person’s head shining up. Kit touched the small wooden token in his pouch, the paws within paws. He was closer than ever to finding her and giving it back to her. His journey would not end like this. It could not end like this! He would not be stopped by some arrogant peacock who thought the whole world existed just for his comfort. Kit would take this pretty bird down!
“He’s got us pinned in place,” said Eeni. “We can’t move unless we stop that spring from firing. With that spring gone, we can charge straight at him.”
“I know,” said Kit. “But how do we stop a spring from springing?” He thought about the springs on traps, the way they stretched and snapped shut when they were released, the way they held tension in their metal coils, and the way to break them by taking that tension out or reversing its direction. “I got it!” Kit smiled. “But I’m going to need a pinecone.”
He looked to the lawn and saw it was strewn with pinecones, although there was nothing but wide open space between the pinecones and the trash can. He couldn’t run to get them without getting a copper coin between the eyes.
Eeni understood Kit’s wordless look as only a true friend will, and understood the risk of what she was about to offer as only a true friend can. “I’ll distract them,” she offered. “You run for the pinecones.”
“Eeni,” Kit replied. “I can’t use you as bait.”
“You already did with the hawk,” she said.
“But we had the hawk fooled before we even started,” Kit said. “We’d planned and plotted for ages. This is different. This isn’t planned. It’s just dangerous.”
“Haven’t you heard?” Eeni flashed Kit a crooked grin. “I’m sneaky as a wolf wearing wool!”
Kit nodded, knowing he couldn’t talk Eeni out of being heroic when she had heroism in her head. “Okay, but if you get your head cut off by a flying metal disk, I’m going to be really mad at you. Promise you’ll keep your head.”
“Howl to snap,” his friend said to him.
“Howl to snap,” he replied, and then they bolted from behind the trash can, heading in opposite directions.
BOING!
The first shot was aimed at Kit, but went wide. He ran in a zigzag pattern so that it would be harder for them to aim at him or guess where he was running.
BOING!
Preston shot at Eeni, kicking up sparks just in front of her paws, so she had to jump and roll out of the way.
“Aim for the raccoon, you painted pigeon!” Titus yelled at Preston. “Ignore the rat. She’s a distraction!”
“You’re a distraction!” Preston yelled, swinging his springed catapult back around to aim at Kit.
Kit hit the lawn and rolled, scooping up two pinecones, one in each claw, then he changed directions and ran at Preston. “Eeni! To me!” he yelled.
Eeni changed directions and started running toward him. They were coming at the catapult from opposite sides, and Preston froze, not sure if he should turn and shoot at Eeni or take aim at Kit.
“Do something!” Titus yelled. “Fire!”
The dog kicked the bird in the shins, which made him release the spring and fire off another copper coin with a deadly BOING!
Kit ducked the shot without slowing his run, and at the same moment tossed his second pinecone to Eeni, who leaped to catch it in midair. “Whoever gets there first,” Kit said, and Eeni knew what he wanted her to do. But she also knew whoever got there first would probably get shot at first and she wasn’t about to let that be Kit. The whole zoo was counting on him.
She sped up her run and shouted every insult she could think of to get Preston’s attention.
“I’m coming for you, you worm-necked, tick-brained, flightless feather duster! You People-pleasing pusillanimous pus picker! You cockroach-kissing cage cuddler!”
She’d gotten closer than Kit, and Preston spun the catapult around, aiming straight at her. She charged him with her pinecone held up like a shield, even though she knew one of those copper coins would cut through it and through her behind it without even slowing down. She hoped it wouldn’t hurt to have her head sliced off, although she felt bad for failing to keep her promise to Kit. She squeezed her eyes shut as she ran straight at her doom.
“Watch out!” Titus yelled just as Preston released the spring.
BOING-CLANG! AHHH! EEEP!
Eeni opened her eyes, and saw the catapult flip and the coin fly backward at Preston’s head, forcing him to duck and cover, and making Titus yelp as it grazed his tail. A pinecone was stuck right between the coils of the spring.
Kit panted beside the broken weapon. When they had turned to shoot at Eeni, he had dived with an arm extended and shoved the pinecone into the coils just as Preston let it go, so the tension of the spring was absorbed by the pinecone and the spring itself backfired, shooting its metal missile at the shooters themselves.
Before the shooters could regain their composure, the moles had popped from their holes, Hazel and Fergus had charged, and Kit extended his claws and snarled. “Outnumbered again, Titus!” he said.
The dog and the peacock looked from one Moonlight Brigadier to the next, then to each other.
>
“This isn’t over,” said Preston. “This is far from over.”
Before Kit could come up with a witty reply, Titus and the peacock had turned and run off in the other direction.
“They won’t wait long before attacking again,” Kit told the others. “We need to visit as many of the animals in this zoo as we can and get them on our side. When the time comes, we’re going to need as many friends as we can find.”
“On it, boss!” Fergus said. “And sorry about getting captured.”
“Don’t worry about it,” said Kit. “Just don’t let it happen again.”
“Howl to snap,” said Fergus.
“Howl to snap,” Kit answered.
Fergus and Hazel hopped off to recruit the less predatory animals in the zoo. “I think I saw a deer pen,” said Hazel. “I don’t think deer will try to kill us.”
The mole brothers said they would go talk to the prairie dogs. “Us diggers stick together, ya know?” Guster told Kit before they burrowed back into the ground and made their way beneath the safety of the dirt.
“Let’s go get the monkeys,” said Kit. “And hope the baboons are feeling helpful.”
“Are baboons known to be helpful?” Eeni asked.
Kit didn’t have any idea. He’d never met a monkey before . . . but he was about to meet a whole troop of them.
Chapter Sixteen
PEOPLE SAY WE MONKEY AROUND
THE baboons were legendary, but they were not to be trusted.
Kit had read all about them in Uncle Rik’s books. In the long-ago times, baboons first tricked the sun into shining, then tricked it into shining only on the baboons. The First People had to give baboons their tails just so they’d share the sunlight.
It was said that baboons once took a storm cloud for a ride around the world and accidentally invented the hurricane.
It was also said that baboons liked riddles, which meant they’d be able to help Kit solve the riddle of the locks on the zoo cages, but Kit would have to convince them to help him first. He approached their cage with the hardest riddle he could think of.
The Wild Ones--Great Escape Page 9