Kit stared at the bear, a beast the size of a mountain with claws that could flay the fur from his head in one swipe, and he stepped across the distance between them, stretched out his paws, and hugged the bear. He pressed their whiskers together and he held Jojo’s head against his own. Kit was a scavenger and Jojo was a hunter, but for the count of three long breaths, they were simply two creatures grateful the world was big enough for the both of them. Kit let go and stepped back.
“The nerve of you, Jojo!” Preston complained. “I should never have imagined you would come to the assistance of these disgusting wild vermin. You are a proud and mighty bear, rarest in the world, and you have pride of place at this zoo. You live like the Lord of All Animals in here, but you know as well as I that you would not survive a day outside this fence. The zoo saved you from certain death in the far north! Why would you seek to repay its kindness by running away?”
“I am not escaping,” he said. “This is my home. But a wise raccoon reminded me that”—he gave Kit a wink—“we are All of One Paw. So I will fight until the last snowflake falls on my face to make sure every creature who wants freedom can get it, and I will hope that the People will protect those of us who choose to stay. If you stand in the way of the Moonlight Brigade, you pompous painted pigeon, I’ll be using your beak for a toothpick tonight.”
The peacock looked from the polar bear to Kit and his mother, then back to the polar bear again. He looked past them at the baboons, who had found a food stand and discovered that hot dogs were more fun to throw than to eat, but that thick, sugary soda was the most wonderful thing they’d ever tasted and that it made them burp in fantastic fashion.
Two zookeepers were trying to calm the baboons, but they were outnumbered and the baboons were hopped up on sugar.
By the fence, another zookeeper was trying to herd the sheep away from the giant hole under the fence the groundhogs were still digging, while Camille and Clement, the ostriches, ran in rapid circles along the zoo’s edge, chased by even more red-faced zookeepers.
It was chaos.
Preston shook his head at last and clucked at them all in disgust. “None of you are worth a single feather on my back,” he said. “We had a good thing going, but it wasn’t good enough for you, was it? Pfft. Go, then! Leave. I hope never to see any of you again.”
And with that, he strutted away, trying to find a zookeeper he could walk beside until all the wild animals were gone.
“Hey, wait!” Titus called after him. “Where are you going? Preston! You coward! I came all this way to win! He’s just a bear! Preston!”
But Preston did not come back and Titus turned to Jojo and growled. “Fine,” he snarled. “I’ll fight this bear off myself.”
“You’re brave, little dog,” said Jojo. “I’ll give you one more chance to run.”
“Never!” said Titus, lowering his head and baring his teeth. Jojo reared back to knock Titus clear across the zoo, but then he stopped. He took a step back and flattened his ears. He lowered himself and looked for all the world like he was terrified of the little dog.
“That’s right!” Titus barked. “Surrender and maybe I won’t gnaw your nose off, you brute!”
“Jojo? What are you doing! Don’t surrender!” Kit pleaded, but Jojo looked past Titus, and Kit followed his gaze to a zookeeper who stood on the path. She was the same one Kit and Eeni had tripped with a banana peel, except now she was raising a long strange stick to her shoulder and pointing it at the polar bear.
“That is called a gun,” said Jojo, “and the People mean to shoot me dead with it.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
THE WILDEST ONES
“NO!” Kit yelled.
“You have to run, Jojo!” Eeni cried.
“No,” said Kit’s mother. “He’ll never outrun that thing. A gun spits metal sharper than a wasp’s sting and faster than a hummingbird’s heart.”
The bear looked at the zookeeper, whose long gun shook in her hands.
“Look who chose the winning side?” Titus chuckled. “I wonder, if I start barking, do you think he’ll shoot all of you or just the big dumb bear?” He grinned. “Let’s find out!”
Titus barked and barked and with every bark, the zookeeper flinched some more. Jojo tried to look calm. He lay down flat, set his head on the ground, and tried to show the frightened Person he wasn’t dangerous, but the Person still had the gun pointed at him.
“Stop barking!” Kit shouted, and stepped in front of Jojo to shield him from the Person and from Titus’s cruel yapping. Then he yelled at the Person: “Jojo won’t hurt you!”
“AHH!” the Person shouted, because she didn’t understand Kit and Kit had frightened her by yelling.
In her fright, the Person fired the gun.
It made a loud bang, so loud that Titus jumped and tucked his tail between his legs, so loud that Kit’s ears rang. He covered his eyes and waited for the stinging metal to cut through him . . . but it didn’t.
He uncovered his eyes and looked up into an ocean of white.
Jojo had covered Kit with his body, shielding him. When Kit shimmied out from underneath, he saw the Person standing with the gun. Wide-eyed, Kit looked at Jojo. A spot of bright red bear blood was blossoming on his thick white fur.
“Jojo!” Kit yelled. “He’s hurt!”
The other animals rushed forward to the bear’s side. Even the baboons stopped rioting and the ostriches stopped running. Everyone paused to look back at the mighty bear. The zookeeper froze where she stood, gun barrel drooping, eyes darting around at the animals surrounding her.
“You saved me . . .” Kit grabbed Jojo’s giant paw in his own. “You saved me even though you knew you might get hurt.”
Jojo took a deep breath in and let it out. “All of One Paw,” he repeated groggily. “Now go . . .”
“What about you?”
“They’ve subdued me now,” Jojo said. “They’re not afraid anymore. I’m sure they’ll heal me. I am the pride of their zoo, after all.” He raised his eyes and the other animals saw two more zookeepers had arrived. They had long poles with loops of wire on the end, but they also had bandages. “I’m sure they’ll fix me up the moment you leave.”
“But what if they hurt you more? What if they’re still scared?” Kit’s voice quivered with fear, watching the zookeepers’ wary approach.
“I can’t control how People feel about me,” Jojo said. “They’ll have to make that choice for themselves.” Jojo looked again at the zookeepers, tried keep his ears flat, to look as meek as possible for such a big bear. “But I do hope they see I’m not their enemy.”
“What about bear-kind? What if they retaliate against all bears?”
“Who knows?” Jojo said. “But if we need help—”
“The Moonlight Brigade will be there,” Kit promised, standing taller. He gave the bear as big a hug as a raccoon could conjure. Jojo returned the hug as big as a raccoon could handle. Then Kit and his friends backed away. “You heard him!” Kit called out. “Go! Moonlight Brigade: fall out!”
Instantly, the baboons returned to rioting, swinging open the gate and letting out any creature in the zoo who wanted out. The ostriches made it first, leaving the rest of the Moonlight Brigade in the dust. The cow chewed on the grass in front of a building down the block, and all the birds took flight over the city. Some zookeepers went scrambling after them, unsure which way to run first.
“Stop the raccoon!” Titus barked at the zookeepers nearby. “He’s the leader! Stop him first!”
But the nearest zookeepers were focused on tending to the bear’s wound, and keeping him held down with their long poles. They didn’t even notice Kit and his mother and Eeni and Uncle Rik slip off the path and head for the gate themselves. The last thing Kit saw was the zookeeper who’d been so frightened that she shot Jojo scoop Titus up in her arms and start to carry him a
way, looking at the tags on the collar around his neck.
“Hey!” Titus objected, his paws clawing at the air. “Hey! Where are you taking me? Let go! Let me go! Free me at once! I demand it!” the little dog yelled, but the Person didn’t understand a word.
Once they reached the other side of the fence, the Ankle Snappers crouched in the grass and watched the People working on Jojo. The zookeepers didn’t seem to be hurting him and he offered no resistance, but still, they looked frightened of the big bear. Two more zookeepers had arrived. Even as the other animals escaped, every one of them was focused on the bear.
Maybe Jojo would be fine. Maybe bearkind would be fine. Maybe not. Kit wasn’t sure what would happen, but he’d never forget how the bear had saved his life, and he would make sure that the Moonlight Brigade was ready to defend bears wherever they found them, in honor of Jojo.
He just hoped the bears wouldn’t try to eat them first.
“Let’s go home, Kit,” his mother said. “You did something amazing today, but now it’s time to go.”
Kit smiled. He’d done it. With some help from his friends, some baboons and mongooses, and a bear, he really had done something amazing.
Animals were free who’d never been free before. The wild world had just gotten a little wilder.
What would come next for them was anybody’s guess. Not even the Rat King could know.
“I can’t wait to tell the folks back in Ankle Snap Alley about this,” Eeni said. “Blue Neck Ned will flip! He’s gonna hate sharing his perch with all those big birds we just freed!”
“You can tell everyone tomorrow, Eeni,” Kit’s mother said as they padded away in a line along the side of the road. People out for jogs early in the morning jumped out of their way, then noticed the baboons racing along in the middle of the street and screamed.
“The sun’s up and it’s bedtime for both of you,” Kit’s mother told them. “I think it’d be best if we got back to Ankle Snap Alley and hid ourselves at home quickly. Who knows how People will respond to this breakout!”
“We’ll be ready for ’em!” Kit cheered, but his mother gave him a look he hadn’t seen in a long time. It was the look that all mothers of fur or feather, scale or skin, give their kids at one time or another. It was a look that no trickster could outsmart, and it spoke volumes.
“You’ll be ready to go to bed,” she corrected him. “Both of you.”
Kit and Eeni locked eyes and they both realized they weren’t orphans anymore, either of them. Their mothers were around, in one way or another. They had a bedtime. What other rules would there be? What else would change now that Kit’s mother was back, and also now that the whole wild world knew Kit was ready for them?
He couldn’t stop smiling.
Kit didn’t know what would happen with the animals from the zoo running around the city or with his life in Ankle Snap Alley changed completely, or with Titus still barking mad, but he did know that he’d have Eeni and Uncle Rik and his mother with him as they faced whatever the future held. They were a part of the wildest and most unpredictable thing in the world, after all: a family.
They would figure the rest out together.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
© Sonya Sones
C. Alexander London is the author of the middle-grade series The Accidental Adventures, Dog Tags, and Tides of War, and of the young-adult novels Proxy and Guardian. His most recent novels are The Wild Ones and The Wild Ones: Moonlight Brigade. A former journalist and children’s librarian, he is now a full-time writer. He lives with his husband and dog in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
You can visit C. Alexander London at
www.calexanderlondon.com
or follow him on Twitter @ca_london
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The Wild Ones--Great Escape Page 14