by Barrie Summy
“It used to be sold for killing weeds. Problem was, it killed a lot of other things too. And that’s what it would do to your fish. Kill them.”
I slap my forehead. “Kill my fish?” I absolutely do not want my precious fish floating belly-up in a delightfully decorated aquarium. I guess it’s back to trying to match beads at the Hobby Shop.
“Keflit’s been illegal in this country for several years now. I’m surprised you even know the name.”
“Illegal?” A little ice cube of cold lodges at the base of my spine. “Why?”
“Because of how lethal it is. Even a very small amount of Keflit can kill a large animal.”
“Kill a large animal?” I repeat.
She nods. “About a decade ago, they lost a couple of elephants at the Toronto Zoo because a gardener used Keflit too close to the exhibit.”
“Oh no.” Elephants are big. Rhinos are big. The chill creeps up my spine.
She continues, “And it works quickly. Keflit’s nickname was ‘two-step,’ because that’s how many steps an animal took before keeling over.”
“Two-step?” I break out in goose bumps all over.
The pager clipped to her apron crackles. She looks at it. “Repaint your bedroom walls,” she advises. “Something neutral.” She leaves.
I sit down on a wooden slat, next to a tall ceramic planter. I’m freezing cold, even though it’s warm out and Home Depot isn’t even air conditioned but only cooled with giant, noisy ceiling fans.
I close my eyes. Around me, the smells of flowers and plants and potting soil and fertilizer all meld together and transport me to the Wild Animal Park. I’m by the fence at the rhino enclosure and I can see Arthur with the Ziploc bag of shimmering, sparkling, killing Keflit. And in my mind, as the Keflit crystals dance and glitter, pieces of the mystery puzzle slam into place. Strange snippets of phone conversations suddenly make perfect sense. I flash on sentences I interpreted as innocent when they were really sinister and murderous.
Dizzy, I grab the lip of the planter to keep from pitching into the aisle. The old people are not Fearless Rhino Warriors. Not even close. They want the rhino horn. For a funky, fringy arthritis cure. Which must be where Dr. Kim comes in. My mother was right. And the old people are furious, killing furious, with the chef who went all greedy and wants the meat and the horn. When I was eavesdropping at the restaurant, that’s what he was talking about to the poacher. Then the weird thing he said, the thing I couldn’t remember, crashes into my consciousness. The chef said, “Just don’t tell them.” Meaning, don’t tell the old people they’re out of the rhino deal.
Shivering, I lean against the planter. I told the old people my name. I gave them my cell number. I told them Mom and Grandpa and me were protecting the rhinos. I even told them we’d be at the Park tonight. Major, major tragedy.
I’m sitting there all hunched over and hugging the planter for support. Suddenly, it’s like my brain morphs into a pinball machine and the poacher’s name is zinging and pinging around in there. All lit up and with bells ringing. I know exactly who he is. Without a shadow of a doubt.
At Indy 500 speed, I’m out of Home Depot and on the orange rocket back to the condo. I have a huge pot of coffee to brew.
Just as I’m turning the key in the lock, the front door swings open.
Amber runs straight into me. She squeals.
Her clothes are so tight I’m amazed she can breathe, let alone squeal. She must have spent hours gluing them on. Her skintight gold tank top matches the polish on her toenails and fingernails, which matches her eyes. Her black jeans are molded to her. She looks awesome.
“I have a date,” she says. “He’s twenty-one.” She rounds her index finger and thumb into an O. “And very good-looking.”
Ack. Eek. “No, no, no.” I’m flapping my hands in panic. “You’re driving me and Junie to the Wild Animal Park.”
“Nuh-uh. Junie said you guys didn’t need me anymore.”
Say what?
“Amber,” Junie calls from inside the condo, “are you leaving?”
“I’m gonna wait at the curb!” Amber yells, heading out. “Sherry’s here!”
I jet into the condo.
Galloping to the kitchen, I shout, “Why don’t we need Amber? We gotta make coffee. I figured out a bunch of stuff about the mystery today. We gotta get hold of my mom and grandpa ASAP.” My hands flapping even faster, I’m so nervous and scared and freaked that I can’t stand still.
“Your grandfather’s sick. They came by here earlier to tell you.” Junie grabs a bag of Doritos. “He started feeling really crummy this morning. Your mom took him to a ghost avian specialist who gave him some medicine.” She opens the bag. “But he was feeling even worse by lunchtime, so your mom’s taking him back to the specialist.” She pulls out a handful of chips.
“You got all that from my grandfather?” I’m impressed with Junie and worried about my grandfather all at the same time.
“I’m not saying it was easy, but you know how I’ve always been good with foreign languages.” Junie munches on a chip. “Anyway, I’m supposed to tell you that tonight’s mission is off. Your mother’s exact words, according to your grandfather, were ‘Sherry, tonight’s mission is aborted.’ He made me repeat it five times. Then he passed out.”
“He passed out?”
“At least, I think that’s what happened. He was standing on the patio table. Then he kind of flopped over onto his back, his feet sticking straight up in the air.”
“What?”
“Then he was whooshed through the air. Over the stucco wall. And, poof—gone. I guess your mom scooped him up and rushed him to the specialist.”
I slide onto a bar stool. Elbows on the counter, I hold my head up with my hands. I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it. What started off as a perfect day has gone completely haywire. I close my eyes. Even though I don’t know what happens to a really sick ghost bird, it can’t be good. At least one rhino will die tonight. And I’ll lose my mom forever. I take a deep, shuddery breath.
I freeze in that sad position for what feels like hours but is probably only seconds. During this traumatic time, I make a decision. A really tough, scary decision.
When I open my eyes, I see Junie set a Mountain Dew Code Red in front of me.
“What’s your plan?” she asks. “I can tell you’ve got one.”
Junie my best friend is so back. “The mission is not aborted. It can’t be. Or I’ll lose my mom forever. And rhinos will die. I’m going to the Wild Animal Park. I’m not exactly sure how, but I’m gonna stop the poacher.”
“You know I’ll help you.”
“Junie, you’re the best.”
While we’re loading up a big backpack, we go over our plan.
“He’ll be so blown away when he sees us actually in the rhino enclosure,” I say, “that he’ll sorta freeze up.”
“That’s when you zap him in the eyes with hair spray,” Junie says. “And I’ll conk him on the head with the frying pan.” She drops the heavy pan into the pack.
I pat my pocket with my cell. “Then I’ll call the cops to come pick up a knocked-out criminal.”
She pushes rope from my great-aunt’s garage into the backpack, then pokes a few flashlights into a side compartment.
“I hope we can pull this off.” I shake the can of Sassy Girl hair spray. Totally full. I set it in on top of the rope.
Junie zips the whole thing up.
“We gotta give it our best shot. We can’t let him Keflit a rhino.” I swing on my mini-backpack.
She hauls the Yellow Pages down off the bookshelf to find a taxi company.
My cell rings. It’s Josh. Woohoo. The screen says Analog Roam. I’m not supposed to answer those calls. Too expensive, in The Ruler’s opinion. But it’s Josh. But it’s analog roam. But it’s—
“Hey, Josh,” I say into the phone.
“Hey, Sherry, I’m free tonight. Wanna do something?”
I pause. Jos
h, my knight in shining armor, is available. Right when I need him most. We are so connected. We are so meant to be.
“How does a trip to the Wild Animal Park sound?” I say.
It’s way late in the afternoon when Josh’s older cousin Derek pulls into the condo parking lot. He was forced to drive us and totally glares at Junie and me as we climb into the back of his Honda. “I’m only dropping you off. Call my mom to pick you up.” Derek inserts his earbuds.
“Hey, isn’t that illegal?” I say loudly.
“Do you want a ride or not?” Without waiting for an answer, Derek turns on his MP3 player.
Josh shrugs, then switches from the passenger seat to the back.
Which means I’m whizzing up the highway sandwiched between Josh and Junie in a compact car. Which means my thigh is touching Josh’s. At least, I think it is. Being this close to him has blown out a bunch of nerve endings, numbing my left leg.
Jostling my leg to get the feeling back, I start filling Josh in on the mystery. I’m leaving out the supernatural details. I have to. I mean, what’s an acceptable amount of weirdness at the beginning of a relationship? Zero. Or less. So ixnay on the ghost stuff.
Josh says, “How’d you get involved in all this?”
“ ’Cause of some people in Sherry’s family.” Junie’s such a quick thinker now.
We’re all speaking in hushed tones, although I doubt Derek can hear us over his music.
“And why aren’t you going to the police?” Josh lifts a bottle of Gatorade from the cup holder and tips it back.
“We will, depending on what happens tonight.”
“And what do you think’ll happen?” he asks, slotting the bottle back in the holder.
“I think the poacher’s gonna strike,” I say. “With poison.”
“And our plan is to take the last monorail ride of the day, jump down to the savanna when no one’s looking, hide in the rhino enclosure and stop him?” Josh asks.
Put like that, it does sound whacked. But it is our plan, so I answer, “Well, yeah.”
“And you’ll recognize him?” he asks.
“Definitely.”
From a case on the car floor, Josh pulls out a CD. He leans over the front seat and slides it into the player.
Derek frowns but doesn’t say anything.
“You into ska?” Josh asks.
“Absolutely,” Junie says.
“Ska?” I say.
Josh glances at me and grins. “Tell me what you think of this.”
Punkish reggae music bounces round the car. Totally awesome, with a drumbeat that makes you want to order your almost boyfriend to pull over and show you what he knows about kissing. That is, if the driver wasn’t scary-grumpy and your best friend wasn’t squished up next to you.
I stretch out my neck, lean my head back and close my eyes. I block out my fears about Grandpa being super sick. I block out my fears that Josh, Junie and me are in over our heads. I block out my fears that we won’t save the rhinos and my mom’s afterlife. I’m grooving to the music, to sitting next to Josh, to having friends helping me.
Josh turns down the volume.
I open my eyes.
“Sneaking into the rhino enclosure and staying in the Park after closing,” he says, “—how illegal is all that?”
“We’re minors,” Junie says. “Seems like they’d just kick us out.”
Josh looks at me.
“I don’t know.” I’m sure he’s thinking of when he hung with bad kids in San Diego and how he’s being careful now. “No problem if you don’t want to do it. Seriously.”
“But you’ll go anyway, right?” he asks.
“I have to.”
“Count me in, then.” He squeezes my shoulder, then cranks the volume back up.
My heart does a double twist with a somersault thingie, like one of those gymnasts at the Olympics. Josh is so there for me.
At the Wild Animal Park’s main gate, I unzip the cute little outside pocket of my mini-backpack. My hand closes briefly around the crystal my grandmother gave me. I drop it back in and pull out the freebie Park tickets.
“You kids realize we close in an hour?” The employee fiddles with the latch on the booth’s window and scowls. “I shouldn’t even let you in.”
“Please, sir.” Junie smiles. “We’re from out of town and might not get a chance to visit here again.”
We zip through the turnstile and run to the monorail. Josh swings the big backpack with our supplies over his shoulder as he runs.
“Three more customers,” he yells out to the driver-guide, who’s closing all the train doors.
In true déjà vu style, the last car is empty, and we slip into it. I even look around to see if Thomas is a few rows in front, like before. Negative. The train’s way less full than last time. It’s dark and kinda chilly. Junie’s sitting across from me. And Josh is right next to me. Our hips and thighs are touching. Yowser.
A low-hanging, round gobstopper of a moon shines weakly. Cute twinkling Christmas lights weave around the roof of the train, while glaring floodlights attached to the sides light up the landscape. I stare out over the savanna, all eerie with shadows of animals and bushes and trees. I can smell an herbally plant that must be blossoming somewhere down there.
The microphone crackles on.
I jump.
“As Alfred Hitchcock would say, good evening,” our tour guide says in a deep, spooky voice. “Welcome to today’s last ride. I’m Stephen, and I’ll be leading you on this nocturnal adventure.”
The train lurches away from the station.
Josh slides closer to me.
Is he going to hold my hand again? I wipe my palm on my jeans.
Stephen dives into an animal-facts spiel.
I tune out and force myself to think. About how I better totally get it together. My mom and the rhinos are counting on me. I can’t let myself turn mushy-brained because of Josh. I have to focus, focus, focus.
The train crawls around a curve, and the floodlights beam on Ongava, standing by a palm tree. He looks up and smiles at me. He does. I swear.
I sniff. No Mom. I peer around. No Grandpa. Back at the condo, I left a full pot of coffee on the porch table. Under the carafe, there’s a note saying where we are. All in the crazy hope Grandpa makes a speedy recovery and he and my mom come looking for me. I cross my fingers. I so need them to show.
The savanna is still and quiet. Even Junie’s keeping her mouth shut. And I’m sure it’s killing her not to add on to Stephen’s animal facts. It’s like we’re in our own little, peaceful world up high on the tracks.
Suddenly all the lights blink out.
Someone screams. Junie. That girl is not cool.
“No need for alarm,” the guide says. “I always turn off the big lights near the highway so I don’t blind the drivers.”
In the almost dark, the train inches forward until we’re right by the rhino enclosure. I take a deep breath and whisper to Josh and Junie, “Jump. Now.”
“See you down there.” Josh hoists a gorgeous leg up and over the side of the train, then quickly disappears from view.
Junie crouches on the seat, then jerks a leg over the edge. For a second, it’s like she’s a panicky insect fighting a spiderweb, arms flailing, a leg dangling on either side. She tips over. Thud. Junie has landed.
Sniff. Still no sign of my mother. I squint. Still no sign of my grandfather. It’s looking more and more like Grandpa’s really sick and they’re not gonna make it. Will he be okay? Can Josh, Junie and me truly handle tonight?
“Hang in there for a few more seconds, folks,” Stephen announces, “and I’ll turn the lights back on.”
I’m up out of my seat and over like when the last bell rings at school the Friday before summer vacation.
Splat.
My face hits the hard dirt. The monorail lights switch on and the train whirs away. I watch the twinkling Christmas lights shrink in the distance. Civilization’s driving off and leavi
ng us in the dust.
Josh pulls me to my feet. “You okay?”
I rub my chin, hoping he didn’t witness my dorky full-face landing. “I’m cool.”
“What’s next, Sherry?” Josh asks.
I cup my ear but don’t hear any buffalo snorts. Major phew. The monster Cape buffalo must be locked up in solitary confinement, like the afternoon monorail guide promised. I look around. Above the door to the rhino hut, there’s a light. And the moon’s shining a little brighter. “Let’s get out the flashlights.”
Josh shrugs off the backpack and drops it on the ground. “They in here?”
“Zippered pocket on the right side,” I say.
Junie says, “Let’s separate and hide so we can watch the widest area possible. Once we locate him, we’ll take him down.”
“How, exactly?” Josh asks.
My insides go all jiggly and butterflyish. This is the dangerous part of our plan. “I’ll call his name, and in the split second when he’s super-surprised to see me, I’ll squirt hair spray in his eyes, then—”
Swinging her arms over her head, Junie interrupts, “I’ll knock him out with the frying pan.”
“Sounds kinda dicey.” Josh blows out a breath and looks at me. “Don’t call his name till I’m right by you.”
“Okay.” I’m feeling a little less jiggly. Because I have Josh.
“Anything goes wrong, anything looks weird,” he says, “we call nine-one-one right away. Okay?”
Junie and I nod.
“I wanna check out the bush at the top of the hill.” Josh points. “I think it’ll give me a good overview of the savanna.” He pulls out the flashlights and hands one to me and one to Junie. After clicking on his light, he jogs off.
A startled antelope springs out of the way.
“Why don’t you take the tree wrapped in wire?” I say to Junie, indicating a tree not too far from Josh’s bush. “I’ll take the feeder close to the hut, the one that looks like a giant termite cone.”
Close to the hut. Close to where the banana treats were left. That’s probably where the action’ll take place. Yikes. But it’s my mystery, my mother, my responsibility.