by Ellis Byrd
Murmurs and whispers broke out, and Cosmo and Graham shared a glance. The penguins were so captivated by Shackleton’s story, no one had noticed them yet. Clearing his throat, Cosmo stepped forward and smiled.
“Hello! We couldn’t help overhearing, and we wondered if we might ask you all a few questions.”
Some of the penguins, including Nobu, gasped in surprise. Shackleton’s eyes bulged at the sight of the two Alphas, and he lost his balance, toppling to the ground. The mood shifted as everyone burst into giggles.
“Sorry, sorry!” Graham exclaimed, hurrying around the table to help Shackleton to his feet. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”
Shackleton mumbled something under his breath, brushing the snow off his backside. Lois leaned forward, her eyes shining.
“Is it really true?” she asked. “Did a seal break the ice?”
Cosmo cupped his cocoa tighter. “There was something under the ice,” he told the penguins. “But it wasn’t a seal. There were large pumice stones that floated up to the surface.”
“What about all the icy snowballs during capture the snow castle?” Lois watched Cosmo carefully. “Do you think that’s related?”
“I think it’s possible,” Cosmo said, picturing the warning carved into the snow castle. “Probable, even.”
Lois tilted her head, her expression thoughtful. “And what about at the hot springs? Any idea what caused those geysers to start erupting?”
“Oh, you heard about that?” Cosmo asked, and the penguins giggled again.
“Rumors spread fast at Mt. Shiveer,” Lois told him with a smile. “There’s no keeping a secret around here. Not for long, anyway.”
“Then maybe you can help us,” Graham said. “You know this area, you know all the strange things that have been happening—so what do you think is causing them?”
The penguins all began talking at once, flippers flapping in their excitement.
“It’s the temperature! Too warm!”
“Yes, that’s it—the body heat from all the animals is throwing off the balance!”
“Disrupting the natural environment!” Shackleton thundered. “Have you seen all the litter?”
“I think it’s the arctic foxes,” Nobu said, his eyes darting around anxiously. “They make me nervous.”
Lois rolled her eyes. “Everything makes you nervous.”
“That’s not true,” said Nobu, then he screeched when a waitress put her flipper on his shoulder. Lois and the others burst out laughing, and Nobu scowled.
“Sorry!” the waitress exclaimed, taking a step back and holding up a pitcher. “Just wanted to see if anyone needed a refill.” Several penguins waved their mugs in the air, and the waitress laughed. “Good thing the hot water is back, right?” she said, pouring cocoa into everyone’s mugs.
Graham frowned. “Back? Was it missing?”
“A few days ago. It was the strangest thing,” the waitress told him, wiping the pitcher clean with her apron. “I had a pot of water boiling, ready to make a big batch of cocoa. Went to watch the opening celebrations, came back, and most of the water was gone! About a dozen pitchers, too.” Shrugging, she headed back to the kitchen.
“The arctic foxes,” Nobu said again. “I’m telling you. I saw . . .” He hesitated, and Cosmo gave him an encouraging smile.
“What did you see?”
“I saw one,” Nobu said at last. “Before the opening celebrations—an arctic fox with some of those pitchers. Told me he’d bought cocoa for his friends, but he doesn’t have any friends, everyone knows that. I knew he was lying—and this proves it!”
Cosmo felt as if his heart had just dropped into his stomach. He glanced at Graham, who sighed.
“Do you know this fox’s name?” he asked Nobu kindly, and the penguin nodded.
“Artie.”
“We all know Artie,” Shackleton said pompously. Apparently irritated that he’d lost the spotlight, he waited until every eye was on him to continue. “Crafty Artie, that’s what we call him. But he loves Mt. Shiveer. This is his home. If you’re suggesting he’s sabotaging the Winter Games, Nobu, I don’t—”
“I’m not suggesting anything!” Nobu squawked. “Just telling you what I saw!”
Shackleton rolled his eyes. “You saw someone bringing hot cocoa to the opening celebrations, that’s what you saw.” Turning back to Cosmo and Graham, Shackleton stuck out his chest. “If you ask me, no arctic fox is causing all this commotion. No animal, in fact.” He paused, letting these words sink in. “The Alphas are looking for someone named Sebastian, isn’t that right?”
“Yes,” Graham said, squinting at Shackleton. “Liza said she spoke to all the penguins yesterday, and no one knew anyone by that name.”
“Indeed I don’t,” Shackleton said, nodding. “But I got curious after Liza left. So I started doing a little asking around myself. Sent a letter to my friend Phillip, an otter over in Crystal Sands. And he told me he had heard of someone named Sebastian, years and years ago.” Shackleton paused dramatically, lifting his head. “A Phantom.”
Nobu let out a little screech and hid under the table. The outburst of chatter quickly died down when Shackleton raised his voice.
“Back in the dark days when the Phantoms were taking over Jamaa, Sebastian wreaked havoc in Crystal Sands!” he told them. “Specialized in manipulating and polluting water, according to Phillip. Sound familiar? The frozen pond, the melting sculpture, the geysers . . .”
His words were drowned out by the penguins, who were really riled up now.
“He’s right! It must be the Phantoms!”
“That explains everything!”
“I knew it all along! Told you all yesterday, didn’t I?”
Cosmo turned to Graham, his eyes wide. But before either of them could speak, a snow leopard burst through the entrance to the Hot Cocoa Hut.
“The ice slide!” he cried. “Something’s wrong with the ice—please, hurry! We need help!”
The snow leopard turned and sprinted back the way he came, and the two Alphas didn’t waste a second in hurrying after him. Cosmo’s mind was racing as fast as his legs. Could the mysterious Sebastian really be a Phantom? If so, how was it no one had seen him yet? Phantoms weren’t exactly inconspicuous in Jamaa . . .
Cosmo heard the shouts and calls for help before they even reached the ice slide that ran down the side of the mountain. When he and Graham emerged from the forest, the problem was obvious: The slide, which had been perfectly smooth just that morning, had somehow sprouted giant, sharp icicles. Several bobsled teams were speeding down the slide, swerving and crashing into one another to avoid the unexpected obstacles. The base of the mountain was a long, long way down from where Cosmo stood.
“We need something to cut off the icicles!” Cosmo cried, turning to Graham—but the monkey Alpha was already sprinting toward the ski and skate rental booth at the edge of the forest. By the time Cosmo reached him, Graham had an armload of skates.
“The blades are sharp, sharp enough to cut the ice,” the monkey Alpha said quickly, more to himself than to Cosmo. His eyes roamed around the area, taking in the slide, the bobsleds, and the ski lift passing high overhead. “But we don’t have time to cut each one individually, we need a way to do this in one fell swoop . . . swoop!”
Cosmo blinked in surprise as his friend took off again, this time for the ski lift. Dumping the skates on a pile of snow, Graham swung himself up the lift and began climbing to the top. “Pull the blades off those skates!” he called down to Cosmo, who set to work immediately.
Seconds later, Sir Gilbert and Liza joined him. “Greely and Peck are at the bottom of the slide trying to slow the bobsleds with their Alpha Stones,” Liza said breathlessly, grabbing a skate and removing the blade. “What’s Graham’s plan here?”
“No idea,” Cosmo told her. “But whatever
it is, let’s hope it works!”
“Heads up!”
The three Alphas looked up just as Graham pulled one of the cables free from its pole. Gripping it tightly, he swung down to the ground and spread the cable lengthwise so that it covered the top of the slide.
“Two sleds!” Graham called to Cosmo as he began threading the blades onto the cable like needles on a piece of thread. Cosmo’s eyes lit up, and he turned to Sir Gilbert and Liza.
“I know what he’s doing! Can you two help slow those bobsleds down even more?”
Sir Gilbert and Liza nodded, their Alpha Stones glowing as they hurried down the slope. Graham pushed a sled over to Cosmo on the right side of the slide, then sat on his own sled on the left side. They each held one end of the cable low to the ground so that the blades were spread flat across the slide.
“Ready?” Graham called, and before Cosmo could so much as nod, they were off.
The two Alphas zoomed down Mt. Shiveer on either side of the slide, gripping their makeshift cable blade. As the first icicle rapidly approached, Graham yelled, “Hold on!” Cosmo tensed, holding his breath—and then the blades swiped clean through the icicle, sending it falling harmlessly next to the slide.
“Wahoo!” Cosmo cheered, beaming at Graham. They zipped passed a slow-moving bobsled filled with sloths, the cable blade slipping harmlessly under the sleigh. “It’s working! Here comes another one . . .”
Whoosh! They flew past yet another icicle, slicing it down, and then another. The bobsleds had slowed to a crawl thanks to the other Alphas, and the teams cheered as Cosmo and Graham flew past. At last, they reached the base of the mountain and instantly began to slow down, their sleds eventually skidding to a halt right in front of the spectators. The animals whooped and hollered, waving pom-poms and shaking noisemakers.
Beaming, Cosmo hopped off his sled and turned to look back at the slide. Half a dozen giant icicles lay on the snowy mountainside, and the last few bobsleds were crawling toward the finish line. The other Alphas were hurrying down to join them, and Cosmo took a step forward. Then a flash of movement caught his eye, and he whirled around in time to see a pair of black eyes staring right at him from the bushes. A split second later, the eyes vanished, and Cosmo glimpsed a white tail whipping around a pine tree.
“That was brilliant!” Peck appeared at Cosmo’s side, giving him a quick hug. “But I wonder how those icicles . . . Hey, what’s wrong?”
Cosmo sighed, turning to face her.
“I just saw Artie running away,” he told Peck. “I hate to admit it, but I think Greely was right all along. Whatever’s going on . . . Artie’s in on it.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Deep inside the caves of Mt. Shiveer, Artie hurried up a steep, narrow tunnel. He was panting, each short breath a visible fog in the frigid air. The tunnel dead-ended into solid granite—or at least, it looked that way. Casting a furtive glance over his shoulder, Artie tapped the secret knock as quietly as possible.
Tap-tap-tap. Tap. Tap-tap.
A moment later, the scraping sound of rock on rock filled the tunnel as the newly installed hidden door in the wall slowly opened. As soon as the space was wide enough, Artie slipped inside.
The cavern was surprisingly large and dim, the only light emanating from the swirling purplish-blue portal on the ceiling. Artie’s stomach clenched with nerves as he peered around, looking for Sebastian. There, in the corner—a single large eye staring right at him.
“Hello, Artie.” The Phantom moved closer, two thick tentacles on each side grazing the ground. “How did things go at the ice slide?”
“Pushing those icicles up through that new secret passage worked,” Artie said. “The Alphas were fast, though. Graham and Cosmo cut them off pretty quickly.”
Sebastian’s pupil grew larger. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you sound relieved.”
“Well . . .” Artie hesitated, then blurted out, “I am relieved. Those icicles were bigger than I thought they’d be—like giant spikes! Some of those animals really could’ve been hurt!”
Sebastian’s tone softened. “But they weren’t,” he told Artie. “I understand your hesitations, Artie. But remember why you came to me for help in the first place.”
Artie shifted from paw to paw. “Yeah, I know . . .”
“And everything’s going exactly according to plan,” Sebastian went on. “Using water from the Hot Cocoa Hut to melt that sculpture of Mira worked perfectly, didn’t it? And the seals were the ideal scapegoat for the pumice stones beneath the ice rink, weren’t they? Not to mention altering the temperature at capture the snow castle and the hot springs—and was anyone hurt?”
“No,” Artie admitted.
“But are they scared?”
Artie sighed. “Yes.”
“Which is the point, right?” When Artie didn’t respond, Sebastian continued, his voice louder now. “With fear comes doubt—and that’s what we need. For the animals of Jamaa to doubt their fearless leaders. The Alphas.” He said Alphas with a sneer, and Artie fidgeted again.
“I know, I know,” he said anxiously. “This is what we wanted. But still . . .”
He trailed off when someone cleared their throat. Turning, Artie squinted at the shadowy figure lurking just outside the entrance, and his heart dropped.
“Our plan is almost complete, Artie,” said the new, gruff voice. “The closing celebrations are tomorrow—it’s too late to back out now. Besides,” the figure added, a hint of menace lacing his words, “with all these accidents going on, it would be a shame if one happened to you as well.”
Artie’s throat closed tight with fear, and his eyes widened. “What? But . . . but I thought we were friends!”
Sebastian chuckled darkly, but the figure in the entrance didn’t. His yellow eyes pierced Artie, who suddenly felt small and unimportant.
“Why would I need a friend like you?”
With that, the figure slipped back down the passage, leaving a shivering Artie alone with the Phantom.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The rest of the events at the Winter Games passed without incident, and on the last day, hundreds of animals packed the clearing near the entrance to the caves, chattering excitedly as they waited for the closing celebrations to begin. Greely surveyed the crowd from the top of a rock, looking for any signs of a disruption—or for Artie. No one had seen or heard from the arctic fox since yesterday’s ice slide event. And while nothing remotely unusual had happened since, something wasn’t quite right. Greely could sense it. His eyes narrowed, his hackles raised and his every muscle tense and ready to act if necessary.
The breeze carried a familiar scent to Greely’s nose, and he didn’t budge from his position. “Hello, Walter.”
His protégé chuckled, joining him on the rock. “One day, you’ll call me Walt like everyone else,” he said. “I’ve been patrolling the ski trails all morning as you requested, and I found something you really need to see.”
Greely frowned. “Now? I need to monitor the closing celebrations.”
“What about them?” Walt asked, gesturing at the front of the crowd where Sir Gilbert, Peck, Cosmo, and Graham stood watching Liza take the stage. “I’m sure five Alphas are more than enough to keep things running smoothly, right?” Walt paused, turning to face Greely. “I promise, Greely. You need to see this. Trust me.”
Greely cast a last glance at his fellow Alphas, then sighed. “Very well. Lead the way, Walter.”
“I’d like to thank you all again for making the first annual Winter Games such a success!”
Liza smiled out at the cheering animals, but her eyes sought out the other Alphas in the crowd. She couldn’t help but worry that something would disrupt the closing celebrations—something much worse than a melting statue.
“Of course, we’ve had a few hiccups along the way,” she continued, and murmurs
rippled through the audience. “But we’ve also had a lot of fun! I think anyone who attended the frozen football match will agree that it was a real nail-biter, right up until that spectacular play by the koalas in the last few seconds. The cheetahs really wowed me with their performance in the speed-skating competition. And I have to say, I had no idea the sloths could build such incredible snowmen!” A few cheers and whistles sounded, and the sloths smiled languidly. “We’ve learned so much about one another, and I know I have a newfound appreciation for each and every species here,” Liza concluded. “And now . . . let the entertainment begin!”
As Liza stepped aside, the penguins who had performed in the opening celebrations once again took the stage to much applause, launching straight into an impressive gymnastics routine. Even their pyramid, which had been shaky and unstable at the start of the Winter Games, was solid, and when the last penguin reached the top and executed a perfect backflip, the cheers were deafening.
“So far, so good!” Cosmo told Peck, who grinned.
“Yup!” she agreed. “Nothing’s melting or breaking or erupting out of the ground . . . Compared to most of the events over the last few days, I’d call this a success.”
But she couldn’t help noticing that not all the faces in the crowd were happy and relaxed. There were tight smiles and nervous glances, and Peck knew why. After everything that had happened, it was hard not to expect one last disaster.
No sooner had the thought crossed Peck’s mind than Artie stepped out of the woods, hurrying toward her.
“I don’t believe this.” Peck clenched her fists at her side, and Cosmo turned around to see what she was staring at.
“Artie?!”
At the sound of the arctic fox’s name, the other Alphas turned as well. A low rumble emitted from Sir Gilbert’s throat, and Artie flinched, holding his paws up as if in surrender.
“Wait, wait—please hear me out!”
On stage, the penguins launched into a dance routine, accompanied by a trio of kangaroos playing bamboo flutes. The noise of the crowd grew even louder, and Liza beckoned Artie to follow her closer to the edge of the woods. He seemed to shrink as the five Alphas surrounded him, his face contorted with guilt.