“Like me?” She smiled politely. “No, there are not many.”
“Any eagles?” I asked.
“Oh, no,” she said. “I do not think so.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Manny warned. “Let’s go.”
“What kind of animal are you?” she asked me, ignoring what Manny had said.
I squirmed uncomfortably. Did I have to say?
“I’m a hyena,” I finally chose to admit.
She thought for a moment. “Like those dog-things in that movie? El Rey León? The King Lion? From Disney.”
Ugh. Even down here my reputation was ruined by that stupid movie.
“We aren’t dogs,” I said defensively, “and that movie wasn’t very accurate.”
With a melodic chuckle, Rosa told me, “That is okay. I did not like that movie.”
Phew. That made me feel a whole lot better.
Her head tilted—in a very birdlike fashion—and she asked, “What is your name?”
“My name’s Sam,” I said.
She smiled, I smiled, and we just stood there, smiling at each other. Had I found a new friend? I definitely enjoyed the feeling. …
“Come on, Sam,” Manny interrupted. “We’d better get moving.”
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“Away from here,” Manny snarled.
“I need to find my family,” I heard myself say.
“What happen to them?” Rosa asked with widened eyes.
“It’s none of your business,” snapped Manny.
“Maybe I can help you,” she said. “My friends, too. We help each other, and maybe we help you?”
Manny thought for a moment. “Tell you what,” he finally said. “Go find your friends and have them meet us here—in this exact spot—in one hour. How’s that sound?”
“That is good,” she said. “I can do that.” Peering again at me, she said, “Is that okay to you?”
“Sure thing,” I said.
With that, Rosa shot straight up and out of her dress, immediately shifting to a bird. She swooped back to grab her clothing, plus the rags for her feet, and fluttered away.
“Good riddance,” Manny grumbled. “Now, let’s go.”
“Let’s go?” I didn’t get it. Checking in the direction where Rosa had gone, I asked, “Aren’t we going to wait?”
“Are you crazy? We’ve got to get out of here as quickly as possible. No way am I ever trusting some strange bird. And with you babbling on about losing your family, we can’t take any risks.” While speaking, Manny unbuttoned his clothes and fur sprouted on his bare skin. “Don’t you remember what I warned you about? We can’t be drawing attention to ourselves. Other shape shifters might mean trouble.”
“She said she’d help us,” I argued. “Maybe she can get us to South America faster.”
“Yeah, just like birds helped your family,” he said with a sneer. “They got down there pretty quick.” Peering where the water was flowing, he said, “We should probably walk in the river to cover our tracks, and our scent.”
“But I thought cats don’t like water.” I was hoping I could find a way to stall Manny and give Rosa time to return.
“Jaguars are the exception,” he said, halfway to shifting completely.
“I’m not going,” I insisted. “I’m waiting here.”
Thrusting a not-so-human hand at me and grabbing hold of my shirt, Manny practically yanked me off my feet and fumed, “You know what? My mother probably gave her life so we could continue on this quest of yours, and I’m not letting some stupid bird-girl mess it up!”
Startled by his anger, I couldn’t think up a response. All I did was giggle.
“Don’t forget who has the stronger bite force,” he warned.
I took one long, last glimpse over my shoulder, and realized that it was either Rosa or Manny. Besides, why would some random girl be so eager to help us? What would she have to gain? Maybe it was a trap after all.
“Okay,” I said through a sigh, turning back to face Manny. “You win.”
In animal form, we walked up the river to the next town, which was smaller than Puerto Vallarta and not as touristy. Once we were in human form and back in our clothes (which were wrinkled and wet), I was the only gringo in sight.
“We need to find a bus station,” Manny said. “That’s the fastest way to D.F.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“What’s what?”
“That D.F. thing.”
“It’s what they call Mexico City around here. From there, we’ll catch a bus farther south.”
“We’re going to take buses the whole way?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Would you rather walk?”
I didn’t really, so I shook my head and followed him toward the station.
We found it busy and filled with local people. Some sat and waited while their children played, some ate, and others seemed to be in a hurry. All of them spoke rapid-fire Spanish, which flew right past me.
Manny flicked his head at a wide counter where people in uniforms were waiting on passengers. “We need to buy tickets there.”
“Hold on,” I said, pulling out my wallet. Despite soaked pants, it had somehow remained dry. Upon opening it, my jaw dropped—there appeared to be two tickets inside.
Holding them up for Manny to read, I asked, “Are these what I think they are?”
He eyed me suspiciously. “How’d you do that?”
I turned my palms upward and said, “This wallet is magic. That’s all I can say.”
“Well, I guess we don’t need to buy anything, then.”
My stomach started grumbling. With a nod at a taco stand outside the station, I asked, “How about some food?”
After we’d stuffed down several orders of real, Mexican tacos (which aren’t in crunchy shells) and a couple bottles of Coke, we found that the bus trip would be nicer than our cramped, smoky truck ride to Puerto Vallarta. Manny fell asleep almost instantly, and I drifted off at some point. When I awoke, we’d pulled into the bus station.
“Now, we get onto the subway,” Manny said. “Here they call it el metro.”
“Huh? I thought we were taking another bus?”
“This is the station for buses running north. We’ve got to get to another to go south.”
“Oh.” To me, it was all kind of confusing.
Even more confusing was el metro, as I soon learned. People were everywhere—even though it was early. There were thousands of no-tails packed onto narrow platforms, and I almost considered asking Manny to hold my hand so I wouldn’t lose him, except jaguars and hyenas weren’t supposed to hold hands, I didn’t think.
We rode on one overloaded subway car then transferred to another. Manny knew what he was doing. But I felt less sure. This city was no place for hyenas—that much was certain. The farther we pushed on, the more extreme the crowds. Our second stop was almost impossible to navigate, and the third was nothing but a crush of human bodies straining against each other.
Suddenly, right before we reached our next train, a surge of people knocked Manny and me off balance. I threw my hands out to keep from falling, and as soon as my right hand lowered, I noticed something.
My wallet was gone.
“Somebody took my wallet!” I shouted to Manny. An awful sense of horror surged inside. It was the second time in two days that I’d lost it. This was becoming a bad trend.
Manny stopped dead in his tracks, despite the movement all around us.
He asked, “What did you say?”
People kept jostling us, and it was hard to stay standing. “I said, somebody took my wallet. It’s not in my pocket anymore.”
Color flushed over Manny’s skin, and his lips curled. Inside his mouth, I could see teeth sharpening. There was no mystery what he planned to do.
He let out a mighty roar.
People everywhere froze with the sound.
Oh no, was all I could think. Shifting in front of no-tails was com
pletely against The Code.
“Come on, dude,” I pleaded. “Don’t do this.” For all I knew, everyone would be whipping out their smartphones and recording the scene.
“Did you see anything?” Manny demanded. His eye color had already shifted to yellow, and his shoulders were hunching down.
A realization struck me: I’d have to shift, too. As animals, our senses would be sharper, which meant we had a better chance of tracking down that thief in animal form. It was either change form or give up entirely, so my jaws lengthened, my clothes ripped, and my bones assumed their hyena positions.
Now that the hunt was on, I let out a deafening whoop!
The call woke everyone from a shock-induced trance. People shrieked, a few of them fainted, and the rest cleared out of our way. In seconds, we’d opened a corridor more than five feet across on the platform.
“You smell anything?” snarled Manny.
“That way,” I giggled. The scent of Madame Chauvet’s incense remained on the wallet’s leather and I had just gotten a faint whiff of it.
When Manny leaped forward, people packed themselves even tighter. Away from us, of course. Nose to the ground, I then took the lead. People nearby tried not to move when we passed, as if we were going to eat them. Thankfully, none of them appeared to be recording videos on their phones.
My bearings told me that we needed to run off the platform and through the tunnel’s opening. That’s where Madame Chauvet’s scent had gone.
There was also another scent I’d detected, one identical to Manny’s. When we entered the darkness of the subway tunnel, I said to Manny, “I think my wallet got stolen by another jaguar.”
“In the city?” Manny scoffed. “I doubt it.”
Except moments later, in the darkness, we both spotted the largest jaguar I’d ever seen.
Gulp.
He didn’t look too friendly.
THE JAGUAR LET OUT A RUMBLING SNARL, WHICH SOUNDED to me like a different language of sorts.
Manny answered with similar vocalizations.
Hair on my back stood straight; the air between us had electrified. This jaguar was easily larger than Manny by half. In a fight, there was no way we’d win.
“¿Qué hacen por aquí?” asked the other jaguar. His tone sounded like how Manny had spoken to Rosa, but even more hostile.
“¿Hablas inglés?” asked Manny. I detected nervousness in his voice.
The muscular feline began pacing, and his eyes glowed green. “What do you want?”
“We are in trouble,” said Manny. “We need to get to South America, and my friend’s wallet is gone.”
Friend? That’s what he’d called me. I would’ve jumped for joy if we weren’t in such dire straits.
The other jaguar held up a paw. In his claws was my wallet.
“That’s mine,” I said.
Eyeing me carefully, the jaguar asked Manny, “What is that … thing?”
“He’s a hyena,” said Manny. “One of the toughest hunters around.”
I cringed. With a boast like that, this jaguar might want to test me.
“Why have you come here?” the other jaguar asked.
“We are headed to South America.”
“Tell me why,” the jaguar challenged.
Manny recounted the whole story of our adventures (or misadventures) thus far. The other jaguar listened intently, his eyes shifting in my direction every few sentences, and I nodded enthusiastically each time. We were standing in some sort of an access tunnel, where subway cars were stored off the main tracks, so we were completely alone—as far as I could tell.
When Manny mentioned what happened to his mother, the jaguar sighed mournfully.
“That is a shame,” he said. “The no-tails, they killed my mother, too.”
Manny nodded, peered at the crushed rock beneath us, and drew in a deep breath.
“And these birds you mention,” the other jaguar continued, “I have heard of them.”
“Do you know what they are doing? And why?” Manny lifted his head.
The jaguar remained silent for a long moment, as if he were trying to decide whether to share more with us.
“There are stories,” was his only reply.
“What kinds of stories?” asked Manny.
Cocking his head at us, the jaguar said, “Some say the birds are looking for shape shifters everywhere. Anybody who will fight the no-tails. They want to start a war.”
“Did they come to you?” I finally spoke up.
The jaguar crooked a wicked smile. “No, they weren’t dumb enough to bother me.”
I cringed. Maybe this jaguar was some sort of criminal or dangerous being. The hair stayed raised on my back.
“So, you need to go to South America?” he finally said.
I nodded as enthusiastically as before.
“You’re gonna need passports, plane tickets, suitcases, and new clothes to get there.” Holding up my wallet, with a claw exposing its contents, he asked, “How much are you willing to spend?”
“Whatever it takes,” I answered.
With a sinister chuckle, the jaguar said, “That is what I like to hear.”
The stranger led us through the tunnels without any trouble. Clearly, this was his home turf. A few times, we needed to press our bodies to the sides of the subway walls to avoid oncoming trains, but none of this appeared to bother him.
“Jaguars have lost most of our habitat in Mexico,” he told us as we slunk through the tunnels. “No-tails are pushing us out. That’s why I came to the city, to see what kind of life I could live.”
“And what do you do here?” I asked him.
He didn’t reply.
Over the next few hours, Manny and I learned nothing more about this jaguar aside from his name, which was Balam. Apparently, he had contacts who could get what we needed—plane tickets and fake passports. We didn’t actually meet these contacts, so I never found out whether they were shape shifters or regular people. Once Balam left, Manny and I just sat in an abandoned tunnel and waited for him to return. Yes, he had my wallet, but did I dare to try and take it from him?
No way! I knew when I was outmatched.
“Maybe those birds have a point,” Manny grumbled while we rested on cool concrete, nestled between the rumbles of trains on other tracks.
“What do you mean?” I asked him. This particular tunnel must’ve been near a surface opening, because a shaft of sunlight managed to bounce in.
Manny said, “No-tails shouldn’t be doing this. They’re ruining nature everywhere and hurting all sorts of species. Maybe a war is what we need.”
Pondering his comments, I wondered if Manny might be right. I’d seen bears getting squeezed out of their habitat, pristine grasslands divided by fences, and a desert littered with trash. On top of that, both Manny and Balam had lost their mothers to no-tail violence. But would more violence solve these problems?
All I could think to say was, “I’m not sure if a war would work.”
“Why not?” Manny shot back.
“Because look at what no-tails have done already. Look at their history.” Drawing on my time reading in John’s Gore Library, I continued, “They wiped out the original wolves in Vermont because they were a threat to cows and sheep, and in lots of places, farmers still shoot them. Leopards and cheetahs get killed for the same reason, and tiger populations are dropping because people want to harvest their bones. A bunch of species have been wiped out already, like the Tasmanian tiger and the European lion. Bears get shot for knocking over trash cans or are hunted to keep their numbers from growing too large. No-tails kill a hundred million sharks each year, and nobody notices, but when one of them attacks a human, it makes international news.” I drew in a breath. “What do you think no-tails would do if shape shifters started attacking them? Besides, it’s against The Code.”
“What is?”
“Attacking no-tails.”
He raised a spotted eyebrow. “Is that true?”
In response, Manny just snorted and said, “Well, it would be better if the birds weren’t in control anyway. My mom’s Maya ancestors had stories about birds being tricksters—like those coyotes who took Paco’s van, but worse.”
I flicked my fur with a shake and nodded. We didn’t exactly agree, but I didn’t see the point in arguing. We still had a long way to go, and I needed his support.
When Balam returned, we had everything we needed.
“If you have money, things happen fast,” Balam explained.
After we’d shifted back to humans, gotten dressed in new clothes, and climbed to street level, we took a taxi ride to the airport. Balam finalized our travel plans.
“We are heading for Manaus,” he said. “In Brazil. That’s the best I can do.”
“We?” asked Manny.
“Yes, we,” he said. “You cannot board this plane without an adult.” Flashing his own passport and what appeared to be an official birth certificate, he said, “I’m your father for now.”
“And what about me?” I asked.
Balam withdrew another birth certificate and a formal-looking letter from the side pocket of his suit. His new clothes were made of sleek fabric—silk, probably—and they looked really expensive. I’d probably paid for them, since he’d taken most of my cash. With a gold chain around his neck, sunglasses on his face, slicked-back hair, and a scowl that remained menacing in human form, Balam definitely had an outlaw sense of style.
“You are going to an international youth conference,” Balam told me. “I am your—what’s the word?” He fumbled for a moment before saying, “Chaperone.”
“What kind of youth conference?” I asked.
The right side of his mouth crooked into a grin. “A conference on saving endangered species.”
“Okay, cool.” That seemed like a good cover story to me.
Manny and I both were wearing button-down shirts, pressed pants, ties, and leather shoes. For me, this was the first time I’d ever really dressed up, and Manny also looked totally out of his comfort zone. Our suitcases were even top-notch, since Balam claimed it’d look suspicious if we didn’t bring luggage. As for why they had to be the finest quality … I think that Balam planned to keep them once this was all over.
Earning My Spots Page 12