Anaconda Adventure (3 page)

Josh and Danny flattened themselves right against the wall as the stampede thundered across the floor. The shoes were mostly black and shiny with silver buckles across white, lace-trimmed socks. They crashed around in all directions … some rushing toward the glass displays, some coming to rest by the tables, and some, alarmingly, stomping down right by the benches.

“Girls! Girls!” called a shrill voice. “Don't forget to make notes on your worksheets!”

It was a school group. A girls' school group. Keeping his head low, Danny could see girls in maroon and gray checked skirts, white blouses, and maroon blazers—and straw hats!

“What are we going to do?” he whispered to Josh.

“Just keep very still!” Josh whispered back.
“They won't stay long. There're loads of other things to see around the park. They'll only be here five minutes. And Petty will be back any time …”

Danny kept very still. He found it quite easy to keep his reptilian body motionless. And of course, snakes were good at that. Josh had told him they could keep incredibly still—and then strike, out of nowhere. But he couldn't help his tongue continually sliding out from his lipless mouth and flickering in the air. Gathering information through scent glands, according to Josh.

The noise of the girls was head-splitting. They were constantly babbling and squeaking and even screaming when they saw a reptile they didn't like the look of. But one girl was sitting quietly on the bench just above them. Her feet were not moving. Her shoes were spattered with mud. She didn't say anything to any of the others.

“Righto, girls!” said the teacher. “Let's have our packed lunches while we're here. Sit down and get your food out.” There was another short stampede as the girls rushed to get a decent seat.

“Move up, new girl!” said one of them in a
sneery voice, and the girl sitting above Josh and Danny was shoved abruptly along the bench. She didn't say anything, but she lifted her muddy shoe and stepped down hard on the shiny neat shoe of the girl who'd arrived next to her. The new arrival screamed in a very melodramatic way. “Miss Biffle! Miiiss! Charlotte just stamped on my foot! Charlotte just broke my toes! Miiiss!”

“Shove me again and I'll make you some toe jam,” promised Charlotte in a sweet voice. Josh and Danny snorted with amusement. They liked the sound of Charlotte.

But the teacher wasn't paying attention amid the racket of twenty-four girls settling down to a picnic. Above their heads Danny and Josh could hear the pop, crackle, and rasp of plastic tubs opening and food being freed from paper or tinfoil.

“Oooh, look!” said the crushed toe victim. “Charlotte's got Marmite on white bread again! Is that all you can eat, Charlotte? Oh—and a bag of corn puffs! What a lunch! So yeasty and cheesy …”

Several girls tittered around the room.

“Or is that just your disgusting socks?” went on the voice.

There was a small crackle of a packet and then a loud scream. “Miiiiiss! Miss Biffle!” Amid the new screaming there was also laughter—hoots of it. “Miiiiisss! Charlotte just stuck two corn puffs up my nose!”

“It's a good look, Isobella,” Charlotte said. “They match your eyes.” More girls laughed. It looked as if this Charlotte was winning the match.

Josh and Danny were laughing helplessly too, their scaly heads rocking from side to side. They
only wished they could have seen it. Miss Biffle called for calm and told Charlotte off, and things settled down again.

“I'll get you back for that!” Isobella whispered. “Just you wait!”

“Whenever you're ready,” Charlotte said.

A few seconds later an orange rolled under the bench. Then a face with a neat blond fringe and two wide gray eyes peered into their hiding place.

And that's when Isobella really started screaming.

“AAAAAAAH! SNAKES! SNAKES! MISS! THERE ARE SNAKES!!”

Immediately there was a mad cacophony of shrieks and yelps, and all the feet were running to the far end of the room and jumping up on chairs and tables. “What do you mean, Isobella?” bellowed Miss Biffle. “Of course there are snakes in here! It's a reptile house!”

“No! Escaped snakes! Under the bench!” More hysterical shrieking shook the air, and the teacher walked hesitantly across to the bench and peered under. She gasped and called out, “Stay back, everyone! Stay back! Isobella—Jemima! Run and
find a member of the zoo staff right away.”

“What do we do now?” hissed Danny, the cool blood in his veins pumping hard around his lengthy body as panic started to creep through him.

“Just keep really still!” hissed back Josh. “And stop hissing!” It was all he could think of … and it wasn't much. Any minute a zookeeper would be along with a snake hook and a bag—and they'd be caught! Unless they S.W.I.T.C.H.ed back to boys first—and that would also be a catastrophe. How would they ever explain themselves? Petty Potts—of course—was nowhere to be seen.

“What is going on?” A new voice rang out amid all the squeaks and shrieks.

“Oh, Miss Butcher!” breathed Miss Biffle. “Thank goodness you've come! It's snakes! Under the bench! We're waiting for the staff to come and catch them.”

“Well—shouldn't you be evacuating the girls?” demanded Miss Butcher.

“Oh, yes—I suppose so,” agreed Miss Biffle. “Come on, girls—we'd better wait outside.”
And the girls all ran for the door in a heaving mob.

“Girls! Girls!” called Miss Butcher. “Don't push! It's unladylike. Charlotte! Why are you coming back inside? You've only just gone out!”

“I forgot something, Miss,” came back Charlotte's increasingly familiar voice. And then she was running across the room right toward the spot where Danny and Josh were frozen under the bench. “My bag!”

“Don't!” shrieked Miss Biffle. “That's right where the snakes are!”

But Charlotte not only grabbed her bag, she also tipped it over and scrabbled around by the bench, scooping all her bits and pieces back into it. “It's OK!” she called back. “They're only small ones. And they're not venomous—they're constrictors. And … I have to be honest … um … they're not real.”

“I beg your pardon!” squawked Miss Biffle.

Then the girl whispered under the bench. “Quick! Get into my bag! NOW!”

Josh and Danny gaped at each other and then slid right into the open neck of the duffel bag—passing,
as they did, some long, thin, rubbery things.

Charlotte dug her hand back into her bag the second they were both coiled up inside it, amid her pens, paper, and crumpled-up sweet wrappers. She pulled out the long, thin, rubbery things.

“Josh!” whispered Danny. “Did you see that? Did you?”

“Yes! But shhhhh! We have to stay quiet!” urged Josh.

Danny had seen two amazing things. One was that they had just been replaced, under the bench, by two rubber toy snakes.

The second was that he knew who Charlotte was. And they could not have asked for a better rescuer.

“Charlotte Wexford—what ARE you talking about?” shouted Miss Butcher. “I demand you tell me this instant!”

“Well …” sighed Charlotte. Through a gap at the top of the bag Josh and Danny saw her reach under the bench and pull out the two fake snakes. “It was kind of a joke … that's all. I didn't think everyone would freak out quite so much.”

“You mean to tell me,” spluttered Miss Butcher, “that you came in here, planning to play a trick on everyone, deliberately, calculatingly, smuggling in two rubber snakes in your bag?”

“Yeah—
rubber
ones!” Charlotte said, picking up her bag and putting it carefully over her shoulder. “I mean—I'm not going to go around with
real
snakes in my bag, am I?”

In her bag, two real snakes grinned at each other.

“I can't believe it!” whispered Danny. “It's Charlie!”